Show OUR FOREIGN POLICY in theory meetings of the senate military affairs committee are usually supposed to be strictly s se cret in practice information about what goes on at the conclaves us bally starts leaking out immediate ly after they are arc over senators are arc only human and like anyone else with important special knowledge in their minds they have a hard time keeping keepin it to themselves we are embarking on the largest armament program in our peacetime peace time history and when a country builds a war machine it involves far more than merely appropriating the money increasing the personnel of our fighting forces and placing the orders with the arms and ammunitions makers it involves the gravest question of policy it involves our entire a attitude t toward the relations with the other nations in the world and it thus very directly involves every person in the country we have apparently reached the time when our foreign policy musti must be definitely fixed and established one way or another and this is going to be no simple matter for fop I 1 the congress con giess seems to be bitterly divided over what our policy should be and it is not in any sense a partisan dIv division islon politics plays play little or no part in it on the one hand are arc those who believe sincerely that in a sense we are our brothers keeper that as the only great democracy immune from immediate attack by a powerful totalitarian state it is up to us to throw the weight of our influences and resources behind the nien menaced aced democracies these men see sec the world as a great battleground tle in which an undeclared war without quarter is taking place between fascism and democracy the cause of democracy in europe they reason will soon be lost unless helped by the new world demo democracy racy and if that happens they argue we will be next in line for fascist aggression so they conclude the thing to do is is to help the old world democracies stave off fascism before it is too late the me other school believes with equal sin sincerity centy in rigorous isolation that means a policy of treat ing ng all countries democratic or totalitarian with equal consideration they feel we must build up an adequate defensive military machine and keep our resources for our own use they favor strengthening not weakening our neutral ity ty policy itis it is not our business they argue to pull any count country ryu u fat out of the lit inc c arid and they conclude if we insist on aiding the other democracies with moral suasion and giving them access to our factories and resources it will eventually mean that we will have alto to aid them with our army and navy president wilsons Wil sons refusal to be neutral they think and his obvious bias toward the allies was responsible for bringing us unnecessarily essa rily into the world war this illustrates the two major extremes of thought there are of course many more moderate groups which favor a modified neutrality or modified internal tiomi sm no one can answer now the question of which side will win mr air roosevelt it is believed feels that neutrality must be somewhat relaxed on the other hand there is a strong and determined group in Con compress cress led by senator borah which is determined to resist to the end any administration effort to actively aid the european democracies at this writing it looks like a stalemate is in prospect over foreign policy |