The Pittsburgh Press (June 20, 1942)
‘Business of war’ blame pinned to Axis
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
Someone remarked the other day that the “business of the modern world is to make war.” In this condemnation he blanketed all nations together, democracies as well as dictatorships.
I wonder if the people of Spain, Scandinavia, Poland, the Lowlands, France, Greece, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, England during 1940, as the bombers came over, have thought, as they looked up, “The business of my country has been to make war!” Wasn’t it more apt to have been, just before they died, the thought, “Where are our planes?”
And even the accusation that Britain and the United States are as guilty as the Axis because they sold the Axis the raw materials and scrap iron to make their armaments, is not very well founded. The run of non-Fifth Column Englishmen and Americans refused to believe the Axis meant anything but peace, even during the Spanish Civil War! The Axis told them 24 hours a day that all they wanted was a place in the sun, nothing aggressive, etc. You have the raw materials, and it is greedy of you to keep them, etc. The Army, the Navy, the State Department of this nation could be pursuaded still, on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, that Japan’s intentions were honest.
Surely the plain fact is that the war-making nations of Europe have been able to put their bombers over the unprotected skies of most pf the world because the modern world refused “to make war its business.”
What chance was there of persuading Americans to go to war against Japan in 1931 when China was invaded, if they wouldn’t even declare war when every nation in Europe, save a bombed and stubborn England, had been virtually destroyed, and until thousands of her own citizens were murdered in their beds? How can any thinking person say that this nation’s, or Britain’s business has been “making war?”
Had it been the business of the modern world to make war, it would have been a “quick on the trigger world.” The men of Bataan can tell you that a nation that could no nothing for them was not a war-making nation. When they asked, “Where are our planes and our convoys?” we could only reply:
We don’t have them! We have been making cars for you to take the kids to the lake, or the north woods, or to school; we’ve been making vacuum cleaners and washing ,machines and refrigerators for your wives; we’ve been making plumbing apparatus and radios for your house! We’ve been making those things instead of bombers and ships. God knows how sorry we are we can’t protect you – but we couldn’t believe such things could really happen, and we haven’t got the stuff yet!
The Axis may enjoy telling Americans that the business of us all is and has been war; but some of its friends here haven’t been saying that to us. Three years of American First speeches told us we had no right to resist the Axis, or help anyone else resist, because “You’re not prepared!” The Axis really thought it could win most of the world on the basis that only a small part of the modern world makes a business of war – and that is the Axis. That is why they dared to say they would be in London by July 15, 1940; and that Hitler would have his picture taken a bit later in front of our skyscrapers. It is easy to win when only one side makes a business of war.
KATHARINE HAYDEN SALTER
Madison, WI
Switch to big bombers termed essential
Editor, The Pittsburgh Press:
Announcement by the Navy of the loss of the aircraft carrier Lexington, with the revelation of the facts of the battle of Midway, should finally knock into the heads of the administration and of Congress:
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That carrier-based aircraft are no match for land-based long-range heavy bombers.
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That the billions being spent on battleships and aircraft carriers are being wasted.
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That those billions instead should be spent to build long-ranged heavy bombers of the type envisaged by Major de Seversky in his book Victory Through Air Power.
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That an independent air department should be immediately organized, with men at the head of it who believe in and thus can visualize the potentialities of air power.
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That unless the “old-school tie” of Army and Navy control over the use of air power is stopped hundreds of thousands of young American boys will needlessly die in trying to beat Japan and Germany in the old fashioned island-to-island, foot-by-foot American Expeditionary Force of World War I days.
Can’t your paper and its affiliates lead the crusade to have the U.S. fight this war as it should be fought, namely, in the air with planes such as only our superb industry can build in unlimited quantities.
The predictions of Major de Seversky have been proved in every theater of this war. It is not too late to carry on the steps necessary to attain the path to victory that he and the late General Mitchell, as well as your Major Al Williams, have set forth.
C. VAN NESS WOOD
Yonkers, NY