AMERICA'S FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 13

AMERICA'S FLEET

ATLANTIC NEXT YEAR SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVE (From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, June 8. After four years in Pacific waters, the United States Navy will return to the Atlantic early next year. The shift will be temporary only, and is generally accepted as a gesture of warning against Nazi and Fascist activities in South America, chiefly in | Brazil. Recent developments in Brazil have been somewhat disturbing to the Administration at Washington. Intensive propaganda, subversive to democracy, has been under way for the past four years. That Brazil regarded the situation as serious is demonstrated by the rapidity with which it was "purged." Within a very short period, Nazi agitators were rounded up and placed under arrest. In the ensuing weeks hundreds' applied to return to Germany. Their voluntary repatriation is interpreted as an admission that the campaign of "totalitarian ideology" has failed as far as Latin America is concerned. One significant illustration of. the Brazilian view is the re-enactment of capital punishment, which, in the past decade, has been possible only under military law.

Senator Borah, member of the Foreign Relations Committee under several Administrations, is wholeheartedly in agreement with the transfer of the fleet to the Atlantic, and with the official announcement that "the area to be covered by Fleet Pro-j blem No. 20 will extend at least as far south as the Equator"—in other words, the coast of Brazil. His view is sup-j ported in quarters close to President Roosevelt. It is felt that a demonstration of naval strength is needed to impress Germany and Italy with the desirability of foregoing any effort to promote totalitarianism in South America, as well as to assure Latin Americans that the United States will help to prevent the overthrow of their constitutional I Governments. THE MONROE DOCTRINE. There has been increasing anxiety in the capital over ideological and economic penetration of Latin America ,b3< advocates of dictatorship. This anxiety led to various proposals, one of which was the establishment of a powerful radio station to counteract European broadcasts to South America. There are indications that the United States Government contemplates a long-term policy in this regard. The Monroe Doctrine has been dusted off and taken down from the shelves. Great Britain, not bound by it, took a firmer stand than the United States in the seizure by the Mexican Government of the British and American oil properties—firmer, to the extent that, for the third time since the Great War, Mexico has severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom. The Monroe Doctrine has been broadened at successive Pan-American Conferences to give it a continental character, by a pledge of consultation among Governments in the Americas in case of a threat of aggression from without. Due to reciprocal trade treaties, mainly, United States trade with .Latin America has expanded considerably. In 1937, exports to Mexico increased by 44 per cent.., to Argentina 65 per cent., to Brazil 40 per cent., and to Latin America, as a whole, from 40 to 90 per cent. German exports increased by 30 per cent., and Italian by less than 2 per cent.

Argentine developments demonstrate also the futility of the efforts of totalitarian Governments to extend their influence into these republics. The net result of recent foreign propaganda has led to nationalism being intensified.

Latin America is content with its chosen form of government. Its perennial revolutions are purely domestic. The action of the United States in moving the whole of its navy into South American waters merely supplements public opinion, from the Rio Grande to The Horn, that European penetration will not be tolerated.

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