FOOD FOR THE FISH

Despite the vigorous opposition of Representative Hamilton Fish '10, and others, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs has recommended to the legislature an Arms Embargo Bill giving the President the right to join with such countries in a boycott agreement as he sees fit if he believes the circumstances warrant it. All good Republicans are up in arms against what they feel is a revolutionary measure placing an amount of power in the Executive's hands greater than anything heretofore: the power virtually to make war independently of the Senate.

But the stalwart men who are objecting most strenuously to this bill are quite wrong in thinking that it will mean a drastic change. For the simple, unavoidable fact is that the President can start a war whenever he so desires. He has no need of declaring an arms embargo. History has borne this out amply. In 1846 President Polk found it easy enough; troops were sent into the disputed area, American blood was promptly and profusely shed, the flag was fired upon, and the national honor placed in joopardy. War was a foregone conclusion. Showing a little more finesse, President McKinley affected the same result. Afraid that the Democrats would capture the election on a war platform, he sent a message to Congress which advocated armed interference and tucked into one short paragraph the fact that Spain had just that morning acceded to every demand made by the United States. An for Mr. Roosevelt, nothing would be loss difficult for him than to force war upon this country if he were interested in doing it. A warship dispatched to Manchuria to see that an American exporter paid duties only to Chinese officials would make an armament boycott ridiculously superfluous.

The importance of the bill, then, does not lie in any sudden gift of war-powers to the Executive, but in that it will enable the United States to cooperate more effectively with the League in the settlement of disputes between smaller nations. American under Stimson's leadership has been working towards a closer concurrence with that body, which thought somewhat discredited of late, will obtain a fairer test of its abilities if it can depend more confidently on President Roosevelt's support.