Everything for Defense

U. S. public opinion, which is apt to advance by little leaps and big bounds, last week threw itself panting on its face. It had gone a scarily long way from its old isolationist apathy. If U. S. opinion last week could be gauged in a sentence, it was this: Hitler was invincible in Europe, Britain was facing probable defeat, the U. S. had best look to its own security.

The public mood made itself felt in Congress (see p. 18). The U. S. wanted anything & everything for defense: Pan-American cartels, quickened industrial mobilization, billions for armaments, mobilization of every able-bodied man. A Gallup poll showed that public sentiment for compulsory training had increased from 61% against (last October) to 64% in favor (last week). Strongest sentiment was in the South, the coastal areas of the East and Far West. Members of families with men between 18 and 30, the most nearly concerned, were 61% in favor of universal service, 71% in favor of drafting to fill vacancies in the regular Army.

Compulsory training was already a gleam in Congress' eye, but lawmakers moved too slowly to suit many a U. S. citizen. Anxious to learn the modern arts of self-defense right now, more than 1,900 men rushed their applications to the offices of the newly organized Military Training Camp Association in Manhattan, for a month's summer training at Plattsburg, N. Y. The association, authorized by the War Department to recruit only 500 men, announced it would select another 500 as alternates to fill possible vacancies. The citizen soldiers, aged 25 to 50, business and professional men, clerks and millionaires, will pay their own expenses ($58.75), sweat in Army uniforms, train with Army equipment.

A FORTUNE Survey, published this week, showed the country overwhelmingly (93.6%) for spending "whatever is necessary to build up as quickly as possible our Army, Navy and Air Force." The FORTUNE Survey showed that, even before the collapse of France, most of those polled had already decided that Germany would win; only 30.3% still saw a chance for the Allies.

So scared was many a U. S. citizen last week that he wanted to shut off aid to Britain for fear the U. S. would weaken its own defenses, wanted to have the U. S. wash its hands of help for Britain, for fear of getting involved on the losing side. Addressing the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, Author Lawrence Dennis (The Coming American Fascism) declared: "The problem as Mr. Roosevelt sees it may be how to make the Allies win, but as I see it, that is now hopeless. The problem for America, as I see it, is how to adjust ourselves to the new conditions or how to get on in the new world that will be remade by the winners of this war. That will require a lot more realism and common sense than we have shown of late in regard to world affairs." Said Philadelphia's Author-Economist Dr. Ernest Minor Patterson (The Economic Bases of Peace): "Nobody wins an earthquake, and in the realm of economics nobody wins a war."

The fact that if Britain defeats Germany, the U. S. will have no Nazi peril to cope with, was not often pointed to. Only a few people pointed out that the Battle of Britain had not yet been lost. "Further resistance is possible," said Columnist Walter Lippmann, "in a sense in which it was not possible to France." If the British Fleet does fall to Hitler, Mr. Lippmann said, the U. S. will be isolated completely. "The question for us is not whether we shall send an army to Europe but whether we shall use our naval, air, economic and political power to prevent Hitler from obtaining command of the Atlantic Ocean."

The New York Herald Tribune, contemplating a Nazi victory: "If by any national aid which we can now throw into the scales, that victory could be averted, most of the defense program could be laid aside and the peace and security of the U. S. would be guaranteed far more positively than they are ever likely to be by any amount of rearmament we may undertake alone in a Hitler world."

Those voices might have been pointing the direction of public opinion's next frantic scramble, but last week U. S. public opinion did not hear them. It was flat on its face, breathing hard.

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