The Pittsburgh Press (January 18, 1941)
General Johnson’s Column –
WRITER FINDS FAN MAIL AGAINST ‘RUSH TO WAR’
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Suggests that readers conduct own polls on Lend-Lease Bill
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By Hugh S. Johnson
Washington –
Conduct your own Gallup poll.
The lowering level of British dollar credits may be a reason for hastening some kind of provisions for granting credits or even gifts to England, so that her placing of orders here may not be delayed, thus delaying deliveries a year from now. But that is no reason for bum’s-rushing the “Lend-Lease” monstrosity through Congress without ample debate.
That bill is very much more than an Aid-to-Britain bill. It is an abdication of Congressional war powers to the President and authorizes him to engage in economic and partial military and naval war, for or on behalf of any nation anywhere in the world.
That is not at all necessary for Aid-to-Britain, which could be given to the full of whatever has been asked by her in a much simpler bill and without surrendering our constitutional form of government in favor of a one-man Commander-in-Chief of all our destinies.
There is no popular demand for any such revolutionary action. There is a popular demand for aid-to-Britain. Advantage has been taken of this to write a bill for a military dictatorship and then say:
This is aid-to-Britain – in the only way.
Simply not true
That simply is not true. It is a cruel misleading of the public and a misuse of public opinion, as are many other aspects of this bill.
In this remark, our tendency to government by Gallup polls is somewhat responsible. During five days in bed with the flu, I have had a chance to check up on my fan mail. It is full of sentiment for aid-to-Britain. It is overwhelmingly against our rushing into this war.
As the points made in this column are beginning to be understood, it is increasingly against this bill. I believe if the bill is debated long enough to make clear what is going on here, it can never pass without amendments restricting it to the real popular purpose – aid-to-Britain.
No Gallup polls have brought out these distinctions. The questions, especially recently, have been increasingly phrased in such a way as to lead to answers looking to our greater and greater unnecessary involvement in war. Yet every poll posing the stark question of involvement results in resounding “No’s,” in an overwhelming majority.
Here is an experiment that every American bewildered by these sinister developments can make for himself. Conduct your own Gallup poll.
Try asking others
When you hear from Washington (as you will because that is part of the pro-war propaganda) that the people overwhelmingly want this bill or something vastly more than aid-to-Britain, set aside a part of every day, to ask not only friends, but strangers, whether they want to go further than aid-to-Britain?
I can’t guarantee the result, but from my mail most of our people don’t want to go a step further than the preparation of an impregnable American defense and such a help to beleaguered Britain as can be given without getting us into bloody war.
Try it yourself. If you find the facts as my mail indicates, make yourself heard in Washington by exercising your constitutional right of informing your representatives in Congress what their constituents think.
These are critical days in the battle of America. It is your battle for the future of yourself, your children and your country.
Statements not true
The recent sensational predictions of invasion of America, by air or otherwise, as an argument for bum’s-rushing this bill are no frank. This bill will add nothing to speed that could not be done in safer and better ways.
The gentlemen who howl about delay are among the very ones responsible for whatever delay there is today. They are responsible because, back through the years when preparation should have been made and this column and many others were calling attention to all these delays and dangers and the necessity for the present action, they were asleep at the switch.
That doesn’t prevent them from calling us “appeasers.” They have been the true appeasers.