Page:Congressional Record Volume 81 Part 3.djvu/23

1937 Mr. KOPPLEMANN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 3 minutes.

Mr. CARTER. I object, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Connecticut.

The amendment was rejected.

Mr. COPPEE of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I offer a preferential motion.

The Clerk read as follows:

Mr. Coppee of Washington moves that the Committee do now rise and report the bill back to the House with the recommendation that the enacting clause be stricken out.

Mr. COPPEE of Washington. Mr. Chairman, the thing against which the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Kopplemann] was aiming in this bill was the fact that the bill contains no restriction upon the free sale and transport by the people of the United States of essential or raw materials of war.

Section 4 of this bill contains a provision giving the President discretionary power to restrict certain designated essential or raw materials of war and provides that the same may not be shipped in American ships, but shipped in foreign bottoms, and then only after the title has been transferred to the vendee.

I had hoped, until the chairman of the committee, on his own motion, restricted debate to 30 minutes, to offer an amendment providing for a wartime quota on the sale of war materials.

I want to remind the House that every peace society in America is on record in favor of a peacetime quota for the transportation and sale of essential materials of war. There is no provision in this bill for the taking of private profits out of the sale of essential materials of war, except under such restrictions as are provided by the President. In other words, we still can sell to belligerents in time of war essential materials of war—not munitions, but essential materials of war.

The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Kopplemann] offered an amendment providing for an embargo in time of war upon these essential war materials.

Stephen Raushenbush, who is, perhaps, America’s foremost expert on this subject, In a personal letter to myself, made this illuminating statement:

* *  * The two pending bills, the Pittman bill and the McReynolds bill, do not, however, remove the Incentive for us to take aides with our largest customers. They do not, In other words, do anything to prevent war boom from getting started.

Every peacetime organization, including the National Council for the Prevention of War, the American Council Against War and Fascism, as well as all of the leading organizations that have spent years of study on this subject, inveigh against section 4 because section 4 does not prohibit, neither does it restrict, the sale of essential war materials to belligerents in time of war. The only thing the McReynolds bill does is to give the President discretionary power to limit sale of these goods to those which are transported in foreign ships and limiting also shipment of war materials to those of which the title is transferred to the vendee at the point of delivery.

I submit to the Members of the House that unless this bill is so amended as to restrict to a peacetime quota—a quota, in other words, determined by averaging over a preceding number of years for the sale of war material—we have failed to enact a worth-while neutrality bill, and for this purpose I intend now to offer an amendment, based upon a provision in the Pittman bill of last year, pending in the Senate in the Seventy-fourth Congress, which will provide for a peacetime quota, restricted to the average over a preceding number of years, of war materials to belligerents in time of war, and providing further that such war materials shall not be shipped in American bottoms, and providing further that the title thereto shall be transferred to the vendee at the delivery point. This will satisfy the peace and neutrality organizations in the United States.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to offer this amendment to the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. There Is a motion pending, made by the gentleman from Washington himself.

Mr. SIROVTCH. Mr. Chairman, ladles and gentlemen of the Committee, I rise in opposition to the motion to strike out the enacting clause, and I will tell you why.

A most instructive and patriotic address was delivered this afternoon by our distinguished colleague from New York [Mr. Wabsworth] on the subject of liberty. It inspired me. It stirred my emotions. There is a historical legend referable to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Payne, who had a controversy on the subject of liberty. Thomas Jefferson is alleged to have stated that “where liberty is, there is where my home Is.” Thomas Payne replied, "Where liberty is not, there is where my home is”; and immediately thereafter he sailed for France after his glorious contribution to the American cause to help to establish a republic In France. In front of the White House is Lafayette Square. In that historic section we find the great monuments dedicated and consecrated to the memory of Rochambeau, Lafayette, Pulaski, Kosciusko, and Baron von Steuben, all patriotic foreigners of different nationalities, who came tc aid America to establish this liberty-loving Nation of ours.

Throughout the civilized world a great conflict is now being waged between two forms of government. One is fascism of the right and left type, symbolizing the powerful pressure that is being utilized by dictators to subvert the will of the majority through force and the power of authority. Second, we have parliamentary constitutional democracies that stand for liberty, freedom, and justice. The three great, powerful nations who have thus far withstood the ravages of fascism and are battling to preserve and conserve parliamentary constitutional democracies are the United States, Great Britain, and France.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that today all thinking citizens have come to a greater appreciation of the doctrines of Woodrow Wilson than ever before. For today democracy is more imperiled than it ever was in the days of the Kaiser. We joined the allied powers to wage war against the forces of autocracy because we clearly foresaw that if those powers were permitted to defeat the forces of democracy represented by England and France we should be the next target. Woodrow Wilson was a greater political realist than he has been given credit for. He understood clearly that the British Empire is our first line of defense. If any autocratic power should defeat or destroy the British Empire, our Nation’s safety as a democracy would be jeopardized. So we went to war to make the world safe for democracy, believing that the destruction of the autocratic forces of Europe would be a guaranty for the security of our democratic regime in the United States.

But it seems that the defeat of the autocratic forces were not sufficiently decisive, for no sooner was kaiserism destroyed than fascism and other sinister forces raised their ugly heads and established a regime of despotism more tyrannical than kaiserism ever was. The Fascist organization is more bent upon conquest and world domination than was the old regime. Under the old order in Europe, there was a semblance of majority rule. The Fascist regime, however, has established a principle of authority versus majority, and in so doing has introduced an order of regulated force which reflects the order of the jungle, where might makes right.

This Fascist jungle rule is tyrannical in its internal affairs and aggressively imperialistic in external policies. It has declared open war, not only against all democratic forces within Its own boundaries but against all democratic powers without. The Fascist group, in all of its colors, has abrogated the rights of man and has declared a war against all forces of the spirit. To entrench Itself economically the Fascist regime has embarked upon a policy of armament, not only of a greater and more military strength but also to cope with its unemployment problem. In view of the imperialistic designs of the Fascist authorities, this armament policy constitutes a definite threat to democratic countries which it hates and tries to overwhelm. Fascism is out to crush democracy, and it says so openly. To defend