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The following interview was granted the Crimson by Jacob A. de Haas, William Zlegler Professor of International Relations.
"Recognition of Russia is a vital factor in the success of the NRA. The Recovery Act is now limping along because of its inability to revive the capital goods industries. If the United States recognizes Russia, a ready and expanding market for machinery and building materials will be opened. For this reason alone, Russia should be recognized.
"But there is no tenable reason anyway, why the United States should not recognize the U.S.S.R. The objection that she has not paid her debts is no longer valid, since most of the other major debtor countries have already defaulted. Russia is perfectly willing, moreover, to enter whole-heartedly into the bargain which recognition implies.
"There is no question, that recognition will mean valuable trade agreements for the United States, not only in the capital goods industries, but in those of wheat and wool. Russia and the United States, although they are apparently destined to be the two great competitors in world trade, are at present logical markets for each other. Russia exports oil, wood pulp, and matches into the United States, and imports the machinery which may some day make her industrially self-sufficient.
"The action of Mr. Roosevelt in inaugurating government control of machinery installation will if it ever be comes operative, injure the health of an already failing industry. Russia is the only territory new actively engaged in an Industrial Revolution, and is, for that reason, the only possible large market for American machinery in an already thoroughly mechanized world.
"Japan can obviously not be sympathetic with Mr. Roosevelt's impending move; for any enhancement of the political power of Russia will hinder the execution of her designs upon the railroads of southern Siberia. In the event, moreover, of a possible Russo-American coalition, she would be caught in a pair of giant scissors, and could only sit back and make a sour face."
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