This articles significance is in the fact that by 1938 the New Deal had failed. Unemployment was back at Great Depression levels and President Roosevelt was already looking to embroil USA in a world war to kick start the US economy by war manufacturing.
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Other People’s Money
The Landon-Roosevelt War-Game Huddle—But Americans Don’t Want War
Is the War Scare a Red Herring?
R. ALFRED LANDON and President Roosevelt have just gotten together and made up a set of rules for the government of the rest of us as we move into the dangerous game of playing at war-making. The central | | ' | idea of the Landon-Roosevelt rules is that as soon as this country becomes involved in an international discussion, then the Senate, the House, all of the newspapers and other publications in the country and, of course, the remaining 130,000,000 persons must stop thinking, shut their mouths, leave the whole job to the Executive and “stand by the President.” Of course these two gentlemen have a right to suggest rules for the government of the rest of us.
But they have no right to impose them. And as I am one of the 130,000,- 000 persons who find themselves sitting in at this game, I would like to say right here and now that I, for one, do not propose to be bound by these rules. Let us see just how good these rules are. The American people are bitterly opposed to becoming involved in any way in the quarrels of Europe or the quar- rels in the Orient. Maybe the American people are wrong about this.
But no man who has traveled about this coun- try in the last year can have the slightest doubt that this is so. There is not the slightest doubt that they sympathize with the Chinese, as they did with the Ethiopians, the Bel- gians, the Boers. But they are almost a unit in believing that it is no part of our duty to police the Mediterranean, the African coast or the China seas, to say nothing of interior rivers of China. No one will doubt that the Ameri- can people, however misguided they may be, are entitled to hold this view and it will hardly be contested that, in the event they are drawn into war, they will have to pay the bills and make such little contributions of legs and arms and eyes and blood as may be necessary to make the Orient safe for democracy. In accordance with that popular feeling, the President, at the end of August, called on Americans to quit China. On September 6, aboard the presidential yacht, he told reporters, as reported by The New York Times, that “all the 7,780 Americans in China have been strongly urged to get out and any who remain after that warning do so at their own risk.”
It happens, however, that Mr. Roosevelt thinks differ- ently from the American people. He believes that America and the rest of the world should take aggressive action against Japan. He believes that Japan should be “quaran- tined,” and he said so in his “war speech” in Chicago. According to press reports from Washington, before he delivered that speech he summoned naval experts and in- quired as to the ability of the navy to protect American shipping in the Far East (although a month before he had warned Americans out of China). He also asked for a full statement of naval strategy to block Japanese plans in the Orient. The plan of the navy was reported to be for action through the signatories of the Nine Power Treaty, and involved actual blockades of Japan.
He consulted the British on the possibility of united action. All this is in direct contradiction to the generally held opinion of the American people. And every step taken by the President thus far has been in accordance with this program.
According to Mr. Landon and Mr. Roosevelt, however, the American people must sit still, every voice in America must be silenced, while the President pursues a course in the Orient directly hostile to that of the nation. The President called on all Americans to get out of China or to remain “at their peril.” But of course they did not do so. They remained, not only at their peril, but at the peril of involving 130,000,000 Americans in war. Among those who did not get out was the Standard Oil Company, its employees and vessels. On December 11, three Standard Oil ships were moving in the Yangtze River.
They were not out on the high seas. They were on a river in the interior of China. They had a perfect right to be there if they chose to take the chance and to operate “at their peril.” But there is a feature of the recent “Panay” bombing that has been singularly overlooked. It is that the American gunboat was convoying the three Standard Oil ships. Can there be any doubt of that? The three Standard Oil boats were moving slowly close to the shore behind the United States gunboat. But we are not left to mere surmise. Mr. Norman Soong, of The New York Times, who was aboard the “Panay,” in a dispatch to The Times dated December 17, said: “The Socony tankers ‘Meiping,’ ‘Meihsia’ and ‘Melan,’ which the ‘Panay’ es- corted up the river, were nearby, with seven of the ‘Panay’s’ crew visiting on the ‘Meiping,’ etc.” The same day The New York Times reported, in a dispatch from Washington, that Admiral William D. Leahy, chief of Naval Opera- tions, had visited the White House in connection with the crisis. The Times’s report continued: “Upon leaving the White House, Admiral Leahy said that he had given the President a full account of his reports on the bombing of the ‘Panay’ and her convoy of three Standard Oil vessels.”
What was an American war vessel doing convoying Standard Oil vessels which had been ordered out of China and were in the midst of operations of two hostile armies? I believe that the President is pursuing an aggressive, provocative course directly opposite to that desired by the American people. I believe that if he is permitted to con- tinue he will embroil this country in war. The American Senator or political leader or editor or publicist who believes this and refuses to say it is guilty of a crime against his conscience and his country. Now I want to make a few more statements. I know in advance that no one will believe them. I know that some of my liberal friends will say this is a blow struck in sup- port of the economic royalists. And most others will think it is fantastic.
Nevertheless the statements are absolutely true and in good time will become quite obvious.
Statement No. 1: The President is preparing to lead the country into a vast program of armament as a means of spending money to avert another depression—houses for the dogs of war rather than the mutts of peace.
Statement No. 2: He is preparing deliberately to sell to this country a war scare as a prelude to the armament program.
Statement No. 3: He is attempting to shift the psycho- logical reactions of the nation to the patriotic motif in order to distract attention from the disintegrating domestic situation.
Statement No. 4: One reason for this is to build up the attitude embodied in the slogan “Stand by the President” —a trap into which the inept Mr. Landon leaps head first.
This is to be the President’s chief resistance to the clamor for investigations of his regime which will presently become insistent. While he does this, then, let every American put his mind in cold storage, button up his lips and commit the fate of this great peaceful nation to the judgment and plans of one man, Mr. Landon may believe that, but I do not.
John T. FLYNN.
New republic, 5th Jan 1938
https://archive.org/details/sim_new-rep ... 05_93_1205