First Venture

"Well, brethren, you are on the spot."

Ohio's thoughtful John M. Vorys was addressing the whole U.S. House of Representatives, but he looked straight at his Republican colleagues. Up for debate was a bill to earmark $1,350,000,000 as the U.S. share (i% of estimated 1943 national income) for aid to war victims through the United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Administration. When it came right down to appropriating U.S. dollars, was Congress really ready to cooperate with 43 other nations in a nonmilitary project? It was a tempting chance to play GOPolitics with an Administration bill. But ex-isolationists who stepped forward hopefully to lead the opposition to UNRRA suddenly found themselves fighting a strong G.O.P. cheering section.

UNRRA looked to New York's brass-lunged Ham Fish like a "gigantic international WPA." Illinois's Jessie Sumner had figured out that the whole thing was a scheme to "make Stalin dictator of Europe." California's Bertrand W. Gearhart cried that it was unconstitutional. For these and other objections, Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee were ready with patient, sense-making answers.

Representative Vorys warned: "Most of you will not be able to understand this great, elaborate, detailed mechanism by merely closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. You have got to study [it]. . . . While this is not perfect . . . it is our responsibility to give it a chance. ..."

Said New Jersey's sage, white-crowned Charles A. Eaton: "The object of this legislation--and do not forget it--is to help those people to help themselves. . . . It is impossible for us to continue to be an island of prosperity in an ocean of adversity. . . . We cannot be a healthy nation surrounded by a sick world."

Ohio's Frances P. Bolton reasoned: "I cannot believe that the people of this country will want to do anything less for themselves and the future than to play a vital, living, vivid part in this, our first venture into international responsibility."

The entire success or failure of UNRRA, concluded New York's James W. Wadsworth, "depends on the United States."

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