National Affairs: War Party?

This week Congress convenes in a momentous session to decide the U. S. stand on neutrality for the opening of World War II. This week a FORTUNE survey will show that: 1) two-thirds of the American people are against a strict U. S. isolationist policy; only 25% oppose all trade with belligerents; 2) 83% want Britain and France to win the war; 65% thought they could (before Russia came in); 3) 17% are willing to send U. S. armed forces to fight for the Allies, and 20% favor helping them by all means short of war. Further FORTUNE findings:

¶Only 1% of U. S. people want Germany to win the war.

¶Of those who would send U. S. armed forces to fight for the Allies, women are almost as numerous as men.

¶Negroes lead all other classes in wanting to fight Hitler, the poor are keener than the rich.

¶For every pro-war citizen in the central wheat basin there are six in the South.

¶Farmers and smalltowners are twice as pro-war as metropolitanites.

Concludes FORTUNE: “The U. S. desire to remain at peace does not. . . seem to be accompanied by a firm conviction that we shall properly be able to keep out of war.”

A similar finding that there is a war-minded U. S. minority was obtained last week by a Gallup poll. Question: “If it looks within the next few months as if England and France might be defeated, should the United States declare war on Germany and send our troops abroad?” Answer: 40% “Yes.”

In other ways last week Americans voiced their war thoughts:

¶Veterans of the ist Division (first U. S. troops to go overseas in World War I) met in Los Angeles, took the stump for neutrality. Said one ex-doughboy: “All that we lost in France in 1917 and 1918 was the flower of our manhood and our money . . . it’s too late to go back and look for them now.”

¶In Atlantic City 5,000 United Spanish War Veterans adopted a resolution asking the President and Congress to “keep us out of war, save and except in defense of our liberties and our beloved institutions and ideals.”

¶To 10,000 Italian-American delegates to the Sons of Italy convention in San Francisco, Stefano Miele (Supreme Venerable of the society) exclaimed: “Let us thank God that America is neutral.”

¶The American Farm Bureau Federation demanded prompt repeal of Neutrality Act embargo provisions, substitution of cash-&-carry basis, with profits restricted.

¶To his members, U. S. Chamber of Commerce President W. Gibson Carey Jr. sent a message: “We business men . . . wish no profit advantage through the wrecking of great cultural and spiritual values. . . . We want peace in the world.”