TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21206, 31 August 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Open Letter to Congress In an “open letter” to the United States Congress calling for immediate effective aid to the Allies, Miss Dorothy Thompson, the noted American journalist, and wife of Mr Sinclair Lewis, the novelist, writes in the New York Herald-Tribune:—“You must act to protect the instruments of defence we already have at the place where they are already engaged in battle—namely, the British Navy in the North Sea and at Gibraltar, and the French Army in France. For, if they go, the United States has lost the war, and lost its power, and will be the prisoner of Hitler. There is talk in Washington now of building a two-ocean navy. Gentlemen, if the British Navy goes into German hands our destiny will have been settled before a keel is laid. There are times in history when a cruel choice cannot be avoided. This is such a time. If you are determined that the Nazi flag shall not wave over the world nor we live as its subjects, if you are determined that the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of Lincoln shall not perish from this earth, you should go to war, and go now. The logic of facts is inexorable. We should move now.”