FOLLOWS SUIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 28, 3 February 1939, Page 7

FOLLOWS SUIT.

HOOVER SURPRISES. U.S.A. Might Join in European Conflict. MENACE TO DEMOCRACY. United Press Association.—Copyright. NEW YORK, February 2. Following close -npon President Roosevelt's intimation to the Senate Military Committee of his plans for aiding Britain and France in every way short of war, in the face of threats by the dictators, the ! former President, Mr. Herbert Hoover, to-daj' warned the dictators that the bombing of British or French cities would probably resultin the United States entering a war against them. Significance is given this statement because the former President is still a prominent leader of the conservative Republican party, the sentiments of which hitherto have been strongly isolationist. It is further evidence of the extent to which the feeling against the dictators has been stirred up in the United States since Munich. Mr. Hoover said: "I think the western European democracies can amply defend themselves against military attack. Their land and sea defences are probably impregnable." Strain .of Brutality. He added: "We must not close our eyes to one condition under which the American people, disregarding all other questions, might join in a European war. We are a humane people, and our humanity . can be overstrained by brutality. That was one of the causes of our entry into the last war. "If wholesale attacks are made'upon women and Children by the deliberate destruction of cities from the air, then the indignation of the American people could not be restrained from action." The Assistant Secretary for War, Mr. Louis Johnson, made a significant radio broadcast address, in which lie said: "The United States is forced to arm against those jvho are determined to dominate world affairs by military power. With, one nation after another going down before the deadly onslaught of arms, or submitting in the face of a threat of force, those who would survive have no choice other than to prepare to protect themselves. To postpone the needed increases in our Army, especially in the Air Corps, until those bent upon aggression perfect their long-range engines of battle and assail our shores, is to invite disaster. "To some people the invasion of America may appear a mad dream; but even they will have to admit that the wild fantasies of yesterday have become the realities of to-day." FRENCH OPINION. ISOLATION ABANDONED. ' (Received 1.30 p.m.) PARIS, February 2. The Press, without exception, emphasises the revolutionary character of Mr. Roosevelt's pronouncement, some claiming that the abandonment of isolation for active participation in European affairs is a realisation that America could not hold aloof if totalitarian States become aggressors against democracies. "Le Petit Parisien? says Mr. Roosevelt could implement the ideal more quickly than Rome and Berlin imagine. NAZI PRESS ANGRY. WAVE OF ACCUSATIONS. Independent Cable. Service.. (Received 10.30 a.m.) j- BERLIN", February 2. Newspapers, apparently reflecting instructions from higher up, are hulling a new wave of accusations at President | Roosevelt, calling him a peace disturber, a . sabre rattler, a warmonger land trailblazer for Jewish. Bolshevism. DR. BENES DEPARTS. LECTURE AT CHICAGO. (Received 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, February 2. Dr. Benes, former President of Czechoslovakia, has departed for the United States to lecture at Chicago University.