WILL ATTACK CONVOYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 104, 29 October 1941, Page 8

WILL ATTACK CONVOYS

ROME DECLARATION

END OF U.S. ISOLATIONISM

(Rec. 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 28. The Axis will attack United States convoys as soon as they enter the war zones and thereby bring America into the war, declared an official spokesman in Borne, commenting on President Roosevelt's speech. He added that it was undoubtedly President Roosevelt's strongest and frankest speech to date.

Japanese" observers consider the President's failure to mention Japan indicates that the Japanese-American negotiations in Washington are progressing. The "Yomiuri Shimburi" says: "Mr. Roosevelt's statement that Americans have already taken up battle, stations is equivalent to a declaration of "war against Germany."

PRESIDENTS LOST CHANCE

Mr. Roosevelt's speech was an effort to place himself again in the leadership of the country on the question of .America's part in the war, says a Washington message. The capital has been buzzing during the week over the fact that the President's advisers induced him to take a hesitant course on revision of the Neutrality Act, giving Mr. Wendell Willkie an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate clearly that popular sentiment is far ahead of the Administration on the question.

The speech therefore was in the nature, of a rallying cry by a leader for his followers to fall in after him. It is likely to have a quick effect. The whole tenor of the President's remarks showed how conscious he is that the nation is at war, even without the benefit of' a declaration.

Isolationism is a dying cause in America. There is mounting popular impatience with its exponents, who continue to obstruct the country's growing effort against Hitler.