Matter of Faith

Before 10 a.m. the big committee room was crowded. Behind the horseshoe desk, puffing reflective pipes, cigarets, or gnawing at cigars, sat 23 members of the 25-man House Foreign Affairs Committee; in the middle of the curve crouched little Sol Bloom, chairman, looking like a Neanderthal man dressed up in clothes. Facing him were small tables and chairs--for witnesses and their staffs. In the well squatted photographers, fidgeting with flash bulbs. Sitting in every seat, almost as visibly present as the Congressmen, spectators, Capitol policemen, messengers, newsreel cameramen, were tensions, anxieties, fears, great expectations. The bill before the committee, the Lend-Lease bill, H.R. 1776, had brought all these emotions to a focus. It was possible, if these emotions focused strongly enough, that they might set fire to something--even to the bill it self. But the cool legislative probability was that, after a week or so of tumult and shouting, the bill would pass in slightly altered form.

The only times in the past Franklin Roosevelt had been defeated were when coalitions of solid Republican opposition united with conservative Democrats, chiefly Southern. This time the Republican bloc was shattered. And the Southern Democrats, almost without exception, were for the bill.

The fog that had cloaked the preliminary stages of the debate in an obscure haze of words--neutrality, nonbelligerency, isolation, interventionist, appeaser, warmonger--was blowing away. The almosts, the yes-buts, the cross-cut perplexities were vanishing. The question was becoming a flat question: Yes or No--as it would be presented to Congress.

Into the room came the first witness, a slender man whose shoulders stooped with 69 years, striding gravely in a worn, shiny blue serge suit, his hair silvery-white, his face pale as candle wax, his brown eyes a little sharp under his salt-&-pepper eyebrows. Little Sol Bloom scrambled down from his eminence to be photographed with Secretary of State Hull. Mr. Hull sat down, began to read his prepared statement, his long pale hands trembling slightly.

Secretary Hull restated the objectives of the Administration's foreign policy: 1) peace and security for the U. S. with advocacy of peace, and limitation and reduction of armament as universal international objectives; 2) support for law, order, justice and morality and the principle of nonintervention; 3) restoration and cultivation of sound economic methods and relations, based on equality of treatment; 4) development in the promotion of these objectives, of the fullest practicable measure of international cooperation; 5) promotion of the security, solidarity and general welfare of the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. Hull's voice was deep with conviction as he went along, giving a simple out line of the course of world events since 1931--the aggressions of Japan, Italy, Germany. Said Mr. Hull: "Mankind is today face to face, not with regional wars or isolated conflicts, but with an organized, ruthless and implacable movement of steadily expanding conquest.

"The most serious question today for this country is whether the control of the high seas shall pass into the hands of powers conquest."

Among the Congressmen around the horseshoe were three Republican isolationists: Mrs. Edith Nourse Rogers of Lowell, Mass., 59, fluttery, saccharine, gushing, with orchids and iron-grey curls; Hamilton Fish of Garrison, N. Y., 52, rangy, headline-hungry, with a brazen voice and a longtime suspicion of England; George Holden Tinkham of Boston, Mass., 70, bald, potbellied, with jowl-whiskers like a Russian droshky driver. Mr. Fish, veteran of many a skirmish with old Mr. Hull, and knowing that the Secretary's innocent, suffering face masks a hot-pincers talent of repartee, gave up the witness swiftly, but prodded furious, bulbous Tinkham in to violent questioning. Hull seemed relaxed, as he politely parried Tinkham's assertions. Typical Tinkham "question": "You say all international law should be dispensed with?" Typical Hull finesse: "My door has been open for eight years and you've never darkened it inquest of information."

Tinkham: "We're supposed to be neutral." Hull: "We aren't going to let [neutrality] chloroform us into inactivity." Tinkham: "But they were little countries and we have 3,000 miles of sea between us, and a fine Navy." Hull: "I disapprove of your complacency."

