Ready for Action

WAR & PEACE

Secretary of State Cordell Hull returned to Washington from Havana, richer by one convention, 21 resolutions, one recommendation and four declarations agreed on by the Havana Conference. He said: "The agreements have cleared the decks for effective action."

The old Border Statesman had won a great victory. Statesmanlike, he gave no impression of having done so. But at a critical moment in world history, the Havana Conference proved that the Western Hemisphere, despite internal rivalries that might be exploited by foreign interests, could unite to meet an immediate danger, to ward off a future menace. Before the Conference met, each Latin-American complication, from the fate of the French Island of Martinique to Nazi activities in Uruguay, was a source of U. S. anxiety; after the Conference the prevailing belief was that the U. S. southern flank was se cured, provided means set up at the Havana Conference were implemented.

The unification of the American Republics against totalitarian political and economic penetration would have been a big diplomatic feat in any period. It was doubly impressive in view of traditional Latin-American fear of "Yankee imperialism," that Communists and Nazis labored desperately to keep alive. Agreement on the fate of threatened European colonies in the Western Hemisphere was a diplomatic achievement for future textbooks. It was more impressive in view of the legend that democracies cannot act fast.

But the biggest victory was the triumph of Secretary Hull's patient, unrelenting insistence on the rule of law and the possibility of an international order. Sometimes the speeches he has made have seemed, in view of Nazi triumphs, as old-fashioned as a torchlight parade. Last week his grave words on democratic rights and duties were vindicated, not only in terms of their expression of a cause, but in the practical sense of a measure of defense that the most hard-boiled patriot could subscribe to.

Action. With decks cleared for action, the U. S. had plenty of places where it could act. It began at home. The Havana Conference pronounced against fifth columnists, which meant fifth columnists in the U. S. as well as in Uruguay. In the U. S.:

P:President Roosevelt in a message to Federal, State and local officials meeting in Washington to discuss the fifth column urged legislation dealing with "subversive activities, with seditious acts, with those things which slow up or break down our common defense program."

P:Attorney General Jackson warned that totalitarian powers were trying "to soften this country as France was softened" by promises of business orders and profits.

P:The United Automobile Workers in convention assembled damned Russia, Germany, Italy and Spain as "brutal dictatorships," for the first time put the great C. I. O. union on record against both Communists and Nazis.

P:President Roosevelt ordered an embar go on aviation gasoline to all countries outside the Western Hemisphere (chief targets: Japan, Spain). Dutifully Japanese Ambassador Kensuke Horinouchi in Washington handed Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles a formal note of protest. Spain (where posters called for a return of the Philippines) protested too.

Canada. Another place where the U. S. could act was Canada. Last week the New York Herald Tribune made another proposal: that Canada and the U. S. sign a pact of mutual defense. Its argument: the U. S. could make such a treaty without U. S. involvement in World War II; staff talks could be started; a North Atlantic base be secured. There was no question that if Britain fell Canada would present a big defense problem--not only around Quebec that was the key to the North in the days of Wolfe, but northward through the sparsely inhabited, partly explored regions of the Northwest Territories, through Arctic tundra, through forests of spruce, balsam, white pine as wild as was the American frontier, along vast Canadian rivers like the Mackenzie, navigable for 1,825 miles, that flows into the Arctic Ocean. Said the Herald Tribune: "Such a treaty would be the logical and inevitable culmination of an old and precious friendship between two peoples. As neighbors jointly threatened they would pledge their aid one to another."

Warning. Secretary Hull prepared a statement on Havana's achievement that was anything but a hymn of victory. "The strong belief of the representatives of the twenty-one American nations at the recent Havana meeting was that the military and other sinister activities on the part of some nations in other large areas of the world present real possibilities of danger to the American Republics. ... It was, therefore, agreed that full and adequate preparations for continental defense could not be taken too soon. . . .

"The vast forces of lawlessness, conquest and destruction are still moving across the earth like a savage and dangerous animal at large . . . those forces will not stop unless and until they recognize that there exists unbreakable resistance. ... I would greatly prefer to say that we are safe in this country and in this hemisphere from outside danger. But I am firmly convinced that what is taking place today . . . is a relentless attempt to transform the civilized world . . . into a world in which lawlessness, violence and force will reign supreme. . . . The one and only sure way for our nation to avoid being drawn into serious trouble or actual war ... is for our people to become thoroughly conscious of the possibilities of danger, to make up their minds that we must continue to arm and to arm to such an extent that the forces of conquest and ruin will not dare make an attack on us or any part of this hemisphere. . . . Each citizen must be ready and willing for real sacrifice of time and of substance, and for hard personal service."

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