“SPEAKING OF PROPAGANDA,” Montgomery Advertiser, December 23, 1940

Opposition to the President's lease-loan" plan for stepping up aid to Britain is forming behind a group known as the-"America First Committee." Big names stud its membership prospectus with elder-statesman Herbert Hoover and Gen. R. E. Wood at the top of the list.

The group was first formed as a counter bloc to the William Allen White Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. It has more pretentious Ideas now.

First on its program is to curtail if it cannot stop aid to Britain and to forestall all new proposals of aid such as the President's "lease-loan" plan.

Second on its program is the sending of food to continental Europe through the British blockade.

Third objective of the group is to sell the United States on the Idea that it could get along with a victorious Germany as well as anyone else.

That completes the list. All of their arguments for those objectives consist of a peculiar assortment of emotional appeals, surcharged patriotism, appeasement peace, and a childish fear of war.

The appeal to patriotism is manifest in the name selected by the group, "America First." They argue against aid to Britain on the grounds that the United States needs the components of that aid for its own defense. On the other hand, they argue that aid to Britain should be stopped because it endangers future relations between the United States and a victorious Germany, relations which they are convinced will be pleasant if the United States will but cease aid to Britain. The group carefully avoids any attempt at explaining why the United States so desperately needs all the arms it is presently delivering to Britain if relations with a victorious Germany would be so .pleasant .

The second appeal is backed up by this attractive bit of logic: "Peace is a better state of affairs than war. Therefore, peace at any price is preferable to war." Jumping from premise to conclusion in a single blind leap is one of the more Interesting accomplishments of the group.

The last emotion upon which they base their appeal Is fear of participation in war. They have sponsored campaigns directed at mothers built around this question, "Do you want your son to die on a battlefield?" That Is a very obvious fraud but there are many suckers who will fall for it. Of course no mother wants her son to die on a battlefield, nor even on a city street, nor in jail, nor In bed, nor anywhere else. The America First policy makers know that but they have often demonstrated that logic to them Is more an obstacle than a tool.

It would be too harsh to suggest that members of the group would actually prefer to see a German victory than a' British one, but it cannot be denied that their policies, if followed, would tend to produce a German victory. It is recognized by every one that Britain cannot hope to win the final victory without the aid of the United States, all the aid that the United States can muster during the next two hard years.

Their third objective, to sell the United States on the idea that the United States and a victorious Germany could live and work peacefully together in a post-war world, is at least a left-handed admission of the group's awareness that their policies would, if followed, lead to a German victory.

The fact that the majority sentiment In the United States is on record as directly opposing all the America First group stands for makes little difference to its membership. They are planning, it is reliably reported, a fight to the finish on the subject of greater aid to Britain when the new congress convenes Jan. 3. The Blatherskite Bloc of senators will carry the load in the public spotlight, Taft, Wheeler, Vandenberg, and all the rest. But In the background, the committee will be at work doing its best to marshal public opinion against aid to Britain, or, failing that, to make enough of an organized show to give the impression that public opinion Is against aid to Britain.

The shape of their propaganda efforts is already apparent. The key words will be "the road to war." Already aid to Britain Is being attacked on those grounds, that it might lead to war, and personalities will soon come under fire.

The members of the committee, being adults and presumably in full possession of their faculties, must be aware of the utter falsity of their premise, that peace at any price Is preferable to war. However, in the public mind they hope to plant a fear of war wholly unrelated to the question of whether It would not be better to fight than to run under direct attack.

The fact that the people of the United States have fought wars In the past and, In all likelihood, will fight more wars in the future is to be wholly neglected in their public persuasions against aid to Britain.

There is little reason to fear that the America First group will be able to win a direct victory but the possibility that it will be able to win a Pyrrhic victory is too real to dismiss lightly. The real fight will be in the Senate chamber instead of the mythical forum of public opinion. The Blatherskite Bloc will bend its efforts at delaying lease-loan" plan, or any other plan might be submitted, so long that it would be worse than useless to agree upon such plan. Everything in the parliamentary book of rules will be employed, up to Including the senate privilege of filibuster.

The vision of bumbling Senator Taft talking Germany into victory is material enough for the world's dozen worst nightmares.

If the plans of the America First group materialize, congressional action upon repeal of legislative obstacles (the Johnson Act the Neutrality Act and others) or endorsement of methods to sidestep them without repealing them will be delayed until well into the spring. In the opinion of most observers Germany is going to put everything it has in an effort to crush Britain before the end of February.

Yet the America First committee staunchly denies that it desires a German victory and emphasizes the virtue of neutrality—at least In its public statements.

HARD QUESTIONS HAVE HARD ANSWERS

If the scholarly Mr. Plutarch had lived today he might have said, not "Hard questions have hard answers," but rather, "All is question, nothing is answer."

That is, he would have said that if he had based his conclusion upon the words of wisdom of contemporary sages. America, the home of the free and the land of the brave, has been posing questions for over a score of months trying to orientate Itself in a confusing scheme of things. America, the most articulate of nations, offers no one answer which satisfies throughout the length and breadth of this land.

This state of affairs seems strange, but perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the same man who admits easily that we are safe to go our usual happy way if Great Britain wins this war, does not only fail admit, but denies that Great Britain is fighting a war for us.

The classic straight lines between two points has spiraled. Such reasoning as the above seems illogical to a simple soul like this writer. But most of us are simple souls and go along our own logical or illogical way unless something stronger leads or drives us into a wiser or more foolish way.

America can be led but it cannot be driven. We believe that in spite of the fact that it isn't being led anywhere how. It is finding itself, reaching worriedly for a singleness of purpose by shouting very loud about many sides of all matters.' This is good and wise-only so long as the process moves as fast as the circumstances which conceived the process.

Americans are not cowards, yet many seem to be afraid to think, to really think. There is, there must be, some one force or belief or something that is strong enough in the spirit of each and all of us that our hands clasp tightly and we move all together.

We believe there Is this something. Call it, to be trite, our way of life. Call it Americanism, If you like. But it is Americanism only because the blood stream of America has no corpuscles save those of the courage of freedom and humanity. But really it has always been this that men have fought for.

It stands to reason if men have fought for this then there has been a foe. We believe that the conflict in progress in other parts of the world Is just such a war that people’s ways of living have been so overwhelmed that they have been frustrated Into subjection.

After all don't we know where we stand In the matter. We certainly know which side threatens our way of life. But it so happens that the other side reached the field first and had therefore the choice of weapons. After all if the boy next door was armed with a sturdy sling shot to attack you as you roam through your favorite woods you would not meet him with cream puffs, not when you knew he was there poised and ready as he was for all the other little boys who met him with cream puffs.