Road to Peace

By his plausible analysis of the U. S. Road to War in 1914-17 (TIME, May 6, 1935 et seq.), able Writer Walter Millis two years ago pointed out what looked to four U. S. Senators--Nye, Clark, Vandenberg and Bone--and to many a plain citizen, like a plain road to peace. If it were true that the U. S. had fought in the World War not to make the world safe for democracy but to save the frog-skins of its merchants and moneylenders, then the gloriously sure and simple way for it to stay out of the next one was to keep its trade and money at home when the fighting began. Steamed up by the Millis book and FORTUNE'S "Arms and the Men" (munitions-makers), the Senate peacemen got their start on the crest of the Italo-Ethiopian war scare. Whooped through Congress was a temporary resolution banning sale of U. S. arms to nations at war, empowering the President to forbid U. S. citizens to travel on belligerents' boats (TIME, Sept. 2, 1935).

The war scare had died down by the time this statute was due to expire early last year, and the peacemen were unable to replace it with permanent legislation. But they did manage to tack on an amendment prohibiting loans and credits to belligerents, get the resolution extended for another 14 months.

By last week only two of those 14 months were left. War seemed no nearer than it had a year ago, but it was still near enough, and popular determination to stay out of it was firmer than ever. Up for debate in the Senate came a bill, introduced by Foreign Relations Chairman Key Pittman of Nevada, to make present safeguards permanent. To keep U. S. ships from being sunk, U. S.-owned goods from being seized or destroyed, Senator Pittman further proposed to put all wartime trade with belligerents on a cash & carry basis. As soon as the President proclaimed the existence of a foreign war, no goods consigned to belligerents could leave U. S. ports until the buyers had acquired full title to them. At his discretion the President could name war-useful materials other than munitions (cotton, steel, copper, oil), which U. S. ships would be forbidden to carry even for cash.*

Oddly enough, chief opposition to this ultra-isolationist measure came from the Senate's two most famed isolationists, Borah of Idaho and Johnson of California, both veterans of the League fight of 1919. For those oldsters, isolation means that the U. S. shall not only mind its own business, but shall also stand up for its rights. To them, the Pittman proposal seemed a craven yielding up of the great right of freedom of the seas, for which the nation had stood through all its history. Furthermore, they declaimed, it would not bring peace, but war. Since only two nations have navies big enough to do a cash & carry business with the U. S., this nation would inevitably become an ally of Great Britain in the Atlantic, Japan in the Pacific. Stirred to wrath and driven to desperation, their antagonists, boomed Senator Borah, might well send air armadas to bomb U. S. ports.

The peace-hungry Senate was unimpressed. When the vote on the bill came, only the grandson of another 1919 irreconcilable, Massachusetts' Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and three other Senators lined up with Borah and Johnson against it, 6-to-63. Hardly touched on in the debate was the tremendous price the nation would probably pay for peace by economic isolation, the chance that even before guns were fired war-minded powers might transfer their buying from the U. S. to other nations.

This week the House was scheduled to debate, and quickly pass, a bill sponsored by Foreign Affairs Chairman Sam D. McReynolds which differs from the Pittman bill chiefly in letting the President use his discretion about putting non-munitions trade on a "cash" basis. Anxious to meet unpredictable circumstances with hands as free as possible, President Roosevelt would like to have that authority. His chance of getting it seemed small last week when the peace-at-any-price Senate roundly rejected Senator Borah's proposal to give it to him, even stanch Administrationists voting "no."

*The Pittman terms would apply to civil wars, would exempt American republics unless they were allied with an Eastern Hemisphere power in war abroad.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.