OIL AND THE NEW DEAL

In asking the producers of oil and other necessities of war to live up to the spirit behind the Neutrality Act Mr. Hull and Mr. lucks have been displaying an almost childlike faith in the goodness of human nature. How any businessman can be expected to pass by fat profits and refuse to sell a commodity not at all forbidden by the neutrality legislation is hard to understand. This so-called "moral pressure" is typical of the present administration's tendency to use force which it has not the conviction to ask-Congress to legalize.

At the bottom of the whole difficulty is the hopelessly vague and loosely-drawn Neutrality Act, which shows the mental lassitude of our present Congress even more vividly than some of its more prominent but equally ineffective pieces of legislation. The gentlemen on Capitol Hill, as has been customary with them, showed an admirable good will, adopted a purpose with which most of the country could agree, and then sank under the dead weight of their own mediocrity. Instead of taking the bit between the teeth and actually determining just what implements of war, are, they acknowledged their own lack of initiative and turned over to the executive the task and responsibility of drawing up the vital list.

Even with the best of intentions, President Roosevelt is in no position to go far on the road to neutrality. He can only list materials of an obvious military character, such as machine guns and poison gases, while knowing as well as any one-else that oil, scarp iron, and cotton are equally necessary to a country at war and must be withheld for the sake of true neutrality. All the pleading in the world will bore American businessmen as long as they are legally permitted to sell oil to the belligerents.

Equally inane is the suggestion that Congress in its next session limit the amount of our exports to a peacetime average. This meets every moral requirement, of course, but will do little to keep America out of war. If the war spreads to Europe and blockades are established, there is as much risk in shipping a barrel of oil or a bale of cotton as there would be in a whole shipload of the commodities. This country wants a program of strict and workable neutrality in which all exports whatsoever to a country at war shall be forbidden, and it is the duty of Congress to put this through in a manner different from the present half-hearted and controversial measure.