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Show National Topics Interpreted J 2 bv William Bruckart Ml' National Pres Bulldlnr Washington, D. C. tntf pushed from the extension ol; cretlonary authority to the I dent. To say It another wav sentiment appears to be In of making the embargoes annm to all belligerent power, 'J Just to one nation whose claim' government may believe to b, It Is safe to say that befora! gress determines definitely wh, r- Permanent r Expect shallbe,,crV not Debate be bitter de In exaiiiinim-problems. exaiiiinim-problems. It Is to be remember,,, , when thegovernment laysaneiiil against all nations at war It ; away possibilities of tremor profit This profit accrues to ' indusries by which sustaining materials are produced. Ke, ity legislation, therefore, may i' costly, not as costly as war : haps, but nevertheless a costi1 tion. Hence, there Is no que' that many lines of commerce' Industry are going to be drawn' the preliminaries of this decs To explain how disturbing to tain lines of Industry this can be, It Is only necessary t-call t-call events of the last month i' In connection with the sane-proposed sane-proposed by the League of Nat'. The league has tried to force dictator, Mussolini, to with,-from with,-from Africa by the use of en, goes, which Is what sanctions The league proceeded with co erable vigor until It reached question of oil. Immediately, i began to pinch and the feet . were pinched were In every try where oil Is found, even own. As a result, they have led, oil horse up to the watering tr-from tr-from a half dozen different proaches but they have not-been not-been able to make him drink. , own oil Interests have not been, escent. If the league bans oil ments to Italy, the United SL which Is not a member of league, obviously will do like" Profits of the oil companies 1 the hundreds upon hundred!" thousands of shareholders w: be cut. 3 Further, Mussolini has annou ' pub'icly that Imposition of the , bargo upon oil would mean war,' did not say with whom he wf go to war but the British and, French know and they are ge ready. The British have the e,! home fleet in the Mediterranea this time and the Blue Jac" aboard the British men of war " been drilled thoroughly anev the science of manning their guns. :t So It Is seen how delicate whole circumstance Is. It Is iJ that wdien congress deals with" neutrality legislation, It Is mol-a mol-a pattern over which there wil., undoubtedly an alignment ar-( our citizens as sharply drawl though It were a purely dom. question. There will be those" course, who favor a permanent 3 Icy which will make It mandr' upon the President to apply -bargoes against shipments of thing usable In war and treai'' nations engaged In war alike. T : will be set off against this tlment those who think the 0 Executive should have discretion power and that the govcrni should not be placed In a si , Jacket from which It cannot e cate Itself without congresslona., tion. Whatever the conclusions t be and whatever form the new . Islation takes, It remains as oi . the most Important policies to i. before congress in many mi. Whatever Is done necessarily a precedent toward which ft. generations will look as time on whether civilization beo more enlightened or not. ... "The Treasury, operating on i;; cal year that runs from J'l'y'i, June 30, has ... Must Cut . passed the Outgo way plnt D ' current 12-m -period. The figures show tha 1 receipts are lagging far behlnc expenditures and demonstrates; necessity for cutting down the '., eral outgo unless the nation de to see Its public debt go far be; any total hitherto conceived. ;t The official Treasury statement of Pecembcr 30 shows that the ernment has spent approxlm $1,S.")0.000,000 more in the flrs months of this fiscal year tin Washington. It was in the sultry days of the summer of 1914, it will be remem-Waiting remem-Waiting bercnL that Arch- for a Spark duke Ferdinnnd was laid low by an assassin's bullet In a remote province of Austria. At the time, the assassination was front-page news for most of the newspapers but lis real Import was not generally gener-ally recognized. Nevertheless, from that Incident sprang the greatest war the world has ever known. Within a few months of 22 years after the assassination at Sarajevo the world sees a situation In Europe where another such incident would have consequences Just as violent. At the present time, ammunition dumps all over Europe are waiting for a spark to set them off. It may be an accidental spark or It may be a spark deliberately cast Into that powder keg. I do not mean to say that It will happen but I do wish to emphasize that at no time since