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> Had shipped to the White House and Congress petitions—bearing some 3,000,000 signatures—urging aid of different kinds: the sale of World War destroyers to Britain, the release of as many U. S. planes and guns as possible without injuring national defense, assistance in bringing refugee children to America.
> Organized a Woman's Division, to be set up in each of the 3,070 counties in the U. S.
> Set out to raise $150,000 to carry on its activities through the fall, and gave an accounting of its finances to date: $131,543.56. Touchy since Senator Rush Holt linked it with Wall Street, the Committee reported it had received 4,666 gifts, 3,000 of them under $10, only two for more than $1,000. (When the Committee was first organized. Chairman White endorsed two checks for $500 each, one from J. P. Morgan, one from Labor Leader David Dubinsky.)
> Organized an Aviation Division, with 30 pilots for a starter, including Rear Admiral Byrd, Bernt Balchen. Clyde Pangborn, Roscoe Turner, to publicize the Committee with a nationwide air tour.
> Opened a second office in Chicago, a new branch in Seattle, held a rally for 10,000 at Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, sent out a Youth Caravan of young speakers to plead for aid to Britain in 45 New York and New England towns.
Destroyers. But the Committee's chief remaining objective remained: to secure the U. S. release of 50 World War I destroyers to plug the biggest gap in British defenses. When General Pershing urged it as a measure of U. S. security (TIME, Aug. 12), prompt objection came from Columnist Hugh Johnson, who pointed out that his old commanding officer and No. 1 hero among U. S. military men was a great general, but no expert on the sea. Last week two retired sea dogs, under the White Committee's auspices, added their voices to General Pershing's: Rear Admiral Harry Yarnell, Commander in Chief of the Asiatic Fleet from 1936 until he reached the retirement age of 64 last year, and Admiral William Standley, Chief of Naval Operations from 1933 to 1937. Said Admiral Yarnell at a White Committee rally at Boston: "If Britain loses the war, we will face years of danger, with our nation converted into a huge armed camp. . . ."
The question of destroyer sales to Britain was entangled in naval, legal, international complications before General Pershing finished his appeal. International, unpredictable Senator Key Pittman, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, came out with another idea. This time he favored trading the destroyers for "a few British battleships."
Naval: Major George Fielding Eliot, who has long urged all possible aid to Britain, hedged on the question of destroyers, asked for expert opinion on the central risk: "the only competent authority . . . is the President of the U. S., after carefully weighing the advice of the War and Navy Departments."
Legal: The Law Journal editorialized that General Pershing's proposal, "however sound and wise and prudent," was illegal under the statute of June 15, 1917. Promptly four lawyers including onetime Under Secretary of the Treasury Dean Acheson, rebutted with a contrary legal opinion.