Editorial: Still on guard
From the Philadelphia Bulletin
Republican National Committeeman G. Mason Owlett, in a letter to The Evening Bulletin, insists his warning against the “post-war return of American-made, government-owned war merchandise to this country at bargain prices and duty free” has nothing to do with the repayment of war debts, our gold supply or Lend-Lease. It is Mr. Owlett’s opinion that the influx of such distressed merchandise after the last war “helped create a depression which ran six years.”
But Mr. Owlett himself in his letter worries about:
…the amount of goods and material of foreign origin which is apt to find its way into this market following the close of the war.
In capital letter phrases, he warns against such economic cooperation with the rest of the world as may make “American enterprise a decadent, retrogressive victim of low-cost foreign competition.”
It is clear that Mr. Owlett looks upon the import of foreign goods into this country with an unfriendly eye, as though they were a menace to be guarded against and not an asset.
Such an attitude does concern the repayment of Lend-Lease and the future of our foreign trade markets. For we cannot be repaid or expand our sales abroad unless we are willing to accept the goods of other nations in greater volume than before the war. Foreign trade is not a one-way street.