Arms & the Congress

One of the few genuine pacifists left in the U. S. is Senator Lynn Joseph Frazier of Hoople, N. Dak. As usual when Congress opened, Senator Frazier offered an amendment to the Constitution, declaring:

"War for any purpose shall be illegal and neither the United States nor any State, Territory, association, or person subject to its jurisdiction shall prepare for, declare, engage in, or carry on war or other armed conflict, expedition, invasion or undertaking within or without the United States, nor shall any funds be raised, appropriated, or expended for such purpose."

Never since 1917 was such a proposal more out of keeping with U. S. temper than last week. Hurry up calls from Washington sent Ambassadors Joseph P. Kennedy (London) and William Bullitt (Paris) hustling back to the White House from vacations in Florida. Ambassadors rarely appear before Congressional committees, and then only before foreign affairs committees. But Messrs. Kennedy & Bullitt were promptly closeted in "secret" session with a joint meeting of the House & Senate Military Affairs Committees.

"Secret" Congressional hearings are seldom secret long. Duly published were reports that Messrs. Kennedy & Bullitt foresaw war in Europe within the year, that Germany has 6,500 new planes, 3,000 usable old ones, and can build 1,200 a month. Explaining that French resistance to Mussolini held the chief threat of war, Mr. Kennedy was reported as saying that in order to appease Adolf Hitler the British would even allow him to put a base in Canada (which Franklin Roosevelt swears to defend). This Mr. Kennedy quickly denied. A story he did not deny was that much of his information came from Hero Charles Lindbergh (TIME, Jan. 16).

"Who's going to fight?" snorted North Carolina's irrepressible Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, doubting that France and England would risk a war. But many of his colleagues were impressed by the Kennedy-Bullitt stories, and Congress was aquiver by the time Franklin Roosevelt sent up his message telling why and for what he wanted more Defense money, besides the $510,000,000 for the Army and $720,000,000 for the Navy provided by the regular budget.

Program. To finance "a minimum program for the necessities of defense," Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to appropriate $552,000,000 extra. For:

> "A minimum increase" of 3,000 Army planes--$300,000,000.

> "Critical" Army equipment (guns & ammunition of which the Army is particularly short)--$110,000,000.

> "Educational orders," promoted by Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson, to enable industry to prepare for quantity production of war materials in emergency --$32,000,000.

> Strengthening "the seacoast defenses of Panama, Hawaii and the continental U. S." --$8,000,000.

> Financing the first year's primary training of 20,000 citizen-pilots in commercial schools--$10,000,000.

> Increasing and re-housing the present garrison of 13,000 in the Panama Canal Zone--$27,000,000.

> Extending and strengthening the Navy's bases in Pacific and Atlantic--$44,000,000.

> Additional Navy planes (about 200) and aviation research--$21,000,000.

Army Wants. Besides the 2,320 planes already planned, including 1,710 planes now on hand, the 3,800 new planes which the Army hopes to get out of this appropriation would make the Air Corps the primary combat arm of the Army, centring tactical emphasis upon it as never before.*

More welcome to Chief of Staff Malin Craig than a huge air fleet is the money for other Army material. He estimates that he now needs at least $140,000,000 to equip properly the Regular Army's 174,300 officers & men, and 200,000 National Guardsmen & Reserves who would comprise an Initial Protective Force of 400,000--the Army to bear the first brunt of war while drafted citizens are being trained. The Roosevelt estimates (including the "educational" $32,000,000) would just about fill out General Craig's minimum program.

Outstanding needs include: anti-tank guns (none on hand; 228 on order); antiaircraft guns (a piddling 24 in service east of the Rocky Mountains; 338 ordered); semiautomatic, 30-round-per-minute rifles (8,000 in service; Army arsenals can produce 5,000 a year); gas masks (100,000 in service, 300,000 needed for the first-line fighters); heavy artillery (only four of the Army's new 155-millimeter field guns are in service); aircraft bombs (the War Department won't release the figures for fear of encouraging potential enemies).

Navy's Plans. Last fortnight Rear Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn and three co-members of a board studying expansion of Naval defense lines recommended immediate establishment or improvement of 15 (out of 41 desired) submarine, destroyer, aircraft and mine bases, in the Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean. Most dramatic item was a "strong advance fleet base" on the Island of Guam, far westward of the present limit of active operations in the Pacific, only 1,355 miles from Yokohama.

The whole Hepburn base program would cost perhaps $1,500,000,000, and Franklin Roosevelt's allotment of $44,000,000 would only start it. But the Guam base was enough to excite Congressmen and some officials of the State Department, who feared that it might irritate belligerent Japan.

What Every American Knows. Franklin Roosevelt prompted Congress with a reminder that the U. S. had a full year to prepare after it declared war in 1917, and that "there is new range and speed to offense" nowadays. In other words, it is necessary to prepare in advance since there will be no period of grace next time, when war may be carried to the U. S. Said he: "Calling attention to these facts does not remotely intimate that the Congress or the President have any thought of taking part in another war on European soil. . . . Every American knows that we have no thought of aggression."

German newspapers last week were not satisfied by President Roosevelt's reason for arming. In Berlin, the Deutsche Allegemeine Zeitung asked: "Who in the world is thinking of attacking America suddenly?"

It was a shrewd question to which few U. S. citizens have an articulate answer. The General Staff of the Army believe that only Britain could invade North or South America, that Germany with all her air fleet could not do so because of her minuscule navy and shortage of transports, that Japan might seize the Philippines but hardly cross the Pacific.

Nearest thing to a Western Hemisphere emergency that most military men imagine is that the Dictators might promote and support a military upheaval in Latin America like the Spanish civil war. Rather than back down because of unpreparedness as Britain was forced to do to Italy in the Mediterranean in 1936, and to Germany at Munich in 1938, an armed U. S. could call the hand of any Dictator who tried to trespass in the 21 Republics of the Western Hemisphere.

* The provision for the Navy would bring its air force close to 3,000 planes, bring the combined Army-Navy air force to over 8,000 planes.

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