PROS AND CONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 31, 5 August 1940, Page 7

PROS AND CONS

AMERICA AND THE WAR ISSUES DEBATED LINDBERGH'S PART (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright! (Received August 5, 11 a.m.) CHICAGO, August 4. Colonel Lindbergh is attending a veterans' anti-war rally at Chicago and is to speak over the air from a mass meeting organised by the "Citizens Keep America Out of War Committee." Meanwhile a radio counterblast in favour of' conscription has been launched by the Secretary to the Navy (Colonel Frank Knox), who says that conscription is essential to the defence of the Western Hemisphere. "If = Britain's sea power is broken or seized," he said, "the Atlantic will cease to be a barrier and become an express highway for hostile forces." Colonel Knox asserted that a victory for the Axis Powers would inevitably result in Hitler making a bid to obtain wealth and raw materials from the Americas.

Mr. R. P. Patterson, Assistant Secretary of War, also spoke over the air, and said: "America needs an army ol 1,300,000. We are committed to defend the hemisphere from Point Barrow to Tierra del Fuego, and the only way is by compulsory military training." IF BRITISH NAVY GOES? Colonel Adler, who is civilian aide to the Secretary of War, in a broadcast address, said: "If the British Fleet is scattered or seized what is to stop Hitler bringing armies, tanks, and guns to the Western Hemisphere? Even with Europe in his grip- he will need raw materials from the Americas. He will try to obtain them by economic political penetratibn, but if he fails he will try force." ~ The "Chicago Daily News" bitterly attacks the Lindbergh rally as defeatist and disloyal. "The headliner (meaning Lindbergh) has only a minor part in the real show, which is surreptitiously encouraged by the counterfeit 'Ger-man-American National Alliance* and similar organisations. We may be sure that Goebbels is interested." The newspaper states that pro-Nazi organisations have been urged to attend the meeting. A message from Rome states that "II Messagero" asserts that Colonel Lindbergh is forming a new party to be known as "The Party of True Americans." It asserts that isolationism is becoming stronger, hence the chances of the United States intervening in the war are weaker.