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Show j How Best Defend America? I I nUSSIA is reported hurrying thousand upon j . I thousand of reinforcement of the soviet' I finest troop to the Finnish battlefronts, in a J determined effort to regain lost national pre tig with a smashing victory. In addition there ha been a great Increase I In aerial activity in recent days, soviet plane attacking dozens of Finnish cities and towns, ! supply lines and strategic industrial area. . There I every indication of intensified Russian Rus-sian effort to blast a way through the stubborn Finnish defenders and conquer the country. I And one Finland is conquered, the way wUl.J j open for Ruts assault on the Scandinavian I democracies. - At the tame time all this is going on in j northern Europe, and some of the world's truest I democratic nations are being threatened with extinction at the hands of a brutal, undemocratic undemo-cratic and unchristian invader, we read that the Finns have been turned down by the united State government In their urgent plea that they be permitted to buy trench mortars, antiaircraft anti-aircraft guns, antitank guns and ammunition In this country. The reason given by the war department is f that the American army is short of these same weapons and that' they are sorely needed to bolster the nation's defense program. That statement is true. We do need all sorts of these modern war weapons. We I haven't anywhere enough of them to properly ' equip our army. But the thought presents Itself: Might we : not be defending America and our democratic ' Ideal more positively by supplying Finland with weapons so she can continue o resist Russian aggression than by completing our own national armament? . I Certainly we need this equipment and must have it if we are to be fully prepared to meet any emergency. But we needed it a year or two ago also when none of the aggressor nations except Japan was Involved in war and yet w weren't terribly conoerned n a nation because of the lack. ' J Today Russia la engaged In a desperate I Struggle with Finland, which is occupying a I good deal of her time and attention. So long I as that fight continues, w don't have to worry I about any Russian attack on us. Germany has her hands full with Britain and Ftanc. Certainly we need not concern ' ourselves over any immediate threat from that 1 quarter. . Japan is (till all tangled up in China' flypaper, fly-paper, with an ever-present threat 'from the Russian Siberian army still something to be reckoned with. Furthermore, Japan is financially finan-cially and economically exhausted. Even though there 1 peace with China, she will not be looking for new adventure for torn little time. Italy can be expected to itay very clear of any foreign undertaking a long as the Eu-' ropean war threatens momentarily to drag her Into the mix-up feet first There is, then, no present danger to America; BO very likely danger in the near future which our navy can not take care of. Suppose our rearmament program is delayed de-layed a few months while war supplies Intended for our army are sold to Finland; there is scant risk to us, and we are assured so long as the Finn can continue to resist Russia that at least two of the aggressor nations won't be adventuring adven-turing in the Americas. Those two are Russia and Germany. The latter la checked by the Russo-Flnnlsh conflict because it stop Russia from giving much material aid to Germany, or from Joining with her in a Balkan blitzkrieg. It seems that continued Finnish resistance is the cheapest sort of defense of American democracyboth democ-racyboth directly by keeping antidemocratic nations occupied or stalemated, and indirectly by proving the unexpected strength and power I to resist of a democratic nation. We do not argue against American preparedness. pre-paredness. We do need modern weapons for our armed force, and must have them a rapidly a possible. But right now the Immediate Imme-diate crisis for American democracy is not the lack of complete American preparedness, but the threat of destruction to the democratic nation na-tion of Scandinavia. It Is not our place to help defend democracy by tending American armies to fight oversea. That would not only be unwise, but impractical. But we certainly can and should help by furnishing fur-nishing vital war supplies to a democratic people, peo-ple, for whom w have always had the warmest sympathy, who are today fighting for their very live against the common enemy of all the democracies of the world. |