Sounding Trumpets

Throughout the civilized world last week the fate of Finland and the future of civilization haunted the minds of civilized men. In the U. S. Senate Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas was speaking just before a proposal to aid Finland was placed before the most powerful legislative body in the world. It was cold blustery in Washington that day --considerably warmer than in Helsinki and a number of Senators stayed home. The aged Senator, tireless foe of his hatred of it whetted by his 37 years Congress, was in great form. Representative of a State that has twice population, more oil than Russia, no for Communists, and a magnificent of struggle against odds in the Battle the Alamo, Senator Sheppard was bold : "This is the time for the lifted voice and the sounding trumpet."

But Senator Sheppard was not talking about aid to Finland. He was talking about Prohibition (as he always has on this date since 1920). "We cannot continue," he cried, "to pour nearly 2,000,000,000 gallons of alcoholic drink every year into the veins of our democracy and expect it to retain the vigor and efficiency so vitally necessary in these critical times." Then he sat down. (Manifestations of applause in the galleries.)

Proposal. Whether the Senator's diagnosis was the correct one, the next few minutes suggested to many an appalled observer that something had certainly sapped democracy's vigor. Read to the Senators was President Roosevelt's modest proposal for a small loan to Finland. It was not the only one to reach them. Youngish, independent Senator Prentiss Brown of Michigan (pop. 4,800,000) had proposed an outright loan of $60,000,000, but no action had been taken on it.

Wrote the President: "There is without doubt in the United States a great desire ... to assist Finland to finance the purchase of agricultural surpluses and manufactured products, not including implements of war." But, he went on, there was also no desire for "the creation of precedents which might lead to large credits to nations in Europe. . . ." He therefore proposed that Congress increase the revolving fund of the Export-Import Bank, to enable it to finance exports (but not arms). He said that soon the Government would consider applications for loans in Scandinavia and South America.

Lifted Voices. Less than crystal clear was the President's proposal, which was supported by ex-President Hoover. It was no secret that Finland needed arms more than food, money more than arms. The vague reference to loans in South America frightened some who might otherwise have approved of aid to the Finns. But if the President's proposal lacked clarity, the Senators' discussion lacked that and a good deal more. What worried Senators was not aid to Finland. It was: should the President's letter be referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency? Or should it be sent to the Committee on Foreign Relations?

There was no lack of lifted voices and sounding trumpets on this heroic dispute. The gallant heir of the traditions of the Lone Star State, Senator Tom Connally, plumping for Foreign Relations, denied vehemently and at length that his choice was motivated by pride, of which nobody accused him, made it clear at the conclusion of his talk that nobody could accuse him of wanting to aid Finland either. Senator George of Georgia talked just as long in the same cause, proclaiming his inability to tell the difference between sending money to Finland and sending a battleship. Vainly Administration Leader Barkley insisted that there was no violation of U. S. neutrality in the President's suggestion, reminded Senators that the Export-Import Bank had lent $25,000,000 to China without jeopardizing U. S. neutrality.

Aid. Long before the debate was over, disgusted observers wondered who really needed aid. Between the tweedledee Committee on Banking and Currency, and the tweedledum Committee on Foreign Relations, the Senate wavered in such agony as to make the resistance of Finland seem even more heroic than it had seemed before. Statesmanlike solution of Senator McNary of Oregon was gratefully accepted. His proposal: send the letter to both committees. That meant more delay. As the Committee on Banking and Currency prepared to hear Secretary of State Hull's opinion, and as Senator Brown prepared to revise his bill with Administration support, the Communist Daily Worker crowed: "Congressional leaders have gotten a little jittery. . . ."

Reaction. So it appeared to staggered Finns that they would get no help from the U. S. Outside the Senate, U. S. relief for Finland went forward: the Finnish Relief Fund raised its first $1,000,000; Herbert Hoover rounded up a committee of industrialists, got them to pledge $1,000,000 more. The National Labor Organizations Division of Finnish Relief, hampered in its formative stages by the delicate problem of Communists in the labor movement, at last got organized.

But more sharply than at any time since the war began, the Senate's action posed the dilemma of extreme isolationists. Against the vague fear that at some future time a loan to Finland might lead to credits that might lead to war, there loomed another possibility--that a Russian victory in Finland would lead to an attack on Sweden, to an eventual German-Russian revolutionary dominance of Scandinavia that would crush four of the world's democratic governments and so form a combination that no European power could resist. But such possibilities were not discussed in the Senate. The future of civilization might be involved, but the Senate of the U. S. was mainly perplexed about what committee had jurisdiction in the matter.

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