A Smart Stroke

Entry Of Eden, Churchill Into Cabinet Might Convince Dictators

If Mr. Chamberlain is actually about to take Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill into his cabinet, it is the most heartening news that has come out of England in a long time. Eden is anathema to the dictators precisely because they know he is an advocate of strong and decisive action. And Bully-boy Churchill is one of the toughest leaders England has ever had. He has many faults, and in ordinary peacetime, he probably has no business being in power. But at a time like this one he is a natural for a post in the Government. For he has intelligence and decision and it is quite as impossible to scare him as it was to scare the original founder of his line, old Jack Churchill, the common soldier who came up to be first Duke of Marlborough and hero of Blenheim. And it is exactly such qualities that England needs now in her leaders.

Reports from Berlin quote Nazi leaders to the effect that Hitler has raised the ante for Poland--that he will now no longer be content with Danzig and the Corridor--indicate that he has in mind to extinguish her altogether as he extinguished Czechoslovakia. And that both he and his Germans believe that England will not intervene. That in part, of course, is standard Nazi braggadocio designed to intimidate Poland and England. But it probably represents their real attitude to a very considerable extent--suggests strongly that Chamberlain's fatal incapacity really to talk, act, and be tough has led them confidently to think that they are on their way to another Munich. Perhaps they are, but if not--then the very best chance for averting war is somehow to drive home to them the fact that they are mistaken before it is too late. And for the doing of that the taking of Eden and Churchill into the Cabinet is the best imaginable stroke.

Strictly Partisan

Vote On The Neutrality Is Simply A Blow Aimed At Roosevelt

There have been few shabbier chapters in the history of the House than that written Friday by the passage of the Vorys amendment to the Neutrality Bill by vote of 214 to 173. For that amendment cuts the heart out of the Hull proposals and insures the continuation of the mandatory arms embargo.

And it is quite impossible to believe that 214 members voted for the amendment on the ground that they allege--that they believe it will help keep us out of war and that it serves the national interest. The whole record and all logic suggest that it will do the exact opposite. As much as any other one thing, it destroyed the Spanish Government and established the Fascist power in the Peninsula, to our grief in Latin-America. More, it promises to cripple our friends in Europe if war comes, to the aiding of our Fascist enemies. And that, coming at the time of the greatest crisis since July, 1914, constitutes an open invitation to Adolf Hitler to go right ahead and open up war.

What made this decision is clear enough. A handful of isolationists from the Middle West--most of them, it is worth observing, hailing from states like Wisconsin and Missouri heavily populated by Germans--voted for it out of conviction and the more or less openly expressed desire to injure England and France and benefit Germany. But the remainder of that 214 was made up mainly of Republicans--virtually the whole party membership in the House--and of anti-New Deal Democrats. And the motive was simply to slap the President in the face, to deprive him of powers that ought rightfully be his and tie his hands so that his foreign policy will come to ruin. And if that should bring disaster to the country--what is that as against the joy of having got that fellow Roosevelt?