Out on the Limb

Is there a national emergency or is there not? With fear & trembling the House confronted this question--a question in the form of a bill to extend the service of draftees in the Army.

If the U.S. actually were in danger, and the danger could be shown, the bill would pass like a shot; draftees would stay in the Army indefinitely. If no danger could be clearly demonstrated, the bill might fail, the half-baked U.S. Army would lose its half-baked soldiers, would have to start from the beginning again with completely raw recruits.

The Senate had already passed a bill extending service for 18 months; but the Senate had not answered the big question. Isolationist after Isolationist had stood up and shouted that he wanted to be shown: Where was the emergency? Less loudly, less cogently the Administration's leaders had tried to prove that the peril to the U.S. was immense and soon might be immediate. They lost the argument but passed the bill; enough middle-roaders went along with them to shove the measure through, 45-to-30 (ten Senators ducked a vote, were "ill," "out of town" or just-away).

Of the 30 Nay voters, 23 were confirmed Isolationists who had also voted against the Lend-Lease Bill and against nearly every Roosevelt-sponsored measure relating to foreign policy. Against the Lend-Lease Bill they had argued that the U.S, was quite capable of defending itself alone. Now they argued that going-it-alone did not necessarily include creating a big, well-trained Army, certainly did not include sending arms to Soviet Russia, California's irreconcilable Isolationist, old (74) Senator Hiram Johnson, shouted in a throbbing voice: "I will not subscribe to the doctrine that you must be a Stalinite to be an American. . . . Good God! Did we ever sink so low before as to choose one cutthroat out of two? This man was Hitler's ally. . . . Now we furnish him with weapons which may be turned upon us."

In the House, the bill's fate teetered on a narrow balance; if the bill were to be passed, the argument would have to be won. The House leaders faced up to their task with no great conviction. Only a month ago Speaker Sam Rayburn himself had stated that to keep the draftees past their year's enrollment was a breach of contract. Now he had changed his mind: he had been convinced that there was a national emergency; whether he could convince enough of his fellows remained to be seen. The Senate had beaten down attempts to make the extension for only six months (proposed by Ohio's Robert Taft), for only twelve months (Ohio's Harold Burton), had finally agreed on 18 months and a limited declaration of "national peril." House leaders privately feared that the best they could hope for was a six-months' extension. The Isolationists, supposedly on the defensive, were smiting their opponents hip & thigh.

Editorial writers throughout the land pointed out that Congress was getting itself out on a creaky limb. If Russia were suddenly to go down before the Nazis, just as the U.S. Army was well broken up, Congress would be in a fix much worse than mere embarrassment. Hitler would then have all of Europe and a big chunk of Asia. And the U.S. would be armed only with the tongues of its Congressmen.

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