MR ROOSEVELT’S SHARP PHRASES

Southland Times, Issue 23651, 28 October 1938, Page 7

MR ROOSEVELT’S SHARP PHRASES

Outspoken Criticism In Radio Address REARMAMENT RACE AGAIN DEPLORED TOTALITARIAN DOCTRINE ' TO BE KEPT OUT (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received October 27, 10.45 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 26. Sharp phrases, which according to official circles at Washington were aimed obviously at Italy and Germany were used by the President (Mr Franklin D. Roosevelt) in a radio address tonight. Mr Roosevelt’s references are practically certain to draw harsh criticism from the totalitarian Press, if not from official quarters. Mr Roosevelt said:

“None who has lived through the grave hours last month can doubt the longing of most peoples of the world for enduring peace. Our business now is to utilize that desire for peace and to build on principles, which are the only basis of permanent peace. There can be no peace if the reign of law is to be replaced by the recurrent sanctification of sheer force. There can be no peace if national policy adopts as a deliberate instrument the threat of war or the dispersion over the world of millions of helpless, persecuted wanderers without a place to lay their heads. There can be no peace if humble men and women are not free to think their own thoughts, express their own feelings and worship God, or if economic resources that ought, to be devoted to social and economic reconstruction are diverted towards intensified competition in armaments. “At no time in modern history has the responsibility which rests upon governments been more obvious or more profound. I speak for the United States, which has no interest in war. We covet nothing, save good relations with our neighbours, and we recognize that the world today has become our neighbour. METHODS OF PEACE "But in the principle of this policy there must be the deliberate, conscious will that such political changes as changing needs require shall be made peacefully. You cannot organize civilization around a core of militarism and at the same time expect reason to control human destinies. “The United States for more than 12 years has been steadily seeking .dis--aramament, yet we have consistently pointed out that neither we nor any nation will accept disarmament while neighbour nations arm to the teeth. If there is no general. disarmament we ourselves must continue to arm, for we must be prepared. We still insist that the armament race among nations is absurd unless new territories or new controls are coveted. “We in the United States do not seek to impose on any other people either our way of life or our internal form of Government, but we are determined to maintain and protect that way of life and that form of government for ourselves. We affirm our faith that whatever choice of a way of life a people makes, that choice must not threaten the world with the disaster of war, which releases a flood-tide of evil emotions. “In all that I have said to you I have reaffirmed the faith of the American people in democi acy.” Mr Roosevelt concluded with an appeal for greater unity among the nations for peace and restraint for negotiation and community of effort. By working for the same ideals within their own borders the people of the United States would have that unity of will with which alone democracy could successfully meet its enemies, he said. MR HOOVER CRITICAL

- Interestingly enough, the President’s observations drew criticism almost immediately from an important domestic source—Mr Herbert Hoover, the former President, who insisted that the methods and manners of the dictatorships were no concern of America. He gave a warning that if the United States went to war it would be necessary to mobilize the nation, “into a practically fascist Government.” Mr Hoover insisted that the democracies must reconcile themselves to the fact that despotisms have always existed and will continue to exist. He minimized the danger of totalitarian aggression against the Western Hemisphere, and demanded that before military expenditures are expanded “we should be told frankly what dangers have so increased that they warrant it.” Mr Roosevelt’s speech is widely interpreted as America’s definition of foreign policy. It contained striking similarities, though the phraseology was different, to the address by the Britisn Foreign Secretary (Viscount Halifax), and is considered to be a definite qualification of his notable “quarantine” pronouncement two years ago. The President at one stage not only condemned the use of a threat of force, repression and propaganda as instruments of national policy, but showed 'plain resentment of the derisive observations frequently made by these dictatorships about the democracies. He emphasized that the United States intended to stop, by force if necessary, the introduction of these methods and manners, either by propaganda or otherwise, into the Western Hemisphere. It is felt that the Prisident reaffirmed the “quarantine” principle, this time however, emphasizing the United States’s intention to act alone and exclusively in the Western Hemisphere. Reports from London that whether or not the similarities between Lord Halifax’s and Mr Roosevelt’s speeches were intentional the President’s stand was certain to receive unqualified support in British Government circles were received with satisfaction in Washington.