“FORCE TO FORCE”

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 April 1939, Page 7

“FORCE TO FORCE”

UNITED STATES’ POLICY PLAIN WORDS BY MR. ROOSEVELT [by CABLE —PRESS ASSN. COPYBIGIIT.] NEW YORK, April 14. Speaking on the. occasion of the Washington Sesquicentenary celebration, Mr. Roosevelt pledged the United States’ economic support and readiness to match “force to force,” if necessary, in defending the Western Hemisphere nations against foreign aggression. The President took the role of spokesman for the West, in a bold veto against the dictatorial organisation of the world. His words, apparently inviting the plain people of the totalitarian States to “break their bonds,” were translated for short-wave delivery, in six languages, to every corner of the globe.

Mr. Roosevelt reminded all men that “they have within themselves the power to become free at any time.” Carrying the thought further, he said: “The truest defence of the peace of our Hemisphere must always lie in the hope that our sister nations beyond the seaS will break the bonds of the ideas which constrain them toward perpetual warfare. By example, we can at least show them the possibility that we, too, have a stake in world' affairs.”

Mr. Roosevelt opened his remarks with a review of American achievements. “The American family of nations pay honour, to-day, to the oldest and most-successful association of sovereign Governments in the whole world. Few of us realise that the Pan-American organisation at present has attained a longer history and a greater catalogue of achievements than any similar group known to modern history. Justly, w r e can be proud of it, and even more rightly can look to it as a symbol of great hope, at a time when much of the world finds that hope is dim and difficult. Never ■was it more fitting to salute PanAmerican Day than in the stormy present.

“For upwards of half a century, the Republics of the Western world have been working together In promoting A common civilisation, under a system of peace. That venture, launched so hopefully 50 years ago, has succeeded. The American family is to-day a great co-operative group, facing the troubled world in serenity and calm. This success is sometimes attributed to good fortune, but I do not share that view. There are not wanting here all the usual rivalries, all the normal human desires for power and expansion, and all commercial problems. The Americas are sufficiently rich to be the object of desire on the part of overseas Governments. Our traditions and history are as deeply rooted in the Old World as Europe’s. It was not an accident that prevented South America and our own West from sharing the fate of other great areas in the world, in the Nineteenth Century. We have here diversities of race, language, customs, natural resources, and intellectual forces, at least as great as those which prevail in Europe. What has protected us from the tragic involvements which at present are making the Old World a new cockpit of old struggles? The answer is easily found. A new and powerful ideal — that of a community of nations — sprang up at the same time as the America’s became free and independent.

MADNESS OF WAR. “We hold conferences, not as results of wars, but as a result of the will to peace. Elsewhere in the world, to hold conferences similar to ours, it is necessary to fight a major war, until exhaustion and defeat at length brings governments together, to reconstruct the shattered fabrics. Greeting the conference in Buenos Aires in 1936, I said: 'The madness of a great war in another part of the world would affect us, and would threaten our good in a hundred ways. The economic collapse of any nation or nations must necessarily harm our prosperity. lam confident that we can help the Old World to avert the catastrophe which impends.’ I still have that confidence. There is no fatality which forces Europe towards a new catastrophe. Men are not prisoners of fate, but prisoners of their own minds. They have within themselves the power to become free at any moment. “As an instance, last Summer, I stated the United States would join in defending Canada, if she were attacked from overseas. At Buenos Aiies in 1936, all of us agreed that, in the event of war or threat of war on the Continent, we would consult to remove that threat, yet no American nation regarded these understandings us threats. American peace has no quality of weakness. We are prepared to maintain and defend it to the fullest extent of our strength, matching force to force, if an attempt is made to subvert our institutions, and impair the independence of any of our group. Should the method of attack be economic pressure, I pledge the United States'also to give economic support, so that no American nation need surrender any fraction of its sovereign freedom. America may righttunj claim now to speak to the rest of the world. Our interest is wider than the mere defence of our sea-ringed Continent, and we know now that development in the next generation will so narrow the oceans that our customs arid actions are necessarily involved with those of Europe. The economic functioning of the world becomes rn-

[creasingly a unit, and no interruption anywhere can fail in future to disrupt economic life everywhere. The truest defence of peace in our Hemisphere must always lie in the hope that our sister nations beyond the seas will break the bonds of the ideas which constrain them toward perpetual warfare.” “WAR HYSTERIA.” ATTACKED BY SENATORS. (Recd. April 15, 10 a.m.) WASHINGTON, April 14. Senatorial displeasure at Mr. Roosevelt’s - utterances on foreign affairs was given ap airing in the Senate, culminating ip a resolution introduced by Senator Bridges (Republican, New Hampshire), calling on the Senate to disapprove the “inflammatory” war statements made by Mr. Roosevelt and other officials. Senator George (Democrat, Georgia) led the attack. Using Mr. Roosevelt’s Warm Springs,” I’ll be back in the Autumn, if we don’t have war,” as his text, Senator George said that the declaration had aroused “genuine fear throughout the nation, that somebody had afforded some encouragement to the distinguished English statesman (Lord Halifax) who, to-day, said that the United States is in full sympathy with or shared fully the expressions which had just been made in the Commons by the English Prime Minister.”

Senator George added that he -was resolved to vote against war, and be was convinced that Congress would vote in the same way. “It should be made abundantly clear to European people, that we do not propose to enter any European war,” he said. Senator Vandenberg, commenting on the imputation of American approval of the British course, said any such action would have to come from a majority of the members of Congress, before “it will have the slightest validity.”

Senator Bridges, in a statement accompanying his resolution, charged Mr Roosevelt directly with creating war hysteria.

Senator Reynolds echoed the charge, without specifically naming the President, adding, “The only people in the whole world who are excited about what is happening in Europe are the Americans. We are exercising ourselves because we cannot get into war. We almost want to go to war.”

MR. HULL’S BROADCAST. ADJUSTMENT BY REASON. (Recd. April 15, 10.10 a.m.) WASHINGTON. April 14. Mr. Cordell Hull, in a world-wide broadcast of a Pan-American Day address, preceding that of Mr. Roosevelt, emphasised the ability and determination of the American nations to fight, if necessary, to preserve their independence. “The American Republics have, in clear, unmistakable terms, expressed their determination to assure peace in this Continent, and to defend and maintain the independence of>, the institutions of our peoples, against any menace. None can say that we offer to the world an. example of international adjustment maintained by reason because we do not have at our command the more-brutal weapons, noi’ can any harbour the illusion that our insistence upon international justice is an appeal springing from weakness. This Hemisphere’s devotion is to an organisation grounded on the juridical equality of all nations, and respect for the Sovereignty of each, and an understanding so complete that every question can be dealt with by reason and peaceful discussion. This is the free choice of all of us —a true choice, since other alternatives are open. This choice in international relations gives the Western Hemisphere something definite and distinct to say to the world, peculiarly in this time of stress. DOCTRINES OF TYRANNY WASHINGTON, April 13. The Under-Secretary of State (Mr. Summer Welles), speaking at the University of Virginia, declared: “A handful of men are threatening the peace of the world. It is urgent for the United States to sell the materials needed to prevent the conquest of peace-loving nations.” Mr. Welles used words of unusual bluntness for an American diplomat. Without naming any nation or leader, he vigorously criticised “doctrines of persecution and tyranny” practised by the totalitarian States, and cautioned that they were spreading rapidly “by conquest by violence.”