CAN AMERICA KEEP OUT?
AMERICAN wartime policy, so far as it has emerged, may be summarised as follows : (I) President Roosevelt has pledged, and the nation has overwhelmingly demanded, every effort to keep out of actual participation.
(2) But the President—in a striking deviation from President Wilson's injunction to remain neutral in thought as well as in deed—has told the nation he cannot expect it to remain neutral in its thinking. And the nation has not done so. American sympathies, in the sense of 1917 and not of 1914, are closely allied with the cause of the democracies.
(3) The President has applied the conventional rules of neutrality as well as the embargoes and restrictions required by the Neutrality Act, but he has not withdrawn his pledge to call Congress into special session to repeal the embargo clause. By the time this is read he may well have summoned Congress. But he did not hurry to do so, because he was carefully working to avoid a possible defeat.
The President's policies have numerous objectives. His first purpose, along with the basic aim to maintain American non-participation, has been to regain public confidence, to achieve national unity. Distrust of him personally as a too- volatile executive in foreign policies, fear that his sympathies with the democracies would lead him farther than the country wanted to go, contributed principally to his defeat in Congress in August. Now his job is to re-establish his authority. That regained, he can go ahead with policies which may contribute more directly to the restoration of the principles of international order in which the United States, also, believes.
British readers must realise that the President draws a sharp line of distinction between pre-war and war-time policy. In both periods, the American Government seeks to avoid involvement in war. But in the former period, it was clear that the best way was to try to help avoid the outbreak of war. To that end, the United States was prepared to take some risks and throw some deterrents in the path of the potential aggressors. War having broken out after all, the task of preventing American involvement becomes something quite different. In the pre-war period there was no obligation of neutrality ; now there is.
It may be said that one of the deterrents used in the pre-war period was to intimate both to Germany and Britain that in the event of war the power of the United States would be progressively brought to bear in defence of the democracies. This is quite true. Most Americans agree that some day they may have to get into the war. But they do not want to do so ; it is an unpleasant con- sequence which they are going to avoid if they possibly can. In this respect, Americans are not unlike Mr. Chamberlain, or the public opinion behind him, in past months and years. They hate mightily to face the prospect of conflict, but they fatalistically agree that one day it may come. Meantime, with President Roosevelt, they "hope and believe" they can stay out of war. Perhaps this is illogical, but it is certainly very human. We treat the prospect of ultimate war as we do the dentist.
Technically and legalistically, therefore, the United States is neutral. But how long can a great nation remain technically neutral and emotionally partisan? There is, of course, no question of the near-unanimity and vigour of American sentiments. From the Councils of State down to the man in the street, emotions are precisely the same: "Hitler must be stopped." The President, as he reassur- ingly spoke to the nation of staying out of war, spoke of "Germany's invasion of Poland," and gave many open hints of sympathy. The newspapers, the radio, and the bystander are alike in their incessant and open expressions of partisanship.
Yet emotions today, however strong, are also blunted and case-hardened. Had anybody a few weeks ago imagined the sinking of the Athenia ' as an example of shock to American opinion, any observer would have said that the nation would have been inflamed to the point of spontaneous explosion. Atrocious and horrifying though the sinking was, it produced no such effect, at least at the outset. The incident became to Americans one more proof of the horror and barbarism of Hitlerite policy, whether the result of orders or not. It did not convince the public that the nation should go to war. Public opinion, seared and buffeted by events of recent years, is hard to shock today. Our sensi- bilities are cut on the 1939 pattern.
Therefore, despite the un-neutrality of American think- ing, it is difficult to foresee the circumstances in which non-involvement would turn into active co-operation, and then participation in war. Practically speaking, already the resources, markets, and farms of the United States are open to those nations with sea-power for about 90 per cent. of the supplies or articles they need in war. Only arms, ammunition, and instruments of war are still subject to restriction, and that may not be for long. Our governmental finance agencies are prepared to advance money to exporters with which to facilitate shipments abroad—shipments that can only go to the democracies, because they control the seas.
But such assistance is a long step from active participa- tion, and there is no need to question the sincerity or deter- mination of the President and of national opinion behind him in wishing to avoid participation. Two things, perhaps, might alter the situation. A direct attack by Germany on American shipping, nationals, or sphere of influence—some- thing beyond an isolated outrage like the Athenia '—would certainly cause a re-examination of present policy. And if Britain and France were reduced to dire straits in the war, nearly any American will admit that would change the situation, too.
Officially, the United States is not ready to conclude that the best way of keeping the war out of the western hemisphere, which is the present goal of policy, is to pitch in and help end the war. Instead, the various stages of formal and legislative neutrality are being applied. America's national defences are being strengthened. The United States is in contact with the 21 American republics, seking a common defence policy which is primarily anti- Fascist. However, the bulk of the American fleet remains in the Pacific—a significant reassurance to Great Britain.
So the anomaly continues: formal neutrality, emotional involvement. Where will it end? Plenty of prophets look for fairly early American participation, though probably without an expeditionary force. But that is a rash con- clusion. We cannot apply the old rules for judging events. Possibly the graphic and seemingly inflammatory war news the United States is getting hourly will not lead to the involvement which would seem likeliest, but will strengthen national determination to stay out.
Certainly the manner in which the war is being reported in this nation is one of the miracles of all time. The news- papers are maintaining their ample services from all capitals. But the radio has outdone all historic methods of reporting. During the days just before the declaration of war, and in the days immediately thereafter, the great American broad- casting chains had on-the-spot reporters in the chief European capitals describing events almost every hour. Keen-eyed reporters in Berlin, Warsaw, Paris, London would be linked on short-wave telephone circuits, and would give their impressions in sequence. Even after censorship was applied, the reporters had ample facilities for telling .events and intimating plenty of hints between the lines. The world was on the American doorstep. In such circumstances, can isolation be maintained?
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