COALITION FOR WAR

When Dorothy Thompson wrote from Paris that in these fateful days, her metronomes were ticking off destiny with the rapidity of a machine gun,--and followed with the specific suggestion that America modify its two-party system--she quite plainly struck responsive chords in important Washington breasts. Also, unconsciously, she provided a valuable measuring stick for non-interventionists to use in watching internal political developments.

It is not suggested that the It Girl originated the idea of a coalition cabinet. Far from it. So skillful a tactical move must have occurred to President Roosevelt and his circle of Harvard advisers. But when she tied her plea for continuation of Roosevelt in office to the preservation of civilization, and when the President took up where she left off with the past week's warlike speeches and press conference statements, the air began to clear.

Coincidentally, from the Republican party itself came a heartening statement that "if we are considering the proper means of defending the United States, there seems to be little doubt that our line of defense is the Atlantic Ocean, and not the battlefields of France. We cannot minimize the seriousness of a German victory . . . Yet even that alternative seems to be preferable to present participation in the European war."

The speaker was Senator Robert A. Taft. It was his first major declaration on the subject of foreign policy. Apparently expressing his sincere convictions, and obviously more intelligently reasoned than the ostrich isolationism of Tom Dewey, the speech indicates that next fall's campaign may not be meaningless and evasive on the issues of foreign policy.

The strands all converge. If America is truly anxious to remain free of the war at the cost of a Hitler victory--and this is the grim possibility that must be faced--then the first essential is to get rid of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and the entire present administration as quickly as possible. Subtle suggestions of a need for "national unity" in the "crisis of civilization," which are now being employed in an apparent attempt to present America with a third term fait accompli, must be rejected. And in the meantime, those whose daily prayer it is that the war hysteria will not grow to more alarming proportions, will rejoice that a man of demonstrated ability and extraordinary political courage has ranged the guns of his oratory on the side of a calm, intelligent, logical analysis of the world situation.