THAT MANDATE'S HERE AGAIN

The hoarse, urgent voice of the "crusade to save our democracy" is finally stilled, by the vote of the people. But other voices, just as urgent, just as frenzied, are still coming in from Britain and a few scattered precincts in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They, too, cry for a crusade to save democracy, and they cannot be hushed by voting, or by turning off the radio. They will keep coming in, these voices of war, keep hammering at the will of a nation that does not want war, that is determined to prevent the spread of war. If it was hard for America to make up its mind about the election, it will be even harder to decide what to do about these persistent foreign voices.

For the present, however, America's stand is clear. If the people handed President Roosevelt any mandate Tuesday, it was a mandate to keep this country at peace. Both candidates put more and more stress on their peace promises as the campaign neared its end. They wanted votes, and that was the way to get them. On this issue there was no lack of unity.

And yet today, just two days later, our leaders, to a man, are calling desperately for unity. It is apparently not enough to have a Democratic executive, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and even a Democratic Supreme Court. It is apparently not enough to have a people solidly in favor of peace. Then what is it these men want when they call for unity? If it is blind, unqualified support of all President Roosevelt's specific acts in the realm of foreign policy, then they are asking for a major step toward war.

It is not the job of one man, but of the whole people working through all their elected representatives in the Federal government, to decide what aid should, and should not, be given to Britain. Tuesday's election did not decide that question. It did decide, by the closeness of the vote, that constructive criticism and calm restraint, rather than a hasty and well-greased O.K. to the presidential preferences, is the kind of effectiveness which must be forthcoming from the 77th Congress. Without this attitude, and with a slavish legislative subservience to Unity or the Mandate from the People, America will soon find itself at self at war.