"Humanize"

Perhaps the most contradictory phrase of the 20th Century is "civilized warfare." Also, the idea that it is all right to shoot people with a steel-jacketed but not a dumdum bullet, to run them through with bayonets but not choke them with gas, to destroy their vessels with a battleship but not a submarine--all this is quite confusing to some uncomplicated minds. Lately the democracies have been trying to "humanize"' the wars in Spain and China, chiefly by urging the cessation of bombing behind the lines.

Twice during the past year Great Brittain, France and the U. S. have appealed to the "world's conscience" against bombing of open cities. Fortnight ago. Canton, China, was subjected to a series of severe raids. Result: 1,000 dead, 1,500 wounded, widespread destruction. Following week the Spanish Leftist cities of Alicante and Granollers were blasted unmercifully. Listed victims: 600 dead, 1,500 wounded, women and children predominating. So last week, unanimous Big Protest Series No. 3 was issued so simultaneously from London, Paris and Washington as to seem suspiciously like joint action.

Britain and Bombs. At Burgos, Spanish Rightist capital. British Agent Sir Robert Hodgson informed Generalissimo Franco's Government of His Britannic Majesty's Government's "horror" at civilian losses in Leftist Spain. At Tokyo, British Ambassador Sir Robert L. Craigie objected to "indiscriminate" aerial attacks on Canton. While Laborites in the House of Commons pointedly demanded that Britain do something besides "hold up her hands in horror." Richard Austen Butler, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, outlined a plan to organize a small, neutral, independent, international commission to investigate all bombings.

U. S. & Bombs. At a Washington press conference Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles read a Roosevelt-approved moral indignation statement condemning "ruthless bombing of unfortified localities" as "barbarous." Significantly added was the statement that the U. S. still adhered to a non-intervention policy. Night before, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, speaking in Nashville, declared that the U. S. was willing to join in a conference at The Hague for "humanizing" war practices. To an English invitation to America to join in the bombings investigating committee, the U. S. seemed likely to decline, however.

France & Bombs. France's realistic Foreign Office was thoroughly aroused when nine unidentifiable war planes crossed the frontier near Toulouse and bombed power and rail lines. Even strong French Rightist newsorgans expressed their horror at the bombings and French Premier Edouard Daladier emplaned on a tour of the damaged area. But in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, little sympathy was shown for either Chinese or Spanish bomb victims. The Italian press declared Spanish Rightist bombs had been dropped "very accurately on warehouses, ships carrying contraband in process of being unloaded, railroad equipment and wharves." In Germany. Propagandist Joseph Goebbels' newspaper, Der Angriff, accused Britain of having bombed women and children in Northwest India during the last three months, rudely asked: "Do the British authorities love the Chinese coolie more than the Hindu woman?"

Net results of last week's Democratic Powers' protests was as follows: Day after Great Britain and the U. S. had spoken their pieces, Japanese bombers swooped down over Canton and again the next day, and again the next day. At week's end there had been eight consecutive bombing days, killing & wounding over 6,500. And Japan showed no intention of stopping bombing the southern terminus of China's munitions route. In Spain, German bombers flew over Barcelona again, Italian planes raided Leftist Spain's Levant and Tarragona. Toll: 41 dead, 98 wounded.

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