"THE HOLLOW MEN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 153, 29 June 1940, Page 8

"THE HOLLOW MEN."

AMERICA'S MUNICH.

AN END TO COMPLACENCY. LOTHIAN'S BITTER REGRETS. (By JOSEPH A&SQP and ROBERT KINTNER.) WASHINGTON, May 26. In these tragic and terrible days, it clears the mind to recall an old story. Late last fall William C. Bullitt returned from France to report to the President, and found this country in the happy-go-lucky mood in which responsible men could complain of "this phoney war." Bullitt was not one of the small group who, like Charles A. Lindbergh, accurately foresaw the future. But he' was at least vaguely aware of what might come, and he was deeply angered by the mood he found. "The United States," he said bitterly, "is still in the state of mind of England before Munich." The story, had its appropriate sequel when the President read his message to the joint session of the two Houses of Congress. The details of the scene —the President's tired voice, the suddenly solemn Senators and representatives, the tense crowds in the galleries, the women here and there in the crowd who unashamedly wept— by now familiar to the country. Coming away from the House Chamber, a Senator who is not often moved to highflown talk sadly remarked: "Well, we have had our Munich and our Prague in the same week. And now I think it's time we buckled down to preparing for the future." Deadly Parallels. The Senator expressed precisely the change that has come over Washington, and it is to be hoped over the country, in this short time of cruel stress. There is a certain dynamism in a democracy's reactions to events, which makes the behaviour of one democratic nation strangely parallel that of another. England and France did not finally awake to their true situation until the harsh facts were flung squarely to their faces, by the German rape of what remained of Czechoslovakia. It will be remembered how, only a few days after that event, the present British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Lothian, rose in the House of Lords to regret that his eyes had not been previously opened by reading the full text of Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

Until this week, there have been plenty of men in high office in Washington, as well as in important positions throughout the country, who preferred 'hoping for the best to making a realistic assessment of facts. The late Senator William E. Borah, telling Secretary of State, Oordell Hull, last slimmer that he had better information than the State Department, exactly reproduced the gesture of the English leaders who tossed into their wastebaskets the Intelligence Service reports on German air rearmament. Men like Thomas E. Dewey, who continued to say until catastrophe was treading on our heels that we ought to worry about domestic problems, resembled the Emrlish and French politicians who were still hoping for the best when the war burst upon them. But all that is changing now, and if the European picture worsens as rapidly as seems likely, the change will accelerate proportionally. Radicals and Reactionaries, Republicans and Democrats, men wise and foolish, are now beginning to realise that the position of the United States is precarious. The- old world, in which we once lived so comparatively comfortably, seems to be disintegrating by the hour. It is necessary to make ready for the possible advent of a new world, in which comfort will be forgotten, and the preservation of the most ordinary decencies of our society must become "the sole aim. The Way the World Ends. " 3 "~ This is the central fact among the many harsh facts one is forced to face after talking, in these days, to the men who have the necessary information to form a judgment. Considering that we now have exactly one anti-aircraft gun of the best design, only a few hundred 'planes of first-class type, only a few divisions of the army fully equipped ..to < take the field, and a navy only adequate for the Pacific service, the. President's defence requests in his messages to Congress seem a minimum beginning in the business of making ready for the possible new world. Much more remains to be done, and will have to be done if the p.' ■ssible new world becomes a present reality. The President, the Congress and the country look to be ready for the task ahead. If they are not ready, or if they cannot surmount the many difficulties j the task involves, there will be nothing left to do but quote the lines from T. S. j Eliot once before printed in this space when the Munich crisis showed the spectre of war to the world. They are: "We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men This Is the way the world ends This Is the way the world ends N'ot with a bang but a whimper." At least it is to be hoped that we shall not run the risk of seeing our world end with a whimper.—N.A.N.A.