The World and H. R. 1776

American flags flew in the streets of London last week and in Sydney crowds sang The Star-Spangled Banner. In Rio de Janeiro one Candido Botelho, a baritone, became the star of the Urea Casino floor show when he sang God Bless America in English against a backdrop of U. S. and Brazilian flags, with chorus girls wearing red, white & blue uniforms.

Words of hope came from all parts of the British Empire and from its allies. That great master of language, Winston Churchill, called the Lend-Lease Act "a new Magna Charta, which not only has regard to the rights and laws upon which a healthy and advancing civilization can alone be erected, but also proclaims, by precept and example, the duty of free men and free nations, wherever they may be, to share the responsibility and burden of enforcing them." Concluded Britain's Churchill: "In the name of His Majesty's Government ... I offer to the United States our gratitude for her inspiring act of faith." In the House of Commons, where these words were spoken, members on the floor smiled and waved at the gallery, where sat eight conspicuously uniformed U. S. military attaches.

The law, said Canada's Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, "will stand throughout time as one of the milestones of freedom. It points the way to ultimate and certain victory." Australia's Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies broadcast this message of thanks to the U. S.: "You are neutral and we are at war, but you have made the whole world understand that the moral and material might of a great neutral country can always be placed behind the belligerent, who fights for justice." Closer to realism, Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts of South Africa said: "Hitler has at last brought America into the war."

To Chungking passage of the bill "marked a turning point in world affairs." In Athens the newspaper Kathemerini echoed U. S. isolationists, but in a different tone: "American help will go as far as dispatching military forces to Europe if necessary." In Batavia the Nieuws van den Dag voor N. I. heard "the entire civilized world heave a sigh of relief."

Words of woe came from the totalitarian front. Although the Italian press buried the news of the bill's passage, it began an anti-U.S. campaign which increased in intensity as the days went by. "Roosevelt's gesture," pontificated Virginio Gayda, "which means open intervention in the war against the Axis, may in the end put into motion the functions of the Tripartite Pact and cause many unpleasant surprises to England and the United States in the Pacific." Echoed La Tribuna: "Soon Japan will say her word."

German spokesmen also predicted surprises as a result of Japanese Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka's visit to Berlin (see col 1). But in Berlin, as in Rome, it was admitted that U. S. aid to Britain would probably prolong the war. One German broadcaster verified Germany's concern and coined a phrase in the same sentence: he called President Roosevelt "the hangman of the young nations."

Adolf Hitler paid his respects to the law in a speech commemorating the German dead in World War I. Said he: "No power and no support coming from any part of the world can change the outcome of this battle in any respect. England will fall. . . . International finance and plutocracy wants to fight this war to the finish. So the end of this war will, and must be, its destruction."

Latin America was threatened by Germany, as it always is when the U. S. does something Germany dislikes. Nonetheless, Latin America was enthusiastic over passage of the bill. Cuba and Costa Rica sent congratulations to the U. S. Congress. In Panama and Nicaragua newspapers praised the Act. In Montevideo El Dia called it a triumph for Britain's cause. In Chile satisfaction was mixed with concern over the threat to Chile's long coast line, if the U. S. should go to war with Japan. Argentine newspapers were enthusiastic, but most of them forgot their enthusiasm when they learned that in Washington the House Appropriations Committee had refused to buy Argentine corned beef for the Navy. Only opposition to the Act itself came from the Nazi organs, El Pampero and Crisol. Croaked Crisol: "The Colossus from the North. . . ."

Europe's Neutrals were restrained in their comment. Vichy was surprised at the speed with which the bill was passed, especially since newspapers had given most of their space to arguments of its opponents. To Vichy it seemed that the war had become a race between Germany's armies and U. S. factories. A Hungarian radio commentator thought that if the U. S. was now the arsenal of democracy, Russia must become the arsenal of totalitaria. In Moscow the Navy paper, Red Fleet, was more inclined to agree with Vichy. "The war," said Red Fleet, "is taking the form of a contest between the world's strongest capitalistic industrial machines--a contest for speed, quantity and quality in the production of weapons."

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