National Affairs: Bad Neighbor Policy

Biggest national event of last week was the dedication of Chicago’s new Centennial Bridge (see p. 61). Standing on a platform on the south plaza of the bridge looking down into the faces of as many Chicagoans as could cram the new drive, Dedicator Franklin Roosevelt, homing from the West, tossed his chin in air and cried: “It is because the people of the United States under modern conditions must, for the sake of their own future, give thought to the rest of the world, that I, as the responsible executive head of the nation, have chosen this great inland city and this gala occasion to speak to you on a subject of definite national importance.”

The amiable citizens who had gathered to hear the President speak a few words in praise of their fine new piece of public works, soon found to their surprise that they were about to hear a stirring speech on international affairs. Before the President had reached his peroration, more astute members of the crowd realized that they had been chosen to hear the first announcement of a new U. S. foreignpolicy.

Moral Indignation. Slowly and solemnly driving home his points, Franklin Roosevelt proceeded:

“The present reign of terror and international lawlessness began a few years ago. It began through unjustified interference in the internal affairs of other nations or the invasion of alien territory in violations of treaties, and has now reached a stage where the very foundations of civilization are seriously threatened. . . .

“Without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of any kind, civilians, including women and children, are being ruthlessly murdered with bombs from the air.

“In times of so-called peace, ships are being attacked and sunk by submarines without cause or notice. Nations are fomenting and taking sides in civil warfare in. nations that have never done them any harm. Nations claiming freedom for themselves deny it to others.

“Innocent peoples and nations are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy which is devoid of all sense of justice and humane consideration.”

Thus with a vigorous push Franklin Roosevelt undertook to turn the scales of public opinion, scales that for weeks had maintained a queazy balance between moral indignation at ruthless international aggression in Spain and China and a feeling that the U. S. must not soil the spirit of peace by taking even a moral stand. To add weight to the push, he quoted from James Hilton’s Lost Horizon a grim passage describing what the world may have in store for it:

“Perhaps we foresee a time when men, exultant in the technique of homicide, will rage so hotly over the world that every precious thing will be in danger, every book and picture and harmony, every treasure garnered through two millenniums, the small, the delicate, the defenseless—all will be lost or wrecked, or utterly destroyed.” Having gone so far he promptly went further.

Cracked Foundation. “The peace-loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality. . . .

“There is a solidarity and interdependence about the modern world, both technically and morally, which makes it impossible for any nation completely to isolate itself from economic and political upheavals in the rest of the world, especially when such upheavals appear to be spreading and not declining.

“There can be no stability or peace either within nations or between nations except under laws and moral standards adhered to by all. International anarchy destroys every foundation for peace. It jeopardizes either the immediate or the future security of every nation, large or small.”

Franklin Roosevelt did not advertise these words as a renunciation of a foreign policy that dated from 1920. But since the U. S. turned its back on the League of Nations, the U. S. has been sternly devoted to a policy of isolation and a theory that U. S. safety is best served by a 100% laissez faire attitude toward all international quarrels. After more than 15 years that policy was last spring embodied in a permanent Neutrality Act, just in time to die. For isolation to the U. S. means isolation from Europe and 1937 put isolation in a new light by raising a new problem in the Orient. Having failed to apply the Neutrality Act to the War in China, the President may have made it virtually impossible ever to use that law again, for henceforth other nations can legitimately cry “Why pick on us?” Last week, therefore, he went but little further in renouncing the theory behind it. He went still a long way further, however, in suggesting a contrary policy to replace it.

Quarantine. “It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading.

“When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease. . . .

“War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared. It can engulf states and peoples remote from the original scene of hostilities. We are determined to keep out of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the dangers of involvement. We are adopting such measures as will minimize our risk of involvement, but we cannot have complete protection in a world of disorder in which confidence and security have broken down. . . .

“There must be positive endeavors to preserve peace.

“America hates war., America hopes for peace. Therefore, America actively engages in the search for peace.”

