RELATIONS MAY BE SEVERED

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 150, 21 March 1939, Page 9

RELATIONS MAY BE SEVERED

Vigorous Note From U.S.A. Expected NAZI MENACE TO CIVILIZATION Possible Action With Britain And France (Received March 20, 7.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 19. The Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Sumner Welles, in collaboration with President Roosevelt, has completed a draft of a vigorous formal Note to Germany condemning the annexation of Czechoslovakia and indicating further parallel action with England and France “to stop Hitler’s drive.” The Note will probably be publicized here and in Berlin tomorrow. It is believed here that it may result in severing diplomatic relations. It is understood that the Note may go further than Mr. Welles’s informal denunciation, even excoriating the Nazis as a menace to civilization.

Speculation is at present centring on whether the United States will drop the thin remnants of traditional aloofness from European affairs to participate in a conference with England, France and Russia to determine ways and means of halting Hitler’s march to the East. American participation in such a conference would be certain to meet with stiff Congressional opposition and it is possible that the Administration will not chance it, preferring to aid in a less direct manner.

Tine Nature of Menace.

Herr Hitler’s inescapable.demonstration that he never had any intention of keeping the Munich pact has awakened in Americans a sense of the gravity of the European situation and the true nature of the German menace. Senator Pittman, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, announced that he would introduce on Monday a resolution to amend th? Neutrality Act and permit the export of arms and munitions to belligerents in time of war on a cash and carry basis. He commented : — “Herr Hitler has confirmed his deception of Mr. Chamberlain and made clear his fanatical ambition to dominate everywhere that conspiracy and military force will permit. It is evident that in acting for our own defence in the most serious situation that has ever faced us we must not delay in preparations for potential political and physical action. The “New York Herald-Tribune” in a leader entitled “Hitler’s Poorhouse Grows” says: “Suppose that Hitler was able to establish a German empire extending from the North Sea to the Black -Sea, Germany would then find herself in much the same position as in the early part of the Great War when, though her frontiers were extended as they had not been since the Napoleonic era, in the end an economic blockade brought German resistance to an end. History is repeating itself, and the moral seems clear.”