Show GENERAL HUGH S JOHNSON AS TO suggestion NEW YORK general pershing says that we ought to sell 50 obsolete destroyers to england to save our own country from germany on the same subject george fielding eliot says the question which we have to ask ourselves is a plain one it ought not to be befuddled by such non essentials as whether the transfer of destroyers to great britain brita would or would not be an act of war it would be of course but that is only an academic question the legal definitions of internal dional conduct are now obsolete it seems that everything is now obsolete as far as it suits the purpose of those who are hell bent on getting this country into a war for which it is completely unprepared the destroyers are obsolete our own engagements in treaties and conventions and the things we have alwa always y s stood and sometimes fought for are in international law obsolete As to the destroyers being obsolete if they are how does it happen as men of this opinion intimate or argue that the battle of britain the fate of the worlds freedom and the safety of our own country depend 1 upon sending them to britain 1 As an american officer said when I 1 it was being argued that we ought j also to send over a million obed j lete springfield rifles no rifle is ia obsolete that will kill a man with an aimed shot at 1500 yards especially when you have nothing with which to replace it A ship necessarily become obsolete or surplus simply because it is 16 years old nobody has shown this more clearly and honestly than major eliot I 1 dont know his qualifications as a naval expert but applying well known published naval standards and opinions as to the proper ratio of destroyers to battleships major eliot showed that practically none of these destroyers is surplus or can be taken without stripping our own navy they are no more surplus than obsolete just as a sidelight most of them are armed with four inch and three 1 inch guns as well as with antiaircraft guns except for world war 75 mm artillery about three inch cannon of higher caliber and antiaircraft anti aircraft guns are what we do not have what we most need and what we have the least prospect of 0 getting quickly at in mr knudsens Knud sens last progress report as published bottleneck bottle neck items of procurement were discussed as well as those in which there were no bottlenecks bottle necks but he mention cannon he probably mention them because the trouble there just a bottleneck bottle neck its a needles eye and a flock of camels major eliot is very frank and very accurate in calling the shipment of destroyers an act of war it is war itself but it is vicarious war undercover war the kind of war we have always condemned and pledged ourselves not to wage the weakness of this position seems to me to be this our policy always has been not to be aggressors in any war we fight only when we are attacked or threatened these war minded men are put in the position of having to say and they do say that we are so threatened now to the death if that is not true then we ought not to go to war even to this blind pig bootleg war if it is true then we ought to go to war tomorrow with everything we have in a fight to a knockout you cant hit soft 0 0 a LINDBERGH AND PERSHING you can get a sample taste of what can happen here from the debate in the senate blasting charles Lind berghs speech three new deal senators than whom there are none danced around the torture stake minton pepper and with deep blushes for my own home state of oklahoma that aneff ineffable able ex teacher of elocution and decarte De sarte josh lee these gentlemen offered to disembowel lindbergh for saying that if we are arc going to do business at all after this war is over we will have to do it with both victor and vanquished even it if the victor is germany that we shall have to reconcile ourselves to this idea and that it would be wise to try to intercede to stop this war before it destroys any more of civilization some journals imply that lind lin d berghs speech had been ghost writ ten by nazis and contrasted it with general ings urging that we send part of our navy 50 destroyers into this war by the subterfuge of selling them I 1 disagree with part of what lindbergh said but the man who denies his right to say it as being un american convicts himself thereby of an un american state of mind out Hitler mg ing hitler black jack at 80 is still one of the worlds great soldiers but he knows as little naval strategy as I 1 george eliot unconsciously his text at the moment of its utterance however it may later be dragooned by the apostate knox I 1 happen to know that the navy agree with general pershing |