WHAT NEXT IN AMERICA ?
WITH Congress adjourned, what may now be expected of American policy? First, President Roosevelt and Secretary Cordell Hull will continue their efforts by " methods short of war " to bring home to aggressor governments their intention of being a major factor on the side of peace. An illustration, taken entirely within the prerogative of the executive, but with the subsequent warm approval of Congress, was the notice of termination of the 28-year-old commercial treaty with Japan.
Second, if a war crisis or a war is precipitated in Europe, President Roosevelt is pledged to call a special session of Congress, first to seek repeal of the arms embargo and after- ward to support such steps as may be most helpful in the situation.
Third, it is safe to conclude that no such divergence over foreign policy as may have seemed to lie behind the Senate's refusal to repeal the arms embargo actually exists in American opinion. The best proof that the United States, willy-nilly, is a powerful factor in the world situation lies in the enormous total of $2,500,000,000 which this Congress appropriated for the expansion and upkeep of the nation's armed forces.
Fourth, it is of course plain that President Roosevelt is in domestic political difficulties which will have some effect on his foreign policies. But, on the other hand, an oversea crisis might solidify support for the President rather than increase the opposition to him.
The widespread national approval which greeted our notice to terminate the 1911 treaty with Japan was one of the most significant phenomena of recent months. It proves again how much more power and latitude American opinion is willing to give the Government in Far Eastern than in European affairs. And since peace is indivisible, since pressure on Great Britain or France or Russia in Asia is an effective method of attempting to weaken their European policies, it is surely substantially as valuable to them to have the United States forceful in the Orient as it would be in Europe.
The decision to terminate the 1911 treaty was another of those Roosevelt improvisations which catch Americans as well as foreigners unawares. The British Government, we understand from the news cables, was somewhat irked by the surprise. So, I may add, was this correspondent, who —by a familiar and unhappy fate—had just put into the transatlantic mails an article for The Spectator with refer- ences to American Far Eastern policy which did not envisage that action. Mr. Roosevelt is like that. The history of the treaty decision is broadly as follows: The Senate had blocked the President on neutrality legis- lation. The impression that went out to the world was that American policy must of necessity slow up, that Mr. Roosevelt had been rebuked. Numerous Senators had intro- duced Bills to apply an embargo to Japan, an action much stronger than a mere treaty abrogation, or than neutrality- law revision. A widespread national campaign to end American support by materials of Japanese aggression had deeply impressed public opinion ; Congressmen were hear- ing from the country on this issue. Then Senator Vanden- berg, chief potential Republican candidate for the Presidency next year, introduced a resolution to give notice of terminat- ing the 1911 treaty, and taking other steps preparatory to an embargo against Japan.
The Administration, seeing this favourable combination of circumstances, immediately gave notice of termination— without telling Downing Street or anybody else. A few of us suspected the action a brief 24 hours in advance, and so wrote in our newspapers, but that was all. Denunciation of the treaty hit public opinion in the right spot, Republicans and Democrats alike approved the action, and many now look forward with surprising equanimity to the application of an anti-Japanese embargo after the requisite six-months interval is up. But an embargo is a most serious step, and the State Department is naturally very cautious in con- templating it.
Anyhow, this bold move—by which the Administration hoped to counterbalance the impression of weakness given by the formula worked out by Foreign Minister Arita and Sir Robert Craigie—brought the United States back into the game of power-politics with a vengeance. It is just this sort of executive action which the world may expect in coming months. President Roosevelt has found that he can expect popular support when his actions are attuned to the present temper of the nation, which means that he can go very far indeed in Asia but must tread cautiously in Europe.
In the background all the time is the constantly growing American military establishment. It is well enough to say that these armaments are keyed to defence : an impregnable American defence is the first step toward making the nation a factor in world policies. Under the appropriation of $2,500,000,000 for national defence this Congress voted to raise the Army Air Corps to a maximum of 6,000 planes, authorised construction of two 45,000 super-battleships and the continuation of much auxiliary naval construction. greatly strengthened and extended a chain of advanced bases extending in a great arc from Alaska through the west and middle Pacific, the Panama Canal, and around to the " Gibraltar " which Puerto Rico is to become far out on the Atlantic side of the Caribbean. Scarcely any part of the entire army and naval establishments did not receive sub- stantial strengthening as a result of this Congress.
And now the legislators, who have come to hold the balance of power in the co-ordinate system of American government, are at home getting in direct touch once more with their constituents. They will not return until January, unless a special session is called. Probably they will come back even more stiff in their opposition to the President than when they left Washington.
Mr. Roosevelt faces a dreary prospect. For the months just ahead, the business observers expect steady improvement. The upward movement is a result of accumulated circumstances: federal spending finally taking hold, the normal swing of the cycle, &c. But most important is the encouragement to business which .the Congressional checks to the President apparently furnish. Despite Mr. Roosevelt's two recent gloomy forecasts, the stock market has risen and the indices are up. The upward trend is expected to continue into early 194o, and then drop off sharply as a result of cyclical trends and the substantial decline of Governmental spending. But Congress is most unlikely to vote in an election year heavy " pump-priming " expenditures at the disposal of the President, for such appropriations to the opposition at least would be regarded as an election fund. Thus, in the present outlook, the President gets it in the neck coming and going. He receives no credit for the present upward movement, and the expected decline will come just when he and his friends are appealing for votes.
Thus economics and politics are almost hopelessly jumbled in the United States once again, and the nation faces the gloomy prospect of seeing recovery set back perhaps disastrously because of its quadrennial electoral dog-fights. At such times come the panacea-mongers: the pension-ites, the inflationists, the crack-pots and the extremists. It is a grim and serious challenge to civic leadership, a challenge to citizenship to demand more than politics from the politicians next year.
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