Hull had appeared alone. To the stand after lunch went Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., flanked by seven aides. His testimony: revelation, for the first time in history, of the confidential balance sheet of another nation's finances. Points: 1) all British assets quickly convertible into dollars had been spent or obligated before Jan. 1, 1941; 2) "slow assets," not quickly convertible, had a nominal value of -L-3,868,000,000, could not be liquidated in time to obviate the need for U. S. aid; 3) the British hold practically no gold (only $205,000,000 in or en route to the U. S., and $33,000,000 in the more distant dominions); 4) cost of war to Britain: $50,000,000 a day--40% paid by taxation, the rest borrowed; 5) British dollar requirements for 1941 will be $3,019,000,000; dollar exchange assets available are $1,775,000,000 (of this amount only $875,000,000 is liquid).

Next day the Army's "Old Man" appeared--War Secretary Henry Stimson, 73. "Light Horse Harry" was on the stand a day and a half, saying many things but chiefly one : that the U. S. today stands in great and real danger of invasion by air if the British Navy is destroyed or surrendered. His opinion on Bill No. 1776: "A forthright and clear grant of power which will enable the President to place in operation the best and simplest plan to carry out a national policy many times stated and endorsed."

His warning: failure by Congress to pass this bill will cause Britain's defeat and plunge the U. S. into war within 90 days.

Ruddy, tough Navy Secretary Frank Knox followed. Said he: Germany is struggling to seize control of the seas from Great Britain. British control of the seas has enabled the U. S. to maintain the Monroe Doctrine for 118 years, to build a strong and peaceful land; has not threatened us for 125 years. In the last 50 years, the U. S. has had a two-ocean navy--half-British. The British have had a two-ocean navy--half-American. The U. S. needs six years to build its own two-ocean navy, but--Secretary Knox's but was a grave one. He produced a small table of figures which showed one ominous, simple fact: with Britain fallen, the U. S. Navy, no matter how speedily built, will steadily fall behind the size of the combined Axis fleets.

Next day William S. Knudsen went to testify. He made two big points: 1) the all-important task now is to arm and arm fast; 2) all possible aid should be given Britain regardless of whether the U. S. ever gets a dollar back on the deal.

In the House committee the isolationists had the air of men talking against time, stalling desperately against the clock hands' movement. But the hearings ground on, with a speed almost unprecedented. In perhaps a week the bill would be in the House. Senate hearings would begin soon. A month might see the bill made law. Outside of Congress the fog was blowing away even more rapidly.

For the first time since the war began, the public reaction was clear-cut. Only a few big isolationist newspapers roared hysterically: the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, a few others. The rest of the press mumbled a bit. But most papers said flatly: Pass the bill, and no nonsense. The retiring U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, made a speech that had been advertised as a call to appeasement, a forecast of British defeat and a break with the President. His speech turned out to be a plea to stay out of war. (He said flatly that he had never predicted British defeat, thereby making it clear that somebody was a liar.) He approved with modifications the President's bill. No one could pick much of a quarrel with his recommendations from any viewpoint.

Mr. Roosevelt endeavored to quiet fears that he might give away the Navy by remarking that the bill had nothing in it to prevent his standing on his head, either.

Many had raised the cry of dictatorship. Anti-Third-Termite Ray Clapper soothed some of these fears in his column: "It does not seem to me that he [Roosevelt] has seriously abused the additional power which he has garnered. On the whole he has used it for ends which have seemed to me desirable." Columnist Ernest Lindley noted that "all the old phrases about dictatorship and power-grabbing are being trotted out . . . by the same people who were attacking the President for not giving Knudsen enough power."

Most people in Washington seemed to agree that the danger confronting the U. S. necessitated temporarily setting aside Constitutional checks and balances, since checks and balances are exactly what are not wanted in a situation that demands rapid translation of policy and decision into action.

Many who had no objection to the bill still objected to trusting Franklin Roosevelt, worried over "his sincerity," wished he would be "more candid." But the plain fact was that Franklin Roosevelt was the only President the U. S. had. Having elected him, the nation had only his judgment, experience, temper, foresight and the steadiness of his hand to rely on.

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