"Why Don't You Sing It?"

FOREIGN NEWS

An under dog and a black one at that, Ethiopian Emperor Power of Trinity decided to appeal last week to President Roosevelt and the collective conscience of U. S. citizens. Resident in Ethiopia are 125 U. S. citizens, 110 of them missionaries. Judging by them His Majesty felt he was appealing to a highly Christian people who had given the world the Briand-Kellogg Pact "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy." When Ethiopia was successfully pressed by President Coolidge to adhere to this Pact, Ethiopians hoped they had an ace of some sort in the hole, and they looked to President Roosevelt last week to make Premier Mussolini renounce his blatantly announced war-as-an-instrument-of-Italian-national-policy upon Ethiopia.

On the Fourth of July at the State Department, plodding Secretary Cordell Hull said that he had received a flash from the U. S. acting Charge d'Affaires at Addis Ababa giving the gist of the Emperor's appeal but that the U. S. Government obviously could not act before the full five-page text of His Imperial Majesty's communication was received. Next afternoon President Roosevelt, having glanced at the flash, delivered what admiring Idaho Senator Pope later called "a masterpiece of diplomacy." Around 4 p. m. correspondents found the President in one of his most elated moods. When one of them started to ask whether the Government might act under a formula covering cases of aggression voiced last year and year before by Mr. Roosevelt's special Ambassador-at-Large Norman Hezekiah Davis and began to quote the formula, the President cut him short by bursting into laughter and asking with his twinkle: "Why don't you sing it?"

Talleyrand? This nettled only the discomfited questioner. Soon the correspondents as a group were agreeing with the President's secretaries that in diplomacy he is very adroit, revels in doing "the smart thing," and would have made a perfect Ambassador in the great days of diplomacy, a sort of Talleyrand. The master stroke delivered by Talleyrand Roosevelt last week was to have the U. S. Charge d'Affaires inform Emperor Power of Trinity that:

"My Government, interested as it is in the maintenance of peace in all parts of the world, is gratified that the League of Nations, with a view to a peaceful settlement, has given its attention to the controversy which has unhappily arisen between your Government and the Italian Government and that the controversy is now in process of arbitration.

"My Government hopes that, whatever the facts or merits of the controversy may be, the arbitral agency dealing with this controversy may be able to arrive at a decision satisfactory to both of the governments immediately concerned.

"Furthermore, and of great importance, in view of the provisions of the [Kellogg] Pact of Paris, to which both Italy and Abyssinia are parties, in common with sixty-one other countries, my Government would be loathe to believe that either of them would resort to other than pacific means as a method of dealing with this controversy or would permit any situation to arise which would be inconsistent with the commitments of the Pact."

Precisely how loathe the President was to believe that there is going to be war, he then showed by having all U. S. citizens in Ethiopia instructed to depart. Immediately the Ethiopian Mission Service ordered all its U. S. and other missionaries to remain at their posts in Ethiopia "whatever happens." Its explanation: "We put our faith in God, and do not expect consular protection." At latest reports from Washington the State Department still had not ordered Charge D'Af- faires William Perry George to cable the full text of Emperor Power of Trinity's appeal. An ingenious young man at whiling away sultry hours in the squat, square U. S. Legation at Addis Ababa, Mr. George has taken up the native slingshot, become an adept performer.

Decision to Struggle. Meanwhile Dictator Mussolini continued in cold blood to make efficient preparations last week for his Ethiopia-snatching war, thus giving other statesmen every opportunity to prove their humanitarianism by trying to stop him. II Duce went to the length of publicly demonstrating a compound produced by Italian chemists to be strewn by Italian airplanes on the soil of Ethiopia to sear and burn the proverbially bare feet of Emperor Power of Trinity's savage troops. At the demonstration a photographer trod on the stuff, was picked up by Italian soldiers and rushed to a watering trough into which the scorched leather soles of his shoes were thrust.

Same day tall, fair Vittorio Mussolini, 18, and chunky, dark Bruno Mussolini, 17, the youngest regularly licensed air pilots in Italy, called on their father as Minister of Aviation, to enlist for fighting service against Ethiopia. Fascists present said that Il Duce received his sons with a visible effort to master his feelings as a father, grunted a wordless assent to their request, dashed his signature upon their papers of enlistment.

Finally last week the Dictator slipped secretly out of Rome, so that he would not be followed by the more prominent correspondents whose dispatches would be considered proof that he had said what he was going to say. This was nothing less than a verbal declaration of war on Ethiopia, delivered from the top of a cannon at Salerno to troops as they were about to embark. On the way to Salerno the flying Dictator who piloted his own plane passed through an electric storm. Lightning charges collected on the wireless antennae, shocked the radio operator into a faint, but the big trimotored ship roared safely on. Amateur correspondents reported that Benito Mussolini said:

"We have decided on the struggle and we will carry it to the end! Remember, Italians have always defeated the black races. The only such battle that turned against us was Adua [Ethiopian victory of 1896]. That was an exception. There we were overwhelmed by superiority of numbers. There 14,000 Italians fought 100,000 Ethiopians. The reason for this heroic and unfortunate exception was that Italy had at that time a government less concerned for its soldiers than for Parliamentary chicanery. Today all Italy is behind its sons! Today all Italy prefers a heroic to a useless life."

Throughout this speech Orator Mussolini was frequently interrupted by the troops shouting "War! War! War!"

"To whom the victory?" he roared in one of his characteristic platform questions. The tumultuous answer: "TO US! TO US! TO US!"

This caused Emperor Power of Trinity to call to Ethiopia's colors some 15,000 additional tribesmen who were soon being drilled in Addis Ababa with piercing shrieks of "Gira! Quagn! Gira! Quagn!" (Left, Right! Left, Right!). Simultaneously the Viceroy of India, His Excellency the Earl of Willingdon, cabled profuse thanks to that astute humanitarian, Benito Mussolini, who had sent a gift of 40,000 lire ($5,000) to succor natives injured in the recent monster Indian earthquake at Quetta. Il Duce poses today as the friend of Moslems, Ethiopians being Christians, and recently received with royal honors at Rome the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia from which Italy may recruit useful Moslem volunteers.

Since the true reaction of the Italian people to their Dictator's program of expansion is of vital interest, the world's editors last week continued expensive efforts to ferret out the truth. The New York Times with two star correspondents in Rome last week, one Italian and the other U. S., received a pair of reports three days apart which made odd reading in parallel columns:

From Arnaldo Cortesi:

"With public opinion in its present mood, Mr. Mussolini's truculent policy has the support of all Italians, . . . Nobody who has watched the troops leave the cities for embarkation points en route to East Africa could doubt that they were keen and happy to go. . . . The people have become accustomed to the idea that war is not only inevitable but also necessary. . . great patriotic fervor."

From Anne O'Hare McCormick:

"In many years this correspondent has not heard such widespread, open grumbling. . . . The people everywhere are restive under the tightening of political, economic and financial restrictions. . . . Mr. Mussolini still is popular enough to stand a mistake, even defeat, . . . Yet he faces the most difficult time since the killing of Giacomo Matteotti, Socialist Deputy, by Fascisti."

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