The Hollow Men

Recognizing the first faint gleam of Allied victories as their golden opportunity, isolationists in Congress are eagerly preparing for an all-out fight over post-war policy. They remain undaunted by the results of their stand up till now. Although still tenderly nursing wounds from last December 7, already they have met the opposition in one skirmish--the fight over the Panama Lands Bill.

This bill, submitted to the Senate by their Foreign Affairs Committee, authorizes the transfer of lands in Panama to the Panamanian Government and would carry out other provisions accepted by the State Department. Outwardly, it is quite harmless. But isolationists recognized in it the offings of a precedent. Shrewdly they saw the first of what might become a series of legislative acts fostering post-war economic collaboration. Shrewdly, too, they saw that their position stands in danger if these agreements are presented to Congress as legislative acts, requiring only majority vote. Their power of hamstringing progressive policy would be much more effective if such agreements were presented as treaties, requiring a two-thirds vote.

Immediately moderate isolationists, including Taft and Vandenberg, as well as the old diehards, Johnson and Nye, flocked to their yellow banner. By ignoring the Administration's announced distinction between political commitments, treaties and economic arrangements as legislation, they give away their intentions to block post-war lend-lease agreements. Nye, swollen with the arrogance of aroused fury has even gone so far as to boast that "there isn't a ghost of a chance of a military-political alliance" after the war, between the United States and Great Britain.

The obstructionists were defeated this time. But the closeness of the 40 to 29 vote reveals how strongly they are united in the midst of the war. When a weary people turns aside from its vigilant path on the arrival of Armistice II, they will be prepared to gather like vultures at the peace conference and suck the blood from any vital attempts to establish harmony among nations.