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Show A Sea of Contradictions RFAPF.HS of newspapers und magazines and listcncrs-in on the radio have a difficult time in gelling the rcn news of the warfare in ' tlic Omul and even in .-ifting news from foreign and domestic propaganda Th'y ; rr cnnfu.'cl by contradictions and b:wildcrcd as they attempt to discover the policv of this government in re- spect of the undeclared war in Asia. It is premature to regard the war as declared de-clared because the Japanese commander-in-chief on the Shanghai front issues a formal proclamation. proclama-tion. The Tokyo government must announce th fact nf declared war This government has adopted no policy. The state department is working on a 24-hour basia. From day to day developments accumulate and some trivial or momentous fact or "incident" will determine the adoption of a policy. A bewildering situation resides in the fact that President Kooi-evclt has not formally recognized recog-nized that a state nf war exists in Asia, but he has named the aggressor as Japan. The neutrality neu-trality law requires him to issue a neutrality proclamation when he recognizes the existence of state of war. Instead, he and the state department have formally announced full collaboration with the League of Nations. Ratification of the treaty of Versailles excepted ratification of the league covenant. The defeat of the league issue in Woodrow Wilson's time came when there was a Republican majority of two in the senate. Democratic Demo-cratic senators joined with the majority to reject re-ject membership in the league. With the overwhelming over-whelming Democratic majority now in the senate, sen-ate, many watchers must wonder if the present drift of policy is not following the course charted chart-ed by Wilson lcagueward and what the senate may do about it. This is both a hope and a fear, both fortified forti-fied by the fact that the senate forced the president presi-dent to accept a neutrality law he deems unequal to meeting the present situation, as he said in his Chicago speech. The neutrality law was designed de-signed to keep the United States out nf war, a law purely of domestic application. From the beginning, involvement in the league was opposed op-posed as an entanglement likely to get us into war. Even getting Intn an argument over the Kel-logg-Briand treaty and the nine-power treaty j guaranteeing the territorial integrity of China, ! both signed by Japan, seems likely to breed trouble with the Tokyo government. We are signatories sig-natories to both, and w ar legally and morally bound to notic violations of their commitments. This also amounts definitely to International entanglement. en-tanglement. I If Japan refuses to act In concert with the ether signatories and to respect league decision j which we "back up" and to have a part In any discussion where the U. S. S. R. ia at the table, i what then? It should be realized that the only way by which treaty provisions or league pronouncement pronounce-ment can be effectuated in the last analysis is ' by armed force. Boycott, the force of public opinion and other action simply will not be sufficient suf-ficient compulsion upon a nation in the aitua- tion and temper in which the Japanese are today. It is around that matter of the employment of armed force that all sober American thought I should pivot. Shall we be so bold as to take ' any itep which by remote possibility involves us . in a foreign war? In the face of all contradictions ' and confusions, it is that question that is foremost u in importance before there can be, an intelligent public opinion formed In the United States. |