AMERICA STANDS AT A PRECIPICE. Like a lot of people, I’m taken aback by the sweeping nature of the arbitrary powers President Roosevelt proposes to take upon himself in the new Aid-to-Britain bill. "Lend-lease" aid to Britain is a smart idea, and the President’s fireside chat two weeks ago calling for America to become an "arsenal of democracy" was inspiring and frightening in its baldly-worded summation of the Axis threat. But as Joseph Driscoll writes in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune, the measure before Congress now is "without precedent in the history of the United States." Turner Catledge in the New York Times notes it would grant the President "practically unlimited personal power." Specifically, the President would be allowed unlimited peace-time authority to "sell, transfer, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of" any amount of U.S. war materials to Britain or any other foreign country he wishes to help. The President could place any or all of America’s current and future defense production at the disposal of those countries. He could give secret defense information to other countries if he feels is in our interest to do so. And he could do any of these things without requesting permission from Congress, or anyone else. Theoretically, the President could even transfer the entire resources of the Army and Navy to other countries, with the stroke of a pen.
And the Times’ story offers no consolation in this regard -- "Administration spokesmen scouted as ‘ridiculous’ any suggestion that the President would use the bill’s powers to these possible limits." Well, if it’s so "ridiculous," why ask for such power to begin with? Yes, the Chicago Tribune’s usual accusations (the bill will lead to "the creation of a totalitarian dictatorship") are absurd. If the Administration really did anything with these powers that lacked broad popular support, Congress would act quickly to rein the President in. But the bill further erodes the principle that America is governed by laws, not by men. The bill’s language gives the President authority to proceed "notwithstanding the provisions of any other law" -- in effect allowing the President to singlehandedly repeal any provisions of the Johnson Act, the Neutrality Act, or any other statute that gets in his way. Theoretically, he could use these new powers to bring the U.S. into a de facto state of war with Germany, subverting Congress’s sole authority to declare war.
HOPE FOR A COMPROMISE. In light of all this, it’s a relief for a change to hear the usual barrage from the isolationist lobby promising to put up a stiff fight against the bill in both the House and the Senate. And they’re not alone this time -- Saturday’s New York Times reports that "some conservative Democrats who usually have supported the Administration’s foreign policy questioned the wisdom...of granting to the President" the bill’s broad authority. According to the Times, congressmen will consider adding an "ironclad requirement" to the bill that the Chief of Staff or the Chief of Naval Operations certify specific plans to transfer military equipment abroad. Robert C. Albright writes in the Washington Post that there will be a "major modifying effort" in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Ultimately, I think most Americans want to see a bill which streamlines America’s defense effort and allows us to truly give all aid to Britain short of war. But I know I’ll feel better if such a bill is hammered out co-equally between President Roosevelt and Congress, and not dictated -- for want of a better word -- to a supine legislature by an imperial executive. To give even the appearance of the latter, in this era of unprecedented crisis for democracy, is to set a terribly poor example for the rest of the world.
WHAT THE PRESS HAS TO SAY. Some excerpts from newspaper editorials around the nation, many of them showing some healthy skepticism toward the Aid-to-Britain bill --
Hartford Courant -- "The United States...has passed from neutrality to non-belligerency and now to full participation with Great Britain in its war aims, the first of which is to crush Hitlerism. To implement his policy of ‘all out’ aid to Britain, Greece, China and any other nations that may find themselves involved in a struggle with totalitarian powers, the President has asked Congress for the broadest grant of authority ever made in the history of this nation. Whether or not Congress gives him this authority we are definitely in the war. If selling, lending, leasing or otherwise transferring implements of war to Britain at the President’s discretion fails to defeat Hitler, then, in all likelihood, we shall not refuse our man power. Our commitments are already such as seemingly to make that course inevitable."
San Francisco Chronicle -- "This is what we have been waiting for. The thing to do is to put this plan into effect at once without further argument....It is of little use to make the guns and planes and tanks if they cannot get to England. It is of little use to make them to be sunk on the way. If this problem can only be met by sending our warships and our warplanes to protect these shipments across the ocean, that will have to be done. We are in this fight now up to our necks, since we realize it is our fight."
Cleveland Plain Dealer -- "This legislation has the possibility of making the President of the United States the greatest war lord of all time....We are willing to trust President Roosevelt with this tremendous amount of power. We believe he will use it wisely."
Los Angeles Times -- "If the Lend Act is to be criticized, it is on the ground of its extreme broadness -- one certain to result in time-losing controversy. What objection is there to naming specifically the countries to which aid may be leased or loaned? Why does the President need the discretion to aid all and sundry? Let it provide for all-out aid to Britain, and damn the torpedoes. Congress will do well to amend the measure so that it must be consulted when the President deems the situation has changed. And quickly too; if the law is to do any good, it must be in operation soon. Hitler will not wait on ponderous Congressional deliberations; rather the contrary."
Baltimore Sun -- "In finance and in foreign policy, we must exert every energy to be effectual. But if this democracy is as intelligent as it professes to believe a democracy should be and may be, we can be effectual without being reckless....Let [Congress] give Mr. Roosevelt full authority to act. But let Congress also impose limits upon the duration of his powers and require knowledge of the use to which he currently puts those powers."
Dallas News -- "In granting the authority wisely asked by the White House, the legislative branch must act today with greater wisdom perhaps than it has ever before been called upon to use. The representative government must not restrict too much and must not grant too much. Congress cannot, for instance, give blanket financial power to the President. That it cannot do lawfully. Still more, that it cannot do safely. For whatever Mr. Roosevelt’s good qualities may be, he has but one idea of money. He knows only how to spend it."
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