EVENING POST FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1939. THE PRESIDENT'S LEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 72, 22 September 1939, Page 6

EVENING POST FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1939. THE PRESIDENT'S LEAD

Human experience tells us every day that sometimes we must content ourselves With not what we would like, but what we can get; and even Presidents are not immune from this law of common necessity. Anyone holding such opinions about Nazism as President Roosevelt has more than once expressed would—if words mean anything—like to see the defeat of Nazi dictatorship by democracy; but what the President, as an' individual democrat, would like, and what as President he can get from Congress in its' present frame of mind, are two different things. To put the position concretely, can he secure from Congress j power to lend money to belligerents, i as in the Great War? A favourable | answer from Congress is deemed doubtful, because America remembers default; so President Roosevelt bows to necessity, and accepts a ban on war credits. That is a score for American isolationism. But can he secure from Congress "cash-and-carry" rights for belligerents—that is to say, the right of any belligerent to buy in the United States any goods and to take such goods away, provided the belligerent takes title to the goods and transports thorn himself? ,To this question a favourable answer from Congress is hoped for, on grounds of essential justice. "Cash-and-carry" is justice's minimum; not all we would like, but perhaps what we can get. Another outstanding fact about "cash-and-carry" is that it is what Britain and France most need at this stage of the war. On a comparison of "cash-and-carxy" (asked for by the President) with American war credits (not asked for), "cash-and-carry" is not, only less likely to offend isolationists, in Congress, but is also the Anglo-French Allies' prime need of the moment. The Allies have control of the sea, and in the first year of the war nothing is more vital to them than an ability to —in President Roosevelt's words— "buy anything anywhere." A country that exercises sea control, and that has • mobilised its American securities so as to secure dollars for a long period ahead, possesses an initial advantage of which that country should not be robbed by the existing United States arms embargo. Far from J)eing neutral, the embargo is, as President Roosevelt and Mr. Cordell Hull point out, unneutral to such a sea Power, and is actually preferential to its enemy land Power; that is, to Nazism. Even the Senate minority must see that the unneutrality of the embargo is as demonstrable as is a proposition of Euclid. From a democratic body like -Congress, belligerent democracies would like many things. Surely if democracy means anything, "cash-and-carry" is one of the things that they can get. , , The time factor, emphasised in the last paragraph, may be further stressed. With "cash-and-carry," and with mobilised American securities, the sea-controlling Allies should be able to buy and transport all their American war-needs for, say, a year ahead. Now, if anyone asks what is to happen in the second year and the third year of the war, the answer is that the end of the first year may see changes in the political and in the military situation in Europe, and % assuredly will (if the United States Constitution holds) see changes in Congress, for 1940 is a year of Congressional elections and also of the Presidential election. Separated from the Presidential election by only about a year, President Roosevelt—an idealist, but also, perforce, a tactician—asks Congress for "cash-and-carry," not for war credits to belligerents; leaving credits and all other war issues open to a new Congress in a new Presidential term. Mr. Roosevelt aims at "first things first." If his critics remember that the President Roosevelt of 1939 compares with the President Woodrow Wilson of 1915 (1916 being Wilson's vital Presidential election year), can they justly say that Mr. Roosevelt today asks Congress for too little?. Having regard to the human wisdom of being content with what one can get when one's other likp? are unattainable. jp not the President worthy to be

applauded as much for what he omits in his proposals to Congress as for what he puts in? The United States arms embargo is a blow at sea control. In this sense, it is intervention on the side of Nazism. If a majority in a democratic Legislature supports such intervention, the majority is doing something that it would not be permitted to do in a one-party totalitarian country. „ But if a mere "filibustering" minority is able to prevent a democratic Legislature from reversing its unneutrality, then a Gilbertian position will be reached in America at which the Nazis may well laugh. Of the three features in the President's proposals, the safety feature (zoning of American ship- i ping, and control of America's travelling nationals), is favourable to the isolation standpoint, and so is the President's acceptance of the banning of war credits to belligerents, provided the ban covers all belligerents, including Germany. If the obstructing isolationists, in return, cannot accept "cash-and-carry"—the right of a belligerent to buy anywhere what he can get title to and carry away—then the Senate minority must have a most undemocratic bias not only against sea control but against peoples who are shedding their blood to make the world safe for all free institutions, including Congress itself. Surely President Roosevelt's minimum demand will not seem too much even to a democrat like Senator Borah. Having regard to time and place, it appears that the President is trying to build solidly, if gradually. His "cash-and-carry" is "sufficient unto the day."