Will to Peace

Newsmen who massed before Franklin Roosevelt at his Tuesday press conference in the White House last week found him singularly reticent, especially on the all-consuming subject of what he had meant by saying on Easter: ". . . If we don't have a war" (TIME, April 17). One inspired correspondent at last asked what the President thought about an editorial in the Washington Post entitled "The Collective Pronoun."* With startling alacrity the President replied that that editorial precisely, clearly, honestly expressed his views. It became therefore a blueprint for understanding the words and acts of Franklin Roosevelt in foreign affairs. Essential excerpts:

"By 'we' he undoubtedly meant western civilization. A war affecting its foundations would immediately affect us vitally, whether or not the United States was at the outset physically involved. . . .

"Until it has actually started, another world war is not inevitable. It can still be averted if the free nations are willing to show that they will take a stand before it is too late. . . .

"Nothing less than the show of preponderant force will stop them [Rome-Berlin axis], for force is the only language which they understand. But, like less exalted bullies, force is to them a real deterrent.

"In using the collective 'we' the President told Hitler and Mussolini, far more impressively than he told Warm Springs, that the tremendous force of the United States must be a factor in their current thinking. . . .

"To make that plain at this crucial time is to help in preventing war. . . ."

Two days passed. A few Senators (Georgia's George, New Hampshire's Bridges, North Carolina's Reynolds, Idaho's Borah) fulminated against Mr. Roosevelt's disturbance of men's peace of mind, but 130,000,000 Americans stayed remarkably quiet. Then Franklin Roosevelt addressed to the Dictators, over the heads of the governing board of the Pan American Union (see cut), his second warning of the week. Said he:

"The American peace which we celebrate today has no quality of weakness in it. We are prepared to ... defend it to the fullest extent of our strength, matching force to force if any attempt is made to subvert our institutions. . . .

"Should the method of attack be that of economic pressure, I pledge that my own country will also give economic support, so that no American nation need surrender any fraction of its sovereign freedom to maintain its economic welfare."

Mr. Roosevelt ridiculed the Dictators' complaint that the Democracies were "encircling" them. He ridiculed their "dreams of conquest," their "methods . . . used by the Huns and Vandals 1,500 years ago." And over the heads of the Dictators he seemed to speak to their peoples, urging them to revolt. "Men are not prisoners of fate," said Franklin Roosevelt, "but only prisoners of their own minds. They have within themselves the power to become free at any moment. . . . "The truest defense of the peace of our hemisphere must always lie in the hope that our sister nations beyond the seas will break the bonds of the ideas which constrain them toward perpetual warfare.

By example we can at least show them the possibility. We, too, have a stake in world affairs.

"Our will to peace can be as powerful as our will to mutual defense; it can command greater loyalty, devotion and discipline than that enlisted elsewhere for temporary conquest or equally futile glory. It will have its voice in determining the order of world affairs."

Even while the President spoke these cannon-forging words, and while he apostrophized brave, dutiful George Washington later the same day (see p. 14), a very different, far more dramatic message by him was being handed around secretly among his closest advisers for final editing. This was a direct personal message to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, to whom he released it over the State Department's wires at 9 o'clock that Friday evening. Coupled with this message in the President's mind was a momentous order to the U. S. Navy. The President had decided that the eleventh hour had struck.

With one hand he would beckon the Dictators to a peace conference table, with the other he would make the largest gesture of "force to force" that he knew how: move the Battle Fleet back into the Pacific where it could offset any Japanese menace to Great Britain, France and The Netherlands in the Orient.

To avoid upsetting the stockmarket, announcement of the Fleet order was withheld until after noon Saturday (see p. 17). But at 10:30 a.m. correspondents covering the State Department were told to go over to the White House offices. Secretary Hull crossed the street ahead of the newshawks. Also seated in the President's office when the press was admitted were UnderSecretary Welles and Chairman Key Pittman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When 25 correspondents had filed in (usually there are more than 100), President Roosevelt asked in surprise: "Where are they all?" The White House had outdone itself in secrecy to mask announcement of a momentous surprise step in U. S. foreign policy.

Slowly, with time out for explanatory interpolations, the President read his words to A. Hitler and B. Mussolini:

"You realize I am sure that throughout the world hundreds of millions of human beings are living today in constant fear of a new war or even a series of wars.

"The existence of this fear ... is of definite concern to the people of the United States. . . . Any major war . . . must bear heavily on them during its continuance and also for generations to come.

". . . Because no troops are at this moment on the march--this may be an opportune moment for me to send you this message. . . .

". . . The tide of events seems to have reverted to the threat of arms. If such threats continue, it seems inevitable that much of the world must become involved in common ruin. All the world, victor nations, vanquished nations and neutral nations, will suffer.

"I refuse to believe that the world is, of necessity, such a prisoner of destiny. On the contrary, it is clear that the leaders of great nations have it in their power to liberate their peoples from the disaster that impends. . . .

"You have repeatedly asserted that you [Hitler] and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war. ... It is still clear to me that international problems can be solved at the council table. ... I trust that you may be willing to make such a statement of policy to me as the head of a nation far removed from Europe in order that I, acting only with the responsibility and obligation of a friendly intermediary, may communicate such declaration to other nations. . . .

"Are you willing to give assurance that .your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, the Arabias, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Iran?*

"Such an assurance clearly must apply not only to the present day but also to a future sufficiently long to give every opportunity to work by peaceful methods for a more permanent peace. I therefore suggest that you construe the word 'future' to apply to a minimum period of assured non-aggression--ten years at the least--a quarter of a century, if we dare look that far ahead.

"I propose that if [the pledge] is given, two essential problems shall promptly be discussed. . . In those discussions the Government of the United States will gladly take part.

". . . Relief from the crushing burden of armament which is each day bringing them more closely to the brink of economic disaster.

". . . The most practical manner of opening up avenues of international trade to the end that every nation of the earth may be enabled to buy and sell on equal terms in the world market, as well as to possess assurance of obtaining the materials and products of peaceful economic life."

Immediate effect of this historic Roosevelt document was to cut the ground from under all previous thinking and talking about his foreign policy (see p. 13). It clarified once & for all the fact that Franklin Roosevelt positively expected war abroad unless some one's will-to-peace, as well as "the arms of the Democracies, was stronger than the Dictators' will-to-war. It tended to absolve Franklin Roosevelt from previous charges of "war-mongering." Whether or not his invitation was accepted--and his ten-year clause made acceptance look impossible--it kept open the way to some other outcome of Europe's deadlock than a fight to the death.

What the effect would be on the U. S. people and on Franklin Roosevelt's position as their leader, remained to be determined. As day followed day and no reply came from the Dictators (see p. 19), rejection by them, perhaps an insulting rebuff to Franklin Roosevelt, seemed certain. In that event, public opinion in the U. S. would form in one of two ways: behind him more strongly than ever as a champion who, having done his best for peace, must now do his best for the Democracies; or against him more strongly than ever as an international meddler who having futilely exposed the dignity and good faith of the U. S., must now take a back seat, let the U. S. retire into its shell.

No one at all acquainted with Franklin Roosevelt and his will expected him to admit or accept this second reaction. Therefore, come what might, the Hitler-Mussolini message could only be a prelude to even greater deeds by Franklin Roosevelt.

*Written by Editor Felix Morley (younger brother of Author Christopher Morley) who works for Republican Publisher Eugene Meyer.

*State Department experts explained that the President's omission of Czechoslovakia and Albania did not constitute recognition that their new status is legal. Omission of the Free City of Danzig, which Hitler wanted for his soth birthday this week, was unexplained.

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