A R E W E B E I N G L E D I N T O W A R ?

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–––––––––––––––––––––– George A. Dondero –––––––––––––––––––

Mr. Chairman, this bill is entitled “A bill to promote the defense of the

United States.” It is a strange coincidence that the number of this bill in the

House is the same as a portentous year in the history of the United States—

1776—a year in which the struggle for independence began, a year in which the

fires of war were kindled and bloodshed commenced.

If this measure becomes law in its present form, it too, may be the flint on

which the spark of the fires of war will be struck in the year 1941. It might very

properly be designated as a bill to black out a form of government once known

as the Republic of the United States; not the democracy of the United States, for

such it never has been and is not now.

Never before in our history has the Congress of the United States been asked

to abdicate or surrender its war-making power under the Constitution and

entrust the destiny and the fate of the Nation to one man. No other measure

ever asked such sweeping dictatorial powers as this from the chosen

Representatives of a free people.…

Section 3 of this bill strikes down and repeals by implication the Johnson Act

and the Neutrality Act. Many Members of this House will recall with what

enthusiasm and aggressiveness the administration urged to passage the

Neutrality Act as a means of preventing this Nation from becoming involved in

war. I shared in that enthusiasm, lifted my voice, and cast my vote in behalf of

the passage of that act. I was moved with others, because of the fine objectives

of that measure, that peace might be the coveted blessing of the American

people. That law has been shorn and stripped of every vestige of neutrality. It is

a forgotten measure. Its heart and life are dead. It is in the wastebasket as an

obsolete principle on which the Nation might base its action, and the bill before

us will relegate it to the cemetery of forgotten dreams.

Under section 3 of this proposal, which is little short of a declaration of war,

the President, and not Congress, the Representatives and the Senators who are

directly responsible to the people and speak for them, can “notwithstanding the

provisions of any other law” sell our Navy, transfer our Navy, exchange our

Navy, lease our Navy, lend our Navy, or otherwise dispose of it to any

government he sees fit and with “any defense article.” The term “any defense

article” is defined in the bill and means “any weapon, munition, aircraft, vessel,

or boat.” It means—

any machinery, facility, tool, material, or supply necessary for the

manufacture, production, processing, repair, servicing, or operation of any

article described.

But that is not all the President can do.

I call attention to subsection 3 of section 3. Under that section he may

authorize defense agencies of the Government to—

test, inspect, prove, repair, outfit, recondition, or otherwise to place in

good working order any defense article for any such government.

“For any such government” means any country whose defense the President

deems vital to the defense of the United States. He is the sole judge. Senator

BARKLEY frankly says that that section—

could conceivably mean, for example, that the British battle cruiser

Renown could be repaired in the Brooklyn Navy Yard if the President

considered it in the interest of our national defense to do so.

Precedent seems to mean nothing to many of the present generation nor to

the President and this administration, and the lamp of history is disregarded as a

guide to light our way in a war-mad world.

I call to the attention of the House an event in our own history that ought to

warn us to caution and invite the most careful consideration and meditation

before we commit an act which may jeopardize the future welfare of our

country. In the midst of our Civil War the Lairds Shipbuilding Co., of Liverpool,

England, built with English capital in an English shipyard and manned with

English seamen, several ships having the appearance of ordinary merchant

vessels. They later became ships of war or privateers for the Confederate States

of America. They were constructed and sailed from English ports with the

knowledge and consent of the English Government and over the protest of the

accredited representatives of our Government. The method employed for their

armament and equipment was the same for all. One of those ships in particular

won great fame as a raider and for the destruction and havoc wrought upon

United States commerce. She sailed from Liverpool as an ordinary

merchantman, for the Azores Islands. There she was met by another English

ship which had followed her with guns, ammunition, and equipment, and

became the famed Confederate Privateer Alabama. At the end of the War

Between the States this Nation called upon the English Government for

damages or restitution to American commerce. A neutral and impartial tribunal

assessed the damages at $15,500,000 in gold which the British Government

paid for her failure to act the part of a neutral nation.

As a neutral government, she was bound to use due diligence to prevent

the fitting out, arming, or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel

which it had reasonable ground to believe was intended to cruise or to

carry on war against a power with which England was at peace.

If we pass this bill in its present form, which clothes the President with

unprecedented power of opening our Navy yards “for the repair,

reconditioning, outfitting, or otherwise placing in good order” any British

battleships or cruisers, or any American battleship or cruiser for the purpose of

carrying on war against a power with which we are at peace, we will be in a far

more unneutral position with the Axis Powers than England was with us in

1865. Let us remember, no matter where our sympathies may lie, that we are

supposed to be a neutral Nation, that we believe in neutrality, and that we were

sincere when we placed upon the statute books of the land the Neutrality Act.

We are still at peace with Germany and Italy, and they have not committed any

act of war against us. Should Germany win the war and our unneutral acts

cause damage to her commerce or nationals, we may be held to strict

accountability to her for far more flagrant violations of neutrality than we

compelled England to settle the Alabama claims with us, and settle them in

gold.

This bill may aid freedom in the old world, but we will get something far

different in the New World. It may aid democracy to survive across the sea, but

it will establish some form of totalitarian government here at home. This bill is

a complete black-out of our republican form of government. It is the complete

abdication of Congress from its constitutional duty to the people of this Nation.

Are we a nation of law-abiding people? Does our Government recognize and

obey the rules of international law and the law of nations? Pass this sweeping

proposal, and our answer must be “no,” for it violates every principle of

neutrality and international law. Of course, our sympathies are with the Allies.

Our sense of justice and humanity revolts against the ruthless invasion of

defenseless, weak, and innocent nations. We condemn the merciless aggression

of the invaders and their wanton murder of civilian populations. Yet we as a

nation are at peace with the Axis Powers and they have been careful to observe,

at least toward us, the rules of international law. This bill leads to war and

invites it to our shores. I favor every possible aid to Britain within the provisions

of our laws as they were when war

broke out. Such is the course of a neutral nation—to remain unchanged after

hostilities have begun.

Source: “Are We Being Led Into War?” by George A. Dondero from the

Congressional Record, vol. 87, part 1 (Washington: Government Printing

Office, 1941), pp. 562–563.