RETORT TO NAZIS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19821, 24 December 1938, Page 5

RETORT TO NAZIS

CANDID AMERICAN REFUSAL OF APOLOGY CRITICISM BY MINISTER REMINDER TO BERLIN OFFICIAL PRESS ATTACKS (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Dec. 24, 9 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 23. . In rejecting .the German protest alleging that, in his recent speech, -the United States Secretary of the Interior, Mr.'Harold L. Ickes, had used insulting and coarse remarks, the acting Secretary of State, Mr. Sumner Welles, told the German Charge d'Affaires that the German demand for an apology by Mr. Ickes came with singularly ill-grace from a Government which so persistently had permitted the controlled press to make official attacks on American leaders, including Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt and members of the present Cabinet.

The statement by Mr. Welles was coudhed in strong and uncompromising terms which the United States rarely uses in diplomatic discussions with a friendly Government.

Mr. Welles said that Germany must have known that the recent policy pursued by Germany has shocked and confounded public opinion in the United States more profoundly than anything for a decade.

White House Approval

It is obvious that Mr. Welles was acting with the approval of White House and the support of President Roosevelt.

Coincidentally Senator Pittman, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a prepared statement declaring flatly that the people of the United States did

not like the Governments of Germany and Japan, or any form of dictatorial government, whether Communistic or Fascist.

The New York Times, in a leading article, says: "Mr. Welles took a proper course and the only course available in the circumstances. However, there is one phase of his comment which may be misinterpreted. The suggestion may be read into it that we believe we have the right to criticise Germany, because the German press and officials criticise us and beteause we find the criticism objectionable. Criticism Inevitable "Actually, the American people do not greatly care what the German officiate and press think or say of them. Criticism from such sources is inevitable and even necessary. If the German press and its masters did not continue to sneer at our ways, traditions and leaders—if they actually found in our way of life something in any degree commendable, we should have reason to suspect that something was l deeply wrong with us."

The New York Herald-Tribune, in a leading article entitled "About Time," states: "We cannot resist a feeling of profound satisfaction that we belong, perhaps, to the one nation in the world still able to make precisely the kind of reply to the Nazis Which Mr. Welles has made. For years the Nazi Government has been behaving with guttersnipe manners and yet manifesting amazing sensitivity to the slightest rough handling from others. Other Powers Meek

"Other Powers have been meekly bowing to these susceptibilities. They either are allied with the Nazis, like Italy and Jqpan, or are too weak to resist, or, like Britain and France, are over-involved in the tangle of European politics and the Munich 'appeasement' to dare to be thought as rude to the Nazis as the Nazi propaganda machine is regularly rude to everyone else. "The French are cautious; the British quietly soft-pedal their own press; the United States happily occupies a position both of strength and detachment in which the administration is still free to tell the Germans what it thinks of them. The course taken will not, of course, do any good, tout it was about time it was adapted."

A message dispatched from New York on Sunday last stated that specifically mentioning Mr. Henry Ford and Colonel Charles Lindbergh, the Secretary for the Interior, Mr. Harold L. Ickes, criticised in a speech at Cleveland, Ohio, the acceptance by Americans of decorations from the Germans. "How can they pretend that in accepting shabby baubles from a brutal dictator they are honouring the great people Whom the dictator has victimised and degraded?" asked (Mr. Ickes. In the most outspoken attack on the Nazis ever made by an American statesman, Mr. Ickes declared the persecution of the Jews had carried Germany back to the period of history when man was unlettered, benighted and bestial. He added that the Jews were regarded as political eunuchs and social outcasts, to be dragged down like mad dogs. Mr. Ickes said the dictator was forced to manufacture dangers in order to strengthen 'his hold upon the people.

MORE "SHORTCOMINGS"

ASSISTANCE TO SPAIN BENEFIT TO REBELS (Reed. Dec. 24, 11.30 a.m.) BERLIN, Dec. 23. German newspapers disregard the United States rejection of the protest against the statements of Mr. Harold L. Ickes, but numerous other alleged American shortcomings are denounced, including the sending of surplus of flour to Spain, which the Voelkischer Beobachtcr characterises as "brutally lengthening the terrorism in Red Spain, which alone will benefit as the Nationalists have ample food supplies." Meanwhile the German Foreign Office is considering the situation which the political spokesman described as "wantonly seeking a conflict with Germany, not in accord with the Monroe doctrine."