SOONER OR LATER

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 157, 31 December 1940, Page 8

SOONER OR LATER

AMERICA AND WAR

FEELING IN STATES

DEMOCRACY AT STAKE

Almost everybody I have spoken to in America considers that they will get into the war sooner or later. I think they are realising now that the future of democracy is in the hands of the two big English-speaking nations. The idea has been expressed in the phrase that "the English-speaking people have either got to hang together or hang separately." :

This was the impression gained by Mr. Charles S. Plank, of the engineering staff of the Post and Telegraph Department, during his two years of residence in the United States, from which he has just returned. Mr. Plank covered 46,000 miles in America, visiting every State.

"My impression of the American attitude to the war, especially at the beginning," he said in an interview today, "was that Britain was going to win in any case, and they did not see why they should be dragged into it again. There were two other things which affected their opinion at the beginning; One was Britain's failure to maintain payment of her war debt to America. The Americans did not see why Britain could not or would not pay, while she was making loans to such countries as Turkey and Greece, and certain newspaper chains, particularly Hearst's, did not attempt to explain the economics of the situation. The other thing was that the Americans lost a great deal of money in the last war, and they didn't see why they should pull Britain's chestnuts out of the fire this time. They didn't see what they had got from the last war, but they should have asked themselves what the world would have been like, and what America would have been like, if England had lost the last war. A GRADUAL CHANGE. "The opinions of the Americans, however, gradually changed," continued Mr. Plank. "The fall of Norway, Belgium, and Holland started the change, and the Americans received a very rude shock when France fell. That was something they never thought was going to happen. They thought England was going to win the war without American help, though it might be a long struggle. "The Americans' shock at the fall of France turned to admiration for Britain after the magnificent evacuation from, Dunkirk and the great fight the British i people put up to defend themselves. Many Americans have told me that they could not see how the British people were keeping their high morale under constant bombing with all its consequences. "Then there have been other incidents which have stirred America's imagination and admiration," continued Mr. Plank. "The action of the Jervis Bay and the raid on the Italian fleet at Taranto were two of them. GERMAN PROPAGANDA. j "There is, of course, another factor that must be noted in America's com- J paratively slow change from passive to active sympathy," said Mr. Plank. "That is that the German people in America are doing a pretty good job in the propaganda field, and are keeping alive the war debt question and also the idea that no soldiers should be sent overseas. "But America's own generals and admirals are now pointing out that if it is going to be a question of America's fighting it would be much better to fight on somebody else's soil than at home." '

Mr. Plank remarked, however, that all of President's Roosevelt's statements and answers to questions about the involving of America were that his job was to keep 'America out of the war.

Having lived two years in America, Mr.' Plank considers that the Gallup polls are accurate and not at all wide of average opinion. They were, he said, as accurate as" any sampling methods could be. and he drew attention to the fact that the latest Gallup poll had shown 60 per cent, of people to hold the opinion that more help should be given to England, even at the risk of involving America in the war.

America was a very free and easy country and a very democratic country, said Mr. Plank. It had no Gestapo and no Ogpu, arid he imagined that if it ever did decide to come into the war there would be many "fifth columnists* and saboteurs to round up. He thought it would be better for the authorities to round them up before the position became so critical as to involve the United States in actual war. ) CAPACITY OF INDUSTRY. Asked whether America could help Britain more by staying out of the war and acting as a supplier than by actively participating in it, Mr. Plank said he personally believed that America would be of great help to Britain as soon as she came into the war.

The provision of naval help in the Pacific and the hunting of enemy raiders were two ways by which the United States could render immediate assistance, and Mr. Plank did not think it beyond the capacity of American industry, if it were organised on a war footing and if automobiles, refrigerators, and other goods for peacetime consumption were given only secondary consideration, to supply the war needs of both the United States and the British Commonwealth.

In conclusion, Mr. Plank paid a tribute to -the genuine friendliness of the American people. Never at any time during his stay there had he been treated like a foreigner, he said, but always as one of their own countrymen.