LITTLE HOPE OF SUCCESS

Southland Times, Issue 23794, 17 April 1939, Page 7

LITTLE HOPE OF SUCCESS

AMERICAN OPINION OF APPEAL

ISOLATION POLICY OF PAST AS HANDICAP

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received April 16, 11.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 15.

Mr Roosevelt’s appeal to the dictators won wide congressional approval but almost equally general scepticism that it would achieve any success. The majority regards it merely as a gesture which, if the dictators are looking for a way out, could not do any harm. There is a growing feeling in Congress that it is too late for American influence to count abroad, joined by middle-of-the-road thinkers who now believe that the United States could have contributed 20 years ago to a more stable condition of the world but that the country’s insistence through the years that it would have no part in any European problems was accepted by the European chancelloreries. They that' believe the dictators’ plans, formulated on the assumption of isolation by the United States, cannot be changed, at this late date by a mere presidential pronouncement.

It is felt in political circles that the President has at least strengthened his own position by demolishing the charges of war-mongering being made against him in the United States. It is felt also that the appeal may help the formation of the “Stop Hitler” bloc. It is noticed that in asking for nonaggression pledges from the dictators the president specifically listed 30 countries, omitting Danzig. If the assurances are refused these countries may all feel themselves in the orbit of totalitarian ambition and hasten to align themselves with the democracies.

The New York Times interprets the message not as an appeal “to better nature and a sense of responsibility, which the dictators do not possess,” but as a warning “that if they resort to acts of aggression threatening the peace of the world they will find the odds overwhelmingly against, them.”

WARM APPRECIATION IN BRITAIN

“VOICE FROM A SANER WORLD” (British Official Wireless) (Received April 16, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, April 15. Mr Roosevelt’s personal message is the second important effort which he has made within 48 hours for a resolving of the tense European situation. Although less direct, his speech yesterday to the board of the Pan-American Union has been greeted by the Press and is warmly appreciated, particularly at a moment when the' British Government _is attempting to erect an edifice similar to that which the Americas enjoy and which was described by Mr Roqsevelt as the will to peace based on the will to mutual defence against either military force or economic pressure. The Times says that perhaps the most striking of all the striking passages in Mr Roosevelt’s speech was that in which he poured scorn upon the propagandist charge that co-operation for defence and for ,>eace involves the encirclement or imprisonment of any nation. The Daily Telegraph says: “It is a paradox of the times that the most pacific nation of all—the one that is most resolute to keep herself free from all foreign entanglements—should yet in effect be in a position to give law to a continent armed to the teeth. That .- what,imparts special force and meaning to Mr Roosevelt’s declaration to the Americas that«'.hey have an interest Wider than that of the mere defences of their sea-fringed continent and that American customs and actions are necessarily involved with the rest of the world—a world which is becoming an economic unit. The question as he stated it is whether our civilization is to be dragged into the tragic vortex of unending imperialism, punctuated by periodic wars. In that question the Americas, by their stake in . world affairs, cannot help being vitally concerned, and Mr Roosevelt proclaims his belief that they can help the Old World to avert the catastrophe which impends. One part of the Old World at least would ask nothing better than to see that belief vindicated by the event.” The Manchester Guardian says: “It is not to be supposed, perhaps, that this voice from a saner world will have effect where it is most needed to be heard, but it will count. The forces of peace in Europe were meant to and will draw encouragement from it”