AMERICAN ALARM

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20034, 5 September 1939, Page 5

AMERICAN ALARM

ATLANTIC PERILS LUSITANIA RECALLED NO WARNING GIVEN REFUGEE VOYAGERS SAFETY. NOT ASSURED (Eloc. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Sept. 5, 10.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, Sept. 4. The news of the torpedoing of the liner Athenia electrified the United States and immediately recalled to Americans the Lusitania outrage, which precipitated America’s entry into the Great War.

The sinking of the liner was announced by radio shortly after President Roosevelt’s nation-wide broadcast, in which he said: “Even a neutral has the right to take account of the facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or conscience.”

The Athenia’s fate caused anxiety over the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean, where thousands of Americans are fleeing from the war zone.

It is pointed out that the Americans in the Athenia were not travelling aboard a British ship in violation of the United States neutrality because they started the voyage homeward the day before war was declared. Moreover the American Embassy in London assisted some of them to obtain a passage.

The torpedoing of the Athenia occurred without warning and regardless of whether neutral passengers were aboard. The attack was more flagrant than the sinking of the Lusitania and it was also more reprehensible because, since the Great War, Germany had subscribed to the international treaty pledging the signatories to refrain from sinking merchant ships without warning and without providing for the safety of the passengers and crew.

The American Associated Press correspondent at Washington stated that officials at White House announced that the vessel was carrying mostly Canadians and some Americans. President Roosevelt’s secretary announced: “According to official information, the ship came from Glasgow to Liverpool and was bound for Canada, bringing refugees. I would point out that this will show there is no possibility, according to official information, that the ship was carrying any munitions or anything of that kind.”

The special correspondent of the Associated Press of America, after touring the traditional isolationist mid-West, writes: “The vast dread of war, yet the almost fatalistic acceptance of the idea that sooner or later America will become involved, is plainly evident in the farm belt. Bankers, politicians, store clerks and filling station workers all expressed the same thought—‘we don’t want war but we will probably be in there fighting before it is finished. Our sympathies lie naturally with England and France. Just let London and Paris be bombed, beat a few drums and a tremendous war sentiment can be whipped up overnight’ ” This wag written before the Athenia disaster shocked America.

Simultaneously with the report of the attack on the Athenia the correspondent of the United Press of America at San Juan, Porto Rico, cabled that the French freighter Carbet ran for shelter to San Juan after being chased by German submarines. The correspondent added that German submarines had been’ reported off Jamaica.