Mr. Roosevelt's Secret
The secret of President Roosevelt's decision as to running for a third term is now locked in two breasts, his own and that of Mr. James A. Farley, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It may not be revealed till the Democratic Con- vention meets at Chicago the week after next. Meanwhile Mr. Stephen Early, Mr. Roosevelt's private secretary, has made on the President's behalf a rather perplexing statement on the subject of Continental Monroe Doctrines. Just as American questions are settled by American States, so, he suggested, European questions should be settled by European States, and Asiatic by Asiatic. Whether the President considers the Nazi threat to civilisation a European question, and is prepared to renounce the Nine-Power Treaty, which made the United States a vitally interested party in Asiatic affairs, is by no means clear ; but it seems hardly credible. Mr. Cordell Hull referred to the statement subsequently with notable reserve. Much more clear-cut was a declaration made by the President three days earlier, in which he defined five conditions for permanent peace, freedom from fear, freedom of information, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want. That is a programme to which men of decency and goodwill, and it may be added common sense, in every country might be prepared to rally. But it is obviously incompatible with the survival of the existing dictatorships. With one of them, Germany, Mr. Cordell Hull has just closed down an inevitably incon- clusive discussion on the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine.