That the subject of the President’s speech last week was not known in advance by no means indicated that it was the result either of hasty decision or of hasty preparation. Throughout his Western tour Franklin Roosevelt was in close touch with Washington. Well-worn pigskin Presidential mail pouches went to and from the train with incessant regularity. While he stopped beside a road in Washington to watch a “high-rigger” lumberjack lop the top off a fir tree, another kind of high-rigger slung a wire across the single telephone wire along the road, handed the instrument to the President’s Secretary Marvin Mclntyre. Spadework on last week’s speech was presumably done in the State Department by specialists like Ambassador-at-Large Norman Davis. The President presumably reworked their drafts—adding appropriate passages from Lost Horizon—as his train sped east with few visitors aboard.

Vague as the word “quarantine” might be, it clearly indicated that the President was prepared to use diplomatic if not economic pressure on international bullies. It left no doubt whatever that he intended to frame U. S. foreign policy to encourage peace not only by being a good neighbor. but by restraining bad neighbors. Next day his own Secretary of State Cordell Hull took the first step to put this new policy into effect.

General Accord. Meeting in Geneva, the League of Nations’ Far Eastern Advisory Committee received news of the President’s speech six hours before it was delivered. Promptly the wheels of diplomacy began to revolve as scheduled. The Committee drew up a resolution carefully avoiding the word “war,” but condemning Japan as an “invader,” and accusing her of an infringement of the Nine-Power Treaty (guaranteeing China’s territorial integrity) signed in 1922 by China, Japan, the U. S., Great Britain, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal. Next day, in Geneva, the League Assembly unanimously adopted the Committee’s resolution and the stage was set for Cordell Hull to put the new U. S. foreign policy in practice. With no waste of time and no more than necessary diplomatic euphemism the Department of State denounced Japan:

“In the light of the unfolding developments in the Far East the Government of the United States has been forced to the conclusion that the action of Japan in China is inconsistent with the principles which should govern the relationships between nations and is contrary to the provisions of the Nine-Power Treaty of Feb. 6, 1922, regarding principles and policies to be followed in matters concerning China, and to those of the Kellogs-Briand pact of Aug. 27, 1928. Thus the conclusions of this Government with respect to the foregoing are in general accord with those of the Assembly of the League of Nations.”

Only immediate effect of this announcement was to make Japanese diplomats slightly uncomfortable; only certain practical result, to give assurance that the U. S. would sit in with other signatories of the Nine-Power Treaty when they confer, probably within two weeks, on what to do about Japan. On the morning that the President reached Washington, after two days at Hyde Park, he called in Secretary Hull, Ambassador-at-Large Norman Davis —who may well be the U. S. Conference delegate—and Sumner Welles.

Home Politics. To the U. S. public, China is symbolized by Confucius, Ming vases, heroic missionaries, clean shirts and Charlie Chan. Japan means harakiri, imperialism, post cards of Fujiyama, and the Yellow Peril. That Franklin Roosevelt had correctly gauged publicpsychology in giving a cue to all good citizens that the time had come when moral indignation need no longer be suppressed appeared from, the swift reaction to his speech. Europe naturally was pleased but the U. S. press also produced more words of approval, some enthusiastic and some tempered, than have greeted any Roosevelt step in many a month.

Colonel Frank Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News who a year ago, as Republican candidate for Vice President was violently denouncing Franklin Roosevelt, declared “the President’s speech was magnificent.” The New York Times and the Washington Post published a long letter from Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of State Henry Stimson. Mostly written before the President’s speech, the letter ended with a paragraph written after it in which the statesman who guided U. S. policy in the last Sino-Japanese crisis in 1931-32 said he was “filled with hope” that “this act of leadership . . . will result in a new birth of American courage. . . .” The A. F. of L. urged its members to boycott Japanese goods.

Opposition there was from diverse sources: from the Wall Street Journal which front-paged an editorial “Stop Foreign Meddling; America Wants Peace;” from World Peaceways and five other passive-peace organizations; from Senator Gerald P. Nye, sponsor of Neutrality legislation; from Columnist Hugh Johnson who wrote: “Well, here we are again, taking sides in a War.” It appeared, however, working with the most popular member of his Cabinet, the President had, at least for the time being, once more won political support from many whom he had alienated. Besides putting the bothersome question of Justice Hugo Black out of the headlines, he had provided himself with an active-peace issue which promised to remain popular unless it threatened to involve the U. S. in war. Meantime he kept the nation guessing whether his proposed quarantine was to consist of diplomatic pressure, of voluntary boycotts of Japanese goods, or some positive form of economic sanctions.