U.S. ANTI-AXIS FRONT UNBROKEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 94, 17 October 1940, Page 10

U.S. ANTI-AXIS FRONT UNBROKEN

The tripartite pact has miscarried sadly in the United States. When Berlin, Rome, and Tokio conspired to throw, from Tokio, this bombshell into the ranks of the United States Presidential campaigners, the idea of the Big Three was that somebody in America would seize the chance to make election capital out of the threat. inherent in the pact. For instance, if Mr. Willkie had been tempted to say to the Americans "Don't vote for Roosevelt because he is running you into war with Japan"—then Tokio would have felt that its pact-bomb was a complete success. But instead of the Berlin-Rome-Tokio threat being seized upon by Republicans or by isolationists as an election stick with which to beat Mr. Roosevelt, the result of the pact and of its hostile implications has been to harden the heart of I Americans against aggressors. Today comes news of the military registration of 16^ million Americans) (ages 21-35) and of a statement byj the Republican Presidential candidate, Mr. Willkie, in which he saidj that the men are "registering for one I more chance for freedom." President Roosevelt himself said that the aggressors who had imposed total war had also "imposed on the Americans and on all friendly peoples the necessity for total defence." The position in a nutshell is ihat Berlin, Rome, and Tokio formed i a front to break the American front, choosing the American election campaign as suitable to the disruptive designs of the Big Three. Their coup has failed. The American front is stronger than ever.