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Show Cooperate With Hitler? (Reprinted From ''Future" Magazine) There is a great deal of public discussion about whether giving fifty "over age," destroyers to Great Jiritain will get us into the war; whether inflammator statements by high government officials will subject us to military reprisal; whether conscripting an army will hasten our entry into the war"; and whether "all aid short of war" is the final step before war itself. ft seems to us that all this discussion is irrelevant. Hitler never asks himself whether a country has been neutral, cooperative or antagonistic in shaping his policy poli-cy toward it. He asks himself only these two questions: Do I want it? and, Can I get it? If the answer is Yes to, both questions, the country concerned had better be well prepared prepared to fight, not to appease or cooperate. co-operate. If the United States really is on Hitler's list of nations to be conquered. NOT giving destroyers to Great liritain or not selling airplanes and munitions certainly will not change the Fuehrer's objectives. If, as the most optimistic believe, Hitler has no designs de-signs in the western hemisphere (although he has his fifth columnists here) then is it reasonable to assume that he will decide suddenly to come over here and attack at-tack the United States merely because we sent ships to Britain, made an alliance with Canada or called some totalitarian to-talitarian a bad name? This is not intended to mean that we pass any opinion opin-ion upon the transfer of fifty destroyers to Great Britain Brit-ain or upon the president's inflammatory statements. Upon those subjects we have not yet made up our mind. But it docs mean that, in making up its collective mind, the American people should not be so afraid of war that they are also afraid to prepare for war. It is Hitler and Hitler alone who will decide whether whe-ther the United States will soon be involved in the war. When Hitler decides, we had better be ready with all the military tricks of the Nazi army plus a few new ones besides. No amount of appeasement or cooperation will make the slightest bit of difference. In the light of these facts, there seems to be a great deal of disunity in looking after American interests. Evidently the isolationists, appeasers and cooperatbrs have not learned much from the wrankling that preceded preced-ed amendment of the neutrality act last fall. We were told that at that time very definitely by men who had reputations for good judgment and fine statesmanship that the cash and carry plan, because it - was disadvantageous disadvan-tageous to Hitler and, therefore, unneutral, was the first step toward war. The names of men in high places who said the cash and carry law would get us into the war within six months would make a list too long even to glance through. .. , The least these advocates of a do-nothing policy could do now would be to polish up on their arithmetic and say that these proposed steps will be the tenth step toward war or twentieth or thirtieth. Reluctance to do anything that may offend a foreign for-eign lower may be diplomacy or it may be cowardice. It was supposed to have been diplomacy when a very sensible attempt to fortify Guam several months ago was sabotaged because it might offend the Japanese. This was a bad precedent and did not represent the sort of spirit that made this country great. Aggressiveness won't get a nation into a war which that nation doesn't want to get into but cowardice might. If transferring destroyers will delay or abort the invasion of a potential enemy and if fortifying an island or conscripting an army will make us stronger, the decision de-cision to act ought to be made without any regard to the possibe hurt feelings of a foreign power. |