AMERICA WATCHES THE WAR

Grey River Argus, 17 January 1940, Page 8

AMERICA WATCHES THE WAR

(By

C. A. Willis,

North American

Correspondent). “It’s a nhoney war!” That remark is attributed to Auto Mogul Ford by the newshawks, and it sums P four words the thoughts of many Americans. They can’t.take in ts W hys and wherefores. They see u appeasers calling for fire and blood and war-to-the-finish, while at the same’time they watch the Naz>s ramine death from the air on Poland and not a bomb dropped on the Siegfne Li And there’s a lot more that seems nhoney at this distance. Maybe we don’t understand things as c early as the big people running the show, but from the gallery some catcalls are already rising. Listen to these remarks which it is whispered in limes Square are not relayed to the warrior British public by the great news agencies. . . • Mayor La Guardia speaking, than whom there is no stouter hater of Fascism and its works: ‘‘The war m Europe is a slaughter and sacrifice of human beings with no hope for the working people no matter how it ends. The working people were not consulted on the start of the wai They are not to have any say on how it is to end.” That’s the blunt opinion of the Mayor of our Empire City spoken to the convention of the American Federation of Labour in Cincinnati. Fiorello is no pacifist: ask the gangsters and racketeers he cleaned out of New York. And what he says sure echoes. Now switch on to Senator La Follette speaking during the Arms Embargo debate: “It is so necessary for us to have the British Empire preserved that we must be willing to defend it whenever, and on whatever terms, it chooses to fight? And suppose England and France change their ideas, as they might well do, and decide that what they want is to strengthen Germany at the expense of Russia

“Not in Manchuria, nor Ethiopia nor Spain did the British and French Governments, whose democracy we are expected to support, show the slightest intent to carry out the tenets of democracy. The British and French hid behind the futile-Non-Intervention Committee in London, while Germany and Italy openly supplied arms and men to Franco and our Administration rushed through the arms embargo. It was perfectly obvious that this Government hasi been simply following the lead of the British and French Governments.’’

What these diplomatic people say so politely, ordinary folk put more crudely. And there’s India to worry. Britain’s friends over here. The New Republic is reckoned the smartest of American weeklies, and this is its comment on His Excellency the Viceroy of India’s speech. “If the Viceroy’s word remains the final one, millions of people throughout the world and in the United States in particular, will feel that the pretensions under which Great Britain has announced

| that she is fighting this, war have a singularly hollow sound. . Now this is only one side of tne picture. Much more r f™ a ‘ ns *° ine s S I said Wall Street smells a ousines.s boom arising from war supplies to Europe, and the Fat Boys o change speculation are getting j let out a few more notches in then belts. The Allies have a cool £2OO millions to spend in cash orders, and plants are expanding and new capital watering the arms stocks, cotton and ; metals, faster than all the fire floats ■ in the Hudson River could hose them. What' these keen lads of Skyscraper land see as a plan of campaign is an orgy of cash spending by the Allies, under the revised terms of our Neuj trality law. Then, when business is booming and expanding like a balloon the British-French tie-up will ' have to say, “Sorry, we’ve no more cash. But a short-term loan, now ' Then Wall Street and the Press will point to the risk of slump, 'inemployment, hunger, and chime in, “Well, neutrality’s not all that important. We could manage a little loan.” And then these United States would be in the bag. That’s how the business boys see it. 1 But they’re not America. They may be right, but the last Gallup polls of the entire country showed a signifi- ' cant drop in those believing the U.S.A, will be drawn into the war. From a majority some months back they’re now a minority. And from 44 per cent, at the beginning of the war in favour of joining England to pre- ; vent a Nazi victory, there are only 29 per cent, according to the last poll.