the archduke's assassination has there been a field so fertile for the promotion pro-motion of a gigantic war as the present It may seem, and It undoubtedly does seem to many, that the dangers dan-gers Inherent In the European situation sit-uation at present are afar off. But. It can be recalled that there were those In this country who, as late as 1916, said the European war was 3,000 miles away. Before It ended, however, 5,000,000 American boys and young men had been drafted to be thrown Into that European cauldron. caul-dron. It may happen again. While there Is no Immediate possibility pos-sibility of the United States getting tangled up In the European political problems which spring from hostilities hostil-ities between Ethiopia and Italy, those who know history cannot fail to agree with the statement that It Is never too early to plan for preventing pre-venting war. For that reason, then, I believe almost every family in the United States has a stake, either directly or indirectly, In one of the problems with which congress must deal. This legislation is known by the short and rather Indescrlptive title of the neutrality policy. It Is, Indeed, Just that, but the point I seek to make is that the title does not convey by any manner or means Its full Importance or its full effect upon the lives of each of us. If a policy can be worked out, a policy that Is effective, obviously our chances for remaining out of any hostilities in Europe or In Asia for that matter are certainly much better. I do not know and I do not believe anybody can say accurately that it is possible to develop a neu trality policy that will be fool-proof; or that will guarantee to us the removal of possible entanglements. A year ago about this time, congress con-gress enacted a bill which was designed de-signed to prevent Keep Us the shipment of Out of War war materials to any belligerent nation or nations. It was mandatory. manda-tory. The President was directed by congress to lay an embargo against the shipment of arms, ammunition am-munition of war to any countries engaged In hostilities regardless of whether their claims were right or wrong. We have had some experience experi-ence with the force of that legislation legisla-tion already and It has not been without Its embarrassing and difficult diffi-cult phases. Now, however, It Is proposed to revamp that legislation legisla-tion which was admittedly of a temporary tem-porary character and Is due to expire ex-pire by limitation of law on February Febru-ary 29. Congress has been told rather definitely, I think, that this country wants to remain out of someone else's war. The President has the same idea. So, Instead of allowing our citizens to run wild, ship anything and everything, make contracts with the countries now engaged In war or those that may be engaged later, It Is proposed pro-posed that we have a permanent policy embodying whatever principles princi-ples maj be found wisest to protect us from ourselves and prevent us from throwing ourselves again into such a volcano of molten lava as any present-day war would be. The problem Is not as simple as It appears on the surface. When congress enacted the present neutrality neu-trality legislation, It provided that the embargoes, when and If laid, must apply to all. It gave the President no discretionary power to determine whether we wanted to use these embargoes as a weapon against one nation while aiding another. an-other. Mr. Roosevelt, In ncceptlng received In taxes and other enue. 3) In consequence of this dericll public debt Is now approxlm , $30,000,000,000, the highest pnl.( ever has reached and that tot-roughly tot-roughly two billion dollars h cj than the public debt as It stooc,lV; July 1 when the present focal began. ';o. Since the expenditures wer. much larger than the receipts Treasury has been openitng .(. basis that, reduced to the ininli shows an outgo of about $!... everv $1.00 collected In revenue Ing 'the first half of the cu year. 'a C We.tern NowPP"'U"''1m- me original legislation, shall publicly pub-licly that he believed that he should have such discretionary power. This was In line with the conclusions conclu-sions of the Department of State which necessarily must be the President's Pres-ident's adviser on matters of this kind. Congress was criticized In many quarters when It made the embargoes embar-goes applicable to nil belligerents. Now, however, If we may Judge from the word that conies to Washington, Washing-ton, sentiment seems to be swinging swing-ing In the oilier direction and there certainly Is a considerable., If not a majority, sentiment for use of the mandatorj irovlsion as dlstin- |
