Ethical Question

President Roosevelt started it. In Hyde Park, where he had gone to vote, visit his mother, catch cold and be serenaded by shivering villagers after the Republicans swept the county, he told reporters what he thought of the transfer of U. S. ships to foreign flags.

From all over the U. S. echoes of protest rolled back to Hyde Park on the Hudson. No, said Senators Borah, Clark, Johnson, Wheeler, Minton, Schwellenbach, Pepper, Byrd, McNary, Taft, Nye; no, said the Sailors' Union of the Pacific. No, said Congressmen Bloom, Coffee of Washington, along with the Keep America out of War Congress, the National Maritime Union, and Columnists Krock, Denny, Flynn, Thompson, et al. No, said that old Border Statesman Cordell Hull of Pickett County, Tenn., Secretary of State through the 2,445 days of the first two administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

What had the President said?

Night before he spoke his mind, the U. S. Maritime Commission in Washington announced its conditional approval of the transfer of eight ships of the United States Lines to the flag of the Republic of Panama. Banned from belligerent ports, banned from their regular North Atlantic runs because of the combat-areas provision of the Neutrality Act*, these vessels could travel to these ports under the Panama flag, could, moreover, carry arms. And although President Roosevelt announced he was holding up the transfer pending investigation, he expressed his opinion that the transfer did not violate the Neutrality Act because: 1) the U. S. would have no jurisdiction over the ships, and 2) they could not carry U. S. crews.

Border Statesman. Within one hour up spoke Secretary Hull in Washington to announce a contrary view. A quiet, softspoken, long-suffering ex-judge (keeping close control over one of the hottest tempers in Washington), Cordell Hull's difficulties have long provided left-wing New Dealers with some of their favorite and more malicious anecdotes. They like to tell about the time he was told of the Munich settlement, glanced at the documents, drawled "Sure 'nough" and went on about his business. They tell of the time he spoke with quiet pride of his work as a reformer on the first modern U. S. income-tax bill back in 1913, while his audience--national planners, currency tinkerers, spenders-lenders, rural resettlementers, court reorganizers--could hardly keep their faces straight.

Said the Secretary, disagreeing with his chief: when the Maritime Commission first approached him, he felt that no question of foreign policy was involved. Then he realized he had spoken hastily, believed all officials should join in preserving the absolute integrity of the Neutrality Act, advised the Commission that there should not be even the appearance of any official step or course that might negate that policy.

Next day reporters rushed to Secretary Hull's regular press conference at 12:30 p. m. "Gentlemen," said the Border Statesman, giving them a glacial stare, "I have nothing to say on the City of Flint or transference to the Panama flag."

Reaction. Stock reactions there were aplenty--right, left, centre. A bored secretary of C. I. O.'s Maritime Committee, queried in Manhattan, came across with that classic cliche of the Left (as venerated in Communist circles as the "menace to our form of government" among the Right): this "is a vicious stab in the back to American seamen." Nobody paid much attention at first, because, according to the N. M. U., seamen have been stabbed in the back so many times they are as perforated as a sheet of stamps--the Algic case was a stab in the back, so were the deportation proceedings against Harry Bridges, the Dies Committee, the policies of the Maritime Commission and the outbreak of war.

Isolationists did not show much spirit. "A subterfuge," said Senator Bennett Clark. "Subterfuge," echoed Senator Wheeler.

For the United States Lines, President John Franklin explained that the line would meet the Maritime Commission's conditions. "We are trying to stay in business," said he. "We are in a serious predicament. . . . If we go out of business now, we can't expect to come back later and say, 'Gentlemen, we're sorry, but we've been out to lunch.' "

This was the signal for Big Joe Curran to go into action. Big Joe stormed and fumed, fee-fi-fo-fummed to 3,000 of his red-hots in Manhattan: "Even if [the shippers] . . . do change flags and their ships are sunk they will squawk for American protection. . . . Flag-swapping will put 10,000 seamen out of work. . . ." Getting a little mixed up about the size of the White House, he roared: "If they put alien seamen on these ships we are going to take 10,000 sailors onto the White House porch, and picket the Maritime Commission . . . until they drop."

"Human Rights." Two days later at his press conference, President Roosevelt hedged on the question of ship transfer, repeated that he believed the transfer legal. Testy again, he said that unfortunately the President was more or less bound by the law, and that this idea was challenged by people who had formerly demanded of the President a strict interpretation of the law. Many persons, said he, were forgetting the human angle over their concern for the property angle, but he was not one of those. He was working on a three-point program for relief of seamen thrown out of work.

Soon there appeared on the White House porch, not 10,000 sailors ready to drop, but Joe Curran, ready to confer. Much subdued after his talk with the President, Joe Curran came out again saying the march had been called off for the present, that the WPA might take 5,000 jobless seamen, that merchant marine training schools might absorb others. He wisecracked loudly about his fellow conferee and old rival for dominance of the New York water front, A. F. of L.'s longshoreman chief, Joe Ryan. Loudly Joe Ryan, within hearing distance in the White House lobby, made caustic remarks in return. Their relations, understated a reporter on the scene, "were not cordial."

Ethics. Although general agreement was that the transfer device was legal, equally strong was the belief that President Roosevelt had sadly misjudged public opinion in approving it. Under the proclamation of "limited emergency" the Maritime Commission had the power to refuse transfer. Most blunt accusation was that, apart from financial, legal, labor and political problems involved, the deal smacked of trickery. Most common criticism was that the President had handled a moral question as a purely legal and financial matter, had shifted to the aggrieved position of the oft-stabbed seamen when his first argument won no support. During the long debate on the Neutrality Act, no Administration spokesman had hinted at a loophole in the measure to permit such a transfer; although shipping people discussed it privately with some Congressmen, nothing was publicly said, nor did publicity attend several flag transfers* that took place during the debate. During debate Administration Leader Alben Barkley talked of all the things that U. S. ships could not carry and all the ports they could not carry them to, cried: "Because I want no war I. . . propose to vote for a measure which involves the greatest sacrifice ever made by any nation in the history of mankind in order to avoid war." Commented the New York Times's Arthur Krock: "Had the Panama scheme been exposed while he was speaking, and had he been asked, 'What sacrifices?' he would have been hard put to it for an answer."

* Neutral Eire objected early this week to being put in the "combat area." * Notably of several Standard Oil Tankers.

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