AXIS COMMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 October 1941, Page 6

AXIS COMMENT

ON PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S SPEECH WAR IN NEAR PROSPECT. SPECULATION IN JAPAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m,) LONDON, October 28. “The Axis will attack United States convoys as soon as they enter the war zones and thereby bring America into the war,” declared an official spokesman in Rome, commenting on President Roosevelt’s speech. The spokesman added that it was undoubtedly President Roosevelt’s strongest and frankest speech to date. Japanese observers consider the President’s failure to mention Japan indicates that the Japanese-American negotiations in Washington are P 1 0" gressing. The “Yomiuri Shimbun says President Roosevelt’s statement that Americans have already taken up battle stations is equivalent to a declaration of war against Germany. QUICK EFFECT EXPECTED IN WASHINGTON. ISOLATIONISM A DYING CAUSE. (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, October 28. President Roosevelt’s speech was an effort to again place himself in the leadership of the country on the question of America’s part in the .war, says a Washington message. The capital has been buzzing during the week over the fact that the President’s advisers had induced him to take a hesitant course on the revision of the Neutrality Act, thus giving Mr Willkie an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate clearly that popular sentiment is far ahead of the Administration on

the question. The speech, therefore, was in the nature of a rallying cry by the leader for his followers to fall in after him. It is likely to have a quick effect. The whole tenor of the President's remarks showed how conscious he is that the nation is at war, even without the benefit of a declaration. Isolationism is a dying cause in America. There is mounting popular impatience with its exponents, who continue to obstruct the country’s growing effort against Hitler.