PANAMA DEFENCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1940, Page 5

PANAMA DEFENCES

PRESIDENT . ROOSEVELT WARNS CONGRESS QUESTION OF PARTICIPATION IN WAR. ALLEGATION BY REPUBLICAN SENATOR. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright, WASHINGTON. March 3. President Roosevelt warned Congress that it would be I'uily responsible for delaying lhe military improvement of lhe Panama Canal. lie added that all the 21 American republics were agreed upon joint defence of the canal in the event of the United States beintr involved in the war.

Mr Roosevelt, in a message to lhe conference of the Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, said: "Americans are proud of their tradition of hospitality to all races and creeds .... We must guard the civil rights and liberties of all citizens, whatever their background.’’ His message is regarded as significant in view of the fact that more than 70 anti-alien Bills arc pending in Congress.

Senator Taft, in a speech, said that JVI r Roosevelt had not wholeheartedly accepted the manifest desire of Americans to stay out of the European war except in the case of self-defence. He added that Mr Roosevelt had implied the United States’ right to intervene because of the character of certain of the belligerents. The President was leaning to a ..belief that the United States should enter the war to defend democracy against the dictatorships.