Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W labine U S already discusses peace allies will impose on germany ger many in event hitler Is vanquished EDITORS NOTE when opinions are expressed in these columns they are arc those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper ne lapsed by western newspaper union J THE WAR good start 1 I regret that after abor 2000 years ol of mankind sunday morning should rind find the prime minister in the position of announcing that thas men are on the eve of 01 living like beasts such were the sentiments of john mcgovern leader ot of parliaments independent labor party ills his was the ions ione dissent that fateful morning when neville chamberlain his peace efforts at a hopeless end declared war on germany A few hours later france followed suit and by nightfall most of the british empire was also in line by that time the rest of the world clamored to declare its neutrality too busy was neville chamberlain to notice that barbara hutton fled the romantic isle of capri or that american radio sponsors S or a were vere about to complain over too many program interruptions tor for CDS CBS and NBC news bulletins nor did he notice that thousands of lon dons pst pet dogs and cats were maln 1 wr t t iff taj 4 TIIE THE PRIME MINISTER A fine sunday morning I lessly essly exterminated les lesttley lest they prove a burden during evacuation said ono one weeping ve pet owner IV its a damn shame it ought to be littler hitler on the tha end bf this leash T such wag the man on the streets background for war since 1936 he had accepted its inevitability yet the awful reality of legalized brute force borce somehow left him benumbed ile he watched without passion as brit aln ains popular Win wilstorf churchill and anthony eden both foes of ap pea were given cabinet posts to solidify public sentiment ile he slowly aly built abalo a halo around the head of prime minister chamberlain whose frantic umbrella waving of the past two years had at least postponed the tha war he may have wept over the news that french troops marched jo fo the front almost tenderly I 1 hating eting war yet fervent in their ambition to smash hitler and all that he represents but as such things happen british and french men on n the street were whipped into war frenzy the next morning steaming to montreal the liner athenia athekla wa was s torpedoed off ireland with 1450 refugee passengers aboard providing enough provocation to in make oke aven even the tender french sol soldiers hate germans in general as well as der fuehrer paris and london heard polish civilians were suffering frightfully as adolf hitler headed for the eastern front and the first major battle just getting underway in upper silesia after two days of fighting the world war of 1939 had developed dev eloped into a decidedly unorthodox conflict british warplanes war planes flew over nuremberg but dropped nothing heavier than propaganda leaflets urging the german people to discard der fuehrer nazi antiaircraft anti aircraft guns failed ailed to bark back the sa same me day french soldiers on an the tha maginot jine line were reported to have set placards atop their pillboxes pill boxes carryl carrying hg this message to german soldiers in the west wall we wont a dhoot oot if you dont but there was good evidence that this evident lack of hostilities appeared only on an paper the lid of censorship clamped down over both france and britain screening what the french war office called contacts on the western front all ali three major powers were evidently reluctant to invite revenge by bombing london parts paris and berlin yet the germans admitted british bombers had attacked their fleet at wil helm shaven where and ilow it if france end and britain had any cut and dried plan for rushing aid to their beleaguered beleaguer ed ally poland they took their time executing it best guesses held both democracies were stymied not only by hitler but b by y the silence of other key nations germanys germanas Germ anys west wall and frances maginot line apparently made the western front a bulwark of stati stall cism both other routes of getting to poland were perilous via the baltic though british battleships tle ships blockaded that sea a baltic expedition would be no pushover troop and supply ships must fight the famous and pestiferous submarines must hold their breath against cunningly placed mines and must land at gdynia polands bolands Po lands only port which might be in german hands by that time landing against an enemy has always been a major military problem and already the polish corridor has been nipped by german troops not only that but russia has naval strength in the baltic and might decide to join the cause via the mediterranean strangely tr angely silent as war opened were both of hillers Hit lers erstwhile continental friends spainard Spa spain inand and italy the allies aIlles hoped hillers Hit lers sellout sell out to russian communism would keep francisco franco and italis benito mussolini out of the conflict but no one could tell despite neutrality proclamation and italis resumption of sea traffic neutrality french british aid to poland might go through the mediterranean and black seas land ai Ru manias poh ot of constanta and thence nee reach birsa warsaw w but rumania like all balkan countries was intent on neutrality at home in the U S which has watched Eu ropes wars for almost years observers were far enough from the forest to see the trees though president roosevelt pointed out no american has the moral right