CONFLICTING IDEAS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23181, 29 October 1938, Page 13

CONFLICTING IDEAS

MR. ROOSEVELT'S SPEECH NEW YORK PRESS CRITICISM " MAY GET US INTO TROUBLE " (Received October 28, 7.10 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 28 Newspaper leading articles stress the inconsistencies revealed in President Roosevelt's foreign policy speech. The New York Times says: "There are two irreconcilable ideas in the views which the President has stated regarding the European crisis," and then instances the President's appeal to Herr Hitler to settle peacefully the Czech issue and his strictures of yesterday, obviously aimed at Herr Hitler. The paper declares the contradiction reflects the underlying divisions and uncertainties in American opinion regarding the proper foreign policy. The article concludes with the advice that America should rearm, especially in the air, "for one clear result." The Munich settlement, it says, is proof that the nation which carries the most guns in the sky speaks with the greatest authority in the contemporary world. The New York Daily News states that it agrees thoroughly with Mr. Roosevelt's statements about the need of American national defences, but says his advice to the autocrats "can only make the dictators react badly. It cannot help the peoples the dictators are kicking around and it may get us into serious trouble, as President Wilson's pontifical advice to the rest of the world eventually did in 1917."