AME RICA TAKES ANOTHER STEP

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 141, 17 June 1941, Page 6

AME RICA TAKES ANOTHER STEP

DRLSIOLNT revest rpoke last on Mn.\ 27. lie declared that his i v 'i'i'' 1 not ad ept a Hitlei-dominated world, that it would ro.-i .♦ 'v! u'u-nipt by hitler to extend his domination to the Western I ;>• '••• ' • Hire icn h, and that it would holp Britain, China ;,i I any .--i . .-n fighting again.-t the Axis, wth arms—and that i; .v.( I ■; b 1. ere!-' sent, but delivered. The implication, that , c L'uh- d S: .voii'd take additional action to prevent the sinking n.uni: i"n in the Atlantic, was plain, though for good reasons tiie Pr- ; 'i> i:'. did not specify the kind of action he contemplated. Since 111cri ii !.,v been no news that any specific action has been taken, (.■a there li t - been new- of the sinking of an American merchant ship in die *<•'.*!• At km tic. This has been followed by two actions of major .iiipoiiMiee, the Jirst the seizure of Axis assets in the United States, :i'.> -evcind the closing of ail German Consulates and certain other ' i-mian agencies, on the ground that their activities are "wholly outside i- sii.'in■ of their legitimate duties," and that they are "inimical to ■ ,e welfare of this country." It is hardly to be doubted that either <■: the <j actions could have been justifiably taken at any time previously. The subversive activities of various Nazi organisations in the United Slates w-re exposed by the Dies Committee, and have long been notorious. Experience of them has closely resembled the experience m the last war, before the United States entered it. As well as agencies devoted to propaganda, especially propaganda in support of "isolationism," there have been others whose activities cannot be dissociated from the occurrenee of explosions and fires in munition plants. All

•licse ai'.ivities, the Washington statement seems to suggest, have a opinmon source, i'i America, and the source is now to be destroyed.

Tim importance of these actions of the United States Government lie.-; in their relation to the state of American opinion, or the President's c. tiniate of it. Then: has never been any doubt about the President's ( .\vn \ irw.-i, but. all along he -has been wary of advancing too far ahead nf the opinion of the body of his countrymen. To us it has often seemed that he lias been slow to follow up his words with actions, but he has had to take full account of the fact that a majority—once a very large majority—of his people desire to be kept out of the war. He lumsclf was re-elected on a platform of which the central plank was his determination to do his utmost to keep the nation out of war, and without that plank it is certain he would not have been re-elected. The public antipathy to war, however, would fall away immediately it became clear that the United States was, in some easily comprehensible way, being attacked. Mr. Roosevelt's policy all along has been represented as a policy for the defence of the country; but his greatest difficulty has been to convince his countrymen that defence against the Nazi conception of warfare must begin a long time before the stage when there is an armed, physical attack. That, for the Nazis, is the last stage. The President's latest actions seem to support the interpretation that American public opinion is now ready to accept this view of defence, and to support actions which follow naturally from it. Meanwhile, if Hitler were looking for an act of war by the United States, or for an excuse for declaring war, he would not have difficulty in finding one.