to capitalize on the conflict every economist knew it would probably start a boom cash and carry neutrality would make ahe U S support britain and france which dominate the seas opening new markets for farm products and steel but such a neutrality would also accentuate the already marked 4 11 av 1 ANTHONY EDEN winston vinston churchill also came U S sentiment against hitler confounding oun ding isolationists by making the nation dation a virtual silent ally of the illes allies should enough american non combatants be killed via torpedoes dedoes the flame of 1916 and 1917 might again blot out reason hence the president urged the U S to weigh its facts with care taw end next to neutrality the most moot question among americans american I 1 concerns the eventual en end d of hostilities es no longer does anyone bu but a fanatical anti german see justice in the versailles treaty of 20 years ago which wrung lifeblood from the and placed it in such d dire 1 e straits that a hitler was welcomed with open arnis arms but butwill will versailles be repeated unless russia jumps to ger pill banys nys aid unless mussolini and franco junk their apparent neutrality a war t to 0 tin end would probably lind find germany collapsing under economic stress hitler no mo I 1 would be vanquished but can anything short chort of another peace without honor such as woodrow wilson sug bested g ested keep a hitler no 2 from rising out of the ruins POLITICS neutrality well remembered in washington Is the hot july night franklin roosevelt called the senate foreign relations committee into his white house oval room discovered he had insufficient votes to force a change in the present neutrality law and sent the senators away with ac that full responsibility for the failure rested on their shoulders even better remembered is the august day at hyde park when franklin roosevelt tirades against an adjourned congress pointing out it had made two enormous bets 1 that his lend spend bill was needless because private e enterprise could do the job alone 2 that no lie neutrality revision was needed because there would be no war in europe before next january when congress meets again by september 1 tour four months before the next normal session the president might have boasted that congress had already lost one bet be t there was war in europe see col dmn one which gave mr roosevelt and secretary of state cordell 0 Z KEY PITTMAN but does the public agree hull a severe headache under the present neutrality law they had bad no alternative butto declare an embargo on implements of war for belligerents just as good a neutrality tra lity in the eyes of roosevelt hull and sen key pittman chairman of the senate committee is the cash h and carry variety under de which any belligerent able to reach a U S port could buy and carry off all the implements of war he wanted not at all impossible as war broke out was the special congressional session mr roosevelt has long threatened in such an eventuality but if he thought congress would give him a free hand indeed if he thought this free hand might help him keep the U S out of war and thus pave the way for a third term in 1940 he was ba badly d I 1 y mistaken gallup polls of p public bublic sentiment found such an assumption wro ngon two counts 1 last april a gallup poll showed 57 per cent favoring a change in neutrality by early september it had dropped to 50 per cent indicating the nation was less and less sure that the administration is right 2 also in early september another poll showed 71 per cent favored a special congressional session in case of war comments revealing that the public would feel safer that way whether this sentiment discredited the presidents ability constituted a vote of confidence in his rebellious congress 9 ress neither nett heri or both was any blodys guess emphatically minus political im port however we merethe were rethe the steps mr roosevelt took clamped down immediately med mediately lately was the arms em embargo barko confiscated were the passports of all americans returning from europe while the state department terminated all U S tourist travel to the continent belatedly came the off official iclal proclamation of american America tf neutrality next day the navy department part ment pondered the advisability of assigning naval convoys to mer chantlen chant men transporting U S citizens from war zones alithe at the same time attorney general prank frank mur phy alphy began seeking ways to tighten statutes regulating profiteering during war time still to come were new farm policies to deal with the new situation though an advisory advisor y council was being formed ASIA about face most embarrassed by dussias Rus sias aggression non treaty with adolf hitler were communists in other lands who talked themselves silly trying to justify their new bedfellow socialism second greatest embarrassment ras fell to japan which only a few weeks ago was busy insulting U S british and french interests in the orient confident of her antl anti Commit ern pact with italy and germany still more confident after she signed a trade treaty with germany tokyo suddenly found herself friendless when the reich adopted comrade stalin highly nervous was the japanese press as european hostilities got underway while war planes continued to bomb in an effort to close the chinese war promptly the tokyo cabinet sat in extraordinary session splendid isolation was the advice of tokyo newspapers but ther was good evidence japan was willing to turn about and woo for democracies friendship |