Not for Debate

Last January President Roosevelt told Congress he would send it a message about War Debts. Congress, which dearly loves a War Debt debate, waited month after month without tackling the problem. Last week, with the session almost over and the June 15 debt payment date only a few days off, the President got around to sending his message to Congress. Made up largely of a historical review of the international situation, it was successfully designed to send Congress home without a War Debt wrangle.

All that the President really had to say was put into one sentence: "I suggest that ... no legislation at this session of Congress is either necessary or advisable." Three other points which kept his message from meaning nothing:

1) "The American people would not be disposed to place an impossible burden upon their debtors but are nevertheless in a just position to ask that substantial sacrifices be made to meet these debts." In short, the President stands where Congress stands, ready to demand debt payment, but leaving the amounts open to negotiation.

2) "The American people are certain to be swayed by the use which debtor countries make of their available resources-- whether such resources would be applied for the purposes of recovery as well as for reasonable payment on the debt owed to the citizens of the United States or for purposes of unproductive nationalistic expenditure. ..." In short, France, which has spent millions for armaments but not a sou on its debt in the last two years, cannot expect to be let off easy.

3) "I have made it clear to the debtor nations again and again . . . that each individual nation has full and free opportunity individually to discuss its problem with the United States." In short, the U. S. will listen to reason, but debtors must not try to gang up on the U. S. with threats of joint action.

Congress received the message with a paean of approval. Most common Congressional comment was that the President had "portrayed exactly U. S. sentiment" --that is. he did not propose forgiving the debts. Only Democratic objector of consequence was Virginia's Senator Glass: "I have always been in favor of radical adjustment of the War Debts. We sold munitions of war to the Allies at unconscionable prices. It is asked that our Allies make 'substantial sacrifices to meet these debts.' Already the British bear a burden of taxation so great that a Congressman who suggested it in this country would probably be lynched."

Only Finland has paid her debt in full to date. Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, Italy. Latvia and Lithuania have made token payments. The rest have defaulted. No mention did the President make of the Johnson Act which forbids all future public or private loans to defaulting nations. But in Washington early this week British Ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay sent the State Department a note announcing that, because the Johnson Act invalidates token payments, Great Britain would pay not another farthing "until it becomes possible to discuss an ultimate settlement of the intergovernmental war debts with a reasonable prospect of agreement." Same day Finland's Minister announced that his country would pay in full.

Some foreigners saw a grim humor in the President's implication that debtors must stop extravagant expenditures for armaments if they want consideration from the U. S. The President drafted his message before he left Washington, turned it over to the State Department for expert combing. It was forwarded to him at his Manhattan home where he signed it immediately after his return from reviewing a U. S. fleet on which he is spending more money than any other U. S. President in peacetime.

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