Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1942-05-14
Fact And Opinion
The ISOlatiOniStS.
BY E. C. Stengelsen.

The IsOlatiOnists.
The isolationists are being widely
blamed for the unprepared state in
which we found ourselves at the
time of the Pearl Harbor attack. It
has been discovered that had not
our rearmament program been held
back by the obstructionist tactics
of the isolationists, there might have
been no Pearl Harbor attack at ALL
I am inclined to think this is most
| ly tommyrot. One reason 1 say this
is that the isolationists were too few
in number to provide any real OPP
position. Indeed, they were so few
that I, myself, have known no isola-
tionists and 1 doubt whether you
have. have not even heard of
any.
Look up the term isolate" in the
dictionary and see whether it fits
the policy urged by Lindbergh, Cen
eral Wood, Senator Wheeler or HAL
mar Petersen I think you will find
it does not.
None of them advocated isolating
the U. S. A. from the rest of the
world. It is utter untruth to say that
they did. Quite the contrary, each
of them urged the widest sort of re-
lationship between the United States
and the rest of the world. Only in
respect of military or political in
volvement were they isolationists.
They did not, for example, oppose
Mr.. Hulps program of reciprocal
trade treaties which had for its
ostensible objective freer and great
er flow of trade between the U. S. A.
and the rest of the world. Anything
which seemed likely to give Amer
ican-made goods a larger place in
world markets had their approval.
If this is "isolationism," then the
dictionary needs to be revised.
What these men, and millions like
them, advocated, was that we give
first concern to the security of our
own country. They urged military
and naval and aerial establishment,
so powerful that no nation would
dare challenge us. do not believe
| their critics can point to a single
instance in which they opposed any
proposal which had such an objec-
tive.
If this be so, how can it be justly
charged that theirs is the fault that
we were unprepared at the time of
the Pearl Harbor attack?
It is true that they opposed the
| lend-lease bill. It is likewise true
that they fought the steps taken by
the administration which they felt
would ultimately involve us in the
war. ...a
But it must be borne in mind that
Mr.. Roosevelt's invariable argument,
when he proposed some new depar-
ture from our previous course, was
that it would keep us out of war. If
they felt convinced it would have the
opposite effect, it was not only their
lISiI 81 W eaoSCAS, Ods IL was sAASA
clear duty to speak up.
It is a sign of regrettable intoler-
ance that we must impugn and ques-
ton the motives of those who differ
with us. However, it is by no means
something peculiar to the present
time We had similar examples dur
ing the World war. Because the
elder LaFollette, the late Senator
Lundeen, the senior Lindbergh and
others opposed our entry into the
war, they were maligned and Wilt
fed and abused.
In time, when calmneSS returned
to our way of thinking, we saw that
we had been wrong. We saw that
we had been unfair and narrow and
unjust We saw that they were as
patriotic as the loudest super-patriot
among us.
One needs not be prophet to pre-
dict that history will repeat itself.
Ultimately, we shall be ashamed
of the charges and accusations which
have been made against the isola-
tionists, who have, in fact, never been
isolationists at all. We shall have
the decency to squirm at recollection
of some of the things we said, and
wish we had had the sense to have
left them unsaid.