President Attacked Bitterly in Congress

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1939, Page 5

President Attacked Bitterly in Congress

ISOLATIONIST sentiment badly jolted MR ROOSEVELT’S “SECRECY" CRITICISED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. WASHINGTON, February 2. No act of any President relative to foreign policy since the World War has caused such a stirring of public opinion as Mr Roosevelts approval of the sale of planes to France ostensibly to aid the democracies against the dictatorships. The bitter attack launched against President Roosevelt in Congress today seems likely to be augmented tomorrow, since further revelations of what allegedly transpired between the President and the Senate Military Affairs Committee are likely to add fuel to the fire. President Roosevelt is now reported to have painted a picture of a world on top of a volcano which is ready to explode and to have taken the view that the United States would feel the consequence of that explosion, no matter what policies it might follow. The President is further reported to have indicated that he felt that, in the growing conflict between the democratic and authoritarian ideals, Britain and France had carried the brunt of the attack, while the United States had remained relatively secure and aloof. America’s basic isolation sentiment seemingly will receive a bad jolt from these revelations and the protagonists of this isolationism seem certain to be driven tp extremes against President Roosevelt’s point of view. Nationwide editorial comment is critical of the method the President has adopted, even if it approves of the policy itself. As an example the “New York Herald-Tribune” says that the shock proceeds from the secrecy of the President’s tactics rather than from the substance of his policy. MR HOOVER’S WARNING Bombing of British and French Cities WOULD PROBABLY RESULT IN AMERICA ENTERING WAR NEW YORK, February 2. Mr Herbert Hoover, Republican President of the United States from 1929 ( to 1933, today warned the dictators that the bombing of British and French cities would probably result in the United States entering a war against them. Significance is given to this statement because the former President is still a prominent leader of the Conservative Republican Party, the sentiments of which hitherto have been strongly isolationist. It is further evidence of the extent to which feeling against the dictators has been stirred up in the United States since Munich. Mr Hoover expressed the opinion that the western European democracies could easily defend themselves against military attack. Their land and sea defences were probably impregnable. He added: “We must not close our eyes to one condition under which the American people, disregarding all other questions, might join in a European war. We are humane people and our humanity can be overstrained by brutality.

“That was one of the causes of our entry into the last war. If Wholesale attacks are made upon women and children by the deliberate destruction of cities from the air, then the indignation of the American people could not be restrained from action.”