Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1940. AMERICAN THOUGHT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 143, 17 May 1940, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1940. AMERICAN THOUGHT.

Those wlio seek to interpret public opinion in the United States regarding 1 the hostilities in Europe find themselves confronted with widespread signs of genuine sympathy, for the Allied cause, but whether that sympathy will crystallise into something bigger—the casting _ of America’s whole weight into the scale in favour of Democracy—very soon remains a problem. In a country as vast as America, with so many diverse elements and conflicting traditions, it takes time to clarify the thinking of the public and to translate sympathy into action. The Neutrality Act debates of last year in Congress brought home to observers how strong is the current that runs through the country favouring an attitude of strict neutrality. Has that feeling undergone any change? The highest instincts of humanitarianism in r tiler count'." -s have bam so outraged that this alone, it may be felt, should have effected a change. And it would perhaps not be wrong to say that this is almost certain to have occurred But sentiment and action are two phases sometimes widely divided. For the ’ moment, however, it is patent that Hitler and his barbarous henchmen have no friend in President Roosevelt, and are steadily building up a wall of public feeling against them which must materially aid the Allied cause.

The President of the United States, in his latest address to the representatives of the American countries, has raised the very pointed question whether they can continue their peaceful construction if all other continents embrace by preference or compulsion a wholly different principle of life. He recognises that steadily the war in Europe is being brought nearer and nearer the United States, though perhaps the most direct blow by the forces of barbarism would be struck at the South American countries. Mr Roosevelt, has also said that in the long run, if necessary, the American countries “will act together to protect our culture, freedom, and civilisation.” 'What the “long run” implies is another puzzle for those who seek to interpret the extent of American feeling. It is realised in Europe that national boundaries are no longer as set out in the maps of the world —the only true boundary lies where the principles of freedom and humanitarianism clash with the inhuman policy, with which the Nazis seek to dominate the world. There will be no security for free peoples until that monster is crushed, as it assuredly will be. While it exists no nation, whether a belligerent or not, can escape the need for colossal armament plans with all the economic disruption they entail. As nations on the- eastern side of the Atlantic bend all

their energies to the task of ending the greatest menace the world has ever known, so must the economic repercussions of this react upon the Americas. They cannot avoid them, because the foundations of national prosperity and human wellbeing rest upon economic strata, chief of which is the free movement of trade and the exchange of goods for goods or services. A force that imperils the security of one nation or a group of them, and causes resort to arms, interferes to some degree with .the economic wellbeing of all the others in the long run.