RELIEF FOR WAR

While Roosevelt pleads for world peace and urges the nations to accept his plan for strict government licensing of arms manufacturing, the State Department announces to the parley at London its intention to build up the fleet to full treaty limits. This sudden pronouncement of policy calls attention to the uncritical attitude which the American people has adopted towards its naval building program.

From the romantic era of the "Constitution" down to the present days, American naval construction has been rarely challenged by critical public opinion. Whatever opposition has threatened to thwart the Congressional program for more ships, the yellow press has attempted to rouse the passions of the public by pointing to the threat of Japanese supremacy on the Pacific, or the superiority of the British armaments. "Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute" has generally been the public response to such propaganda and the Admirals have pushed their ambitious plans through a too-willing Congress. Today, with the United States equal to any other nation on the seas, the Naval Department has adopted new and even more effective tactics. Since the depression, a profligate naval construction plan has paraded in the guise of a public works and reemployment program. Indeed, a critical analysis of one of the early recovery appropriations shows that half a billion of the sums was to be devoted to the construction of new cruisers.

In the absence of effective international government, the mad race in naval armaments can be checked only through the political pressure of enlightened public opinion. It is essential, therefore, that naval appropriations should be completely divorced from relief expenditures and be presented to the public in their true character as increases in armaments.