on a boiler. I sincerely wish I could share In their optimism, but I cannot.
I confess my inability to peer far enough into the future, to envision conditions which may arise from time to time concerning our diplomatic and commercial intercourse with other nations. I do know, however, that we are here and now attempting to formulate a policy to cover contingencies over which we can have no control.
I can see that once having committed ourselves to a fixed policy in the direction of neutrality we are bound to it for better or for worse. Once having announced this policy to the world, we must make up our minds to accept all of Its consequences, whether beneficial or detrimental. We will have surrendered the initiative. We will have placed ourselves at the mercy of whatever combinations of other nations may result from our action. Just how far we are willing to go Is only a matter of how much we are willing to sacrifice.
We must presume, when we announce our policy to the world, that we intend to adhere to it rigidly. We must not enter into the matter with our fingers crossed and regard it as a mere scrap of paper to be violated at will. We must remember that some day our very national existence may depend upon its administration. If we are willing to sacrifice our export trade; if we are willing to sacrifice our merchant marine; if we are willing to sacrifice our freedom of the seas; if we are willing to jeopardize our national existence by being forced to sit supinely helpless while a combination of nations forms to destroy us; if we are to surrender our traditional policy of a protector to weaker American nations; we can say to every nation in the world, “We refuse to trade with you under any circumstances while you are at war.” That would be neutrality, absolute and mandatory, but it would not guarantee peace.
Legislation is not written for the past. It is written for the future. When we legislate for domestic affairs, we do so in order to control the future. We can have no control over the future of world affairs unless we retain our initiative. If we do not participate, our voice is lost. By mandatory legislation we may very easily precipitate what we wish to avoid.
We are by no means a self-sufficient nation. We are dependent upon other nations for many of the commodities essential to our industrial life in time of peace and our national safety in time of war. We, in turn, produce many commodities essential to other nations both in peace and war. If we refuse to sell to those nations when they are at war, they may retaliate upon us in like circumstances. If we refuse to trade with them during wartime, they may refuse to trade with us during peacetime.
Mr. Chairman, we are an exporting nation and the employment of a certain proportion of our population depends upon our export trade. We are a commercial nation. This commerce is not the commerce of the few who handle our export trade, but the commerce of the people of the Nation. It is the products of our farms, mines, mills, and factories. Place us under an embargo, either during peace or war, and a surplus of many commodities will develop. This surplus will result in lowering prices, unemployment, lower standards of living, and internal dissentlon. In case of war, somewhere in the world, we cannot, like a turtle, withdraw into our shell, even if we do not participate.
Mandatory neutrality is a fantastic dream, and those who so ardently advocate it would be the first to riot, if a surplus of their crops should result because of it. I wonder that they do not demand that we write a Federal subsidy into a mandatory bill to protect them in case it should ever become effective.
Just how far are we willing to surrender our freedom of the seas? If we surrender it in wartime, may it not also be curtailed in peacetime? What of our merchant marine? Do we wish it to rot in our harbors, while other nations secure the shipping trade which should be ours? The war will end but commerce will continue. We must keep our markets or lose our commerce.
How can we define in mandatory legislation what is a state of war or differentiate, beforehand, between wars which threaten to embroil us and those which do not? Mandatory legislation would apply to a comic-opera war between Balkan states or a war between two of the banana republics, Just the same as one between two great maritime powers.
Whatever legislation we write is of doubtful benefit and dangerous to our future. Whatever we write must be by way of being flexible. It must be capable of being adapted to conditions which may arise. Our policy along this line must not be based upon the desires of impractical visonary fanatics. It must be based upon common sense and must recognize national needs. We must not surrender our rights of self-defense, either directly or indirectly. We must take into account our national future, because that is the heritage of our posterity. We must not mortgage it by allowing our commercial life to be threatened by a faint-hearted policy and unnecessary restrictions hastily arrived at.
Mr. Chairman, I believe this committee Is to be congratulated upon their able handling of this most complex question. They have provided us with a bill which, I believe, to be workable. It Is a bill which is capable of being administered to protect the future of the Nation. Certainly no President or no Congress will permit this Nation to become involved in a war if there is any alternative. I do not fear to entrust the administration of this bill to any President, whatever may be his politics, because I will trust any President to keep this Nation out of war if at all possible. I hope the bill will pass.
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Warren). The Chair desires to make the statement that the time has been fixed at 30 minutes, and there remains of that time 10 minutes. The Chair will first put the question on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Ferguson]. After that amendment has been disposed of, the Chair will recognize the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Kopplemann] for 5 minutes, and after that, if the Chair Is permitted to do so, he will recognize the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Luckey] for the other 5 minutes.
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Ferguson].
The question was taken; and on a division (demanded by Mr. Ferguson) there were—ayes 29, noes 108. So the amendment was rejected.
Mr. KOPPLEMANN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment, which I send to the desk.
The Clerk read as follows:
Strike out all of section 4 (a), beginning on line 19, page 20, and in lieu thereof insert the following:
“Sec. 4 (a). Upon the issuance of a proclamation under section 3 of this act the President shall proclaim a list of materials of war, and thereafter It shall be unlawful to export any such materials of war from any place In the United States to or for the use of any belligerent states, either directly or indirectly.”
Mr. KOPPLEMANN. Mr. Chairman, I intend to Introduce two other amendments following this one and at the proper time I shall ask the indulgence of the House through unanimous consent to permit me to explain those amendments which I intend to offer.
Thus far in this debate everyone has talked around the question but not to the point, which is the choice of profits through wartime trade, or giving up such profits and trade for peace. There has been nothing directed to real neutrality. We even had an amendment offered and approved by the committee, in