ONE VOTE DOWN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19988, 13 July 1939, Page 5

ONE VOTE DOWN

ROOSEYELT CHECK SENATE COMMITTEE POLL REVISION OF NEUTRALITY REPETITION OF WARNING ISOLATION FILIBUSTER. (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. July 13, 9 a.m.) 1 WASHINGTON, July 12. Beaten by one vote at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Roosevelt last night insisted that Congress remain in session until new neutrality legislation lifting the arms embargo is enacted. He issued a warning that an outbreak of war would make it extremely difficult to revise the Neutrality Act. The only way a bill approved by the House can reach the Senate now is through a motion to discharge The committee from further consideration of it. However, while the Administration claims to have a Senate majority, the isolationist bloc threatens a filibuster. According to the New York Times, the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, and Senators Barkley and Pittman are devising a plan involving offering as a Senate amendment to the Bill, a clause repealing all the neutrality legislation. It is claimed this would not force the House to register the original vote on a proposal against which it had once committed itself. It would offer the best chance of preventing a filibuster and it would attract a large vote in the Senate from those favouring repeal and those dissatisfied with the present proposal for revision. Not Clear-Cut Test Mr. Roosevelt declared that the committee’s vote “was not a clear cut test of the Senate views. Two Democrats, Senator Gillette, of lowa, and Senator George, of Georgia, whom the President attempted to purge in the last primaries, held the balance of power in the committee. ' They voted to postpone consideration of the bill till next session.

Mr. Roosevelt refused to tell the press his next move, but reiterated that if Congress adjourned without enacting tire legislation, it would mean that nothing could be done before. next spring. Meanwhile all kinds of things might happen.

He indicated that he dees not intend calling a special session unles» Europe is plunged into war.

Mr. Hull, grim and unsmiling, told press representatives that the interests of peace and security of the United States required that the Government continue to urge the adoption of the neutrality programme. , “Come Home To Roost” The New York Herald-Tribune, in an editorial, says: “The Presidents purge has come home to roost. It is the country’s loss that his wishes were not respected, but too many men in the committee had their own taste of Presidential abuse of power and position. It is cold comfort when Republicans and Democrats alike feel that a world crisis makes it imperative for the President to have a free hand hi the matter of neutrality, but it shows that even when a man is overwhelmingly popular, spite m politics does not pay.”

Senator Pittman’s proposal is a substitute for the Japanese embargo he introduced earlier. It would ban the export of arms, ammunition and scrap metals to Japan. Senator i - man expressed the opinion that t e matter could be kept clear from the ouestion of neutrality revision, because the United States Government was free to take retaliatory action against a nation which violated the open-door section of the Nine-Power Pact,