(3 of 4)
Meanwhile a growing list of organizations urged immediate aid to the Allies "Without stint or fear of consequences." The list ranged from the Greater Cleveland Council, Smaller Business of America, Inc. to the Young Women's Republican Club of New York. It included the German-American Congress for Democracy (with 2,000 New York City members to begin with, and branches being organized in six other States), the 66th annual meeting of the American Neurological Association (see pg. 42-the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, Kansas county citizens' defense councils. Governors were for it-Lehman of New York, Stark of Missouri, Murphy of New Hampshire-as well as the leaders of A. F. of L.
War. Resignations and reversals swept the U. S. Liberals Lewis Mumford and Waldo Frank quit the New Republic, after 13 years as contributing editors, criticizing the do-nothing policy of the magazine (although the New Republic afterwards plumped for aid to the Allies); Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle resigned from the Lawyers Guild because "It is now obvious that the present management of the Guild is not prepared to take any stand which conflicts with the Communist Party line." There was a greater reversal when 30 educators, writers, lawyers, businessmen joined in a statement urging that the U. S.
declare war on Germany forthwith. "In the German view the American defense program means that the U. S. has already joined with Great Britain and France in opposing the Nazi drive for world dominion-in the American view, Nazi Germany is the mortal enemy of our ideals, our institutions and our way of life. What we have, what we are and what we hope to be can now be most effectively defended on the line in France held by General Weygand. The frontier of our national interest is now on the Somme. Therefore all disposable air, naval, military and material resources of the U. S. should be made available at once to help maintain our common front. . . . For this reason alone, and irrespective of the specific uses of our resources thereafter, the U. S.
should immediately give official recognition to the fact and to the logic of the situation-by declaring that a state of war exists between this country and Germany. Only in this constitutional manner can the energies be massed which are indispensable to the successful prosecution of a program of defense." Signers were not fire-eaters: there was Columnist Frank Kent, Editor George Fort Milton, St. John's College's President Stringfellow Barr. What seemed like the biggest reversal was Walter Millis'. But Mr. Millis, author of the best-selling Road to War that traced the steps to U. S. entry into World War I, had already implied that this war is not like the last war.