Half a Halter

Being told what he must do is constitutionally distasteful to Franklin Roosevelt. Being told what he must do in case war breaks out in the world, he considers--and Secretary of State Hull agrees with him--to be a handicap to statesmanship. In seeking revision of the Neutrality law which Congress fastened upon him two years ago, Mr. Roosevelt this year sought primarily to remove his obligation to declare an embargo on "implements of war" for belligerents. The revised Neutrality act offered in the House last month by New York's prognathous Sol Bloom was drawn with this in view, and all seemed set for its passage.

One evening last week the House leadership was weary after a running fight with advocates of repealing the Neutrality act entirely, returning U. S. war policy to due process of international law. This plan was beaten, but then Ohio's Republican Representative Vorys proposed keeping at least half a halter on Franklin Roosevelt, obliging him to embargo at least "lethal weapons." To the House leadership's shocked surprise, this proposal carried. But the vote was only 159 to 157 in committee-of-the-whole. Mr. Roosevelt's men confidently expected to beat it next day in the final voting of the whole House.

Both the President and Secretary Hull had used dark forebodings of crisis again this summer in Europe as arguments for more latitude in the law. But the House took last week's developments in Poland and elsewhere just the other way. Despite strong pleas by Speaker Bankhead and Majority Leader Rayburn ("Is there any immorality in our shipping arms to a little weak country so it can defend itself?"), the House decided not to turn Franklin Roosevelt entirely loose. The Vorys amendment carried again by 214 to 173, the whole bill by 200 to 188.

Other sections of the measure provided that:

>Congress, as well as the President, might perceive and proclaim a state of war.

>Belligerents must pay cash and take title to purchases in the U. S.

>Belligerents might float no U. S. loans beyond normal short-term commercial needs.

>Latin-American countries were exempt from the most vital provisions (as the President wished).

>U. S. citizens would travel on belligerents' ships at their own risk. (Out of the bill was knocked discretionary power for the President to define combat areas and prescribe U. S. ships' and citizens' actions therein.)

But these items were beside the bill's big point, which was that it prohibited U. S. arms & ammunition to belligerents. That clause alone, gloated Senate isolationists, ruined the bill for the Administration. They predicted it would go on the Senate's shelf, leaving Neutrality as is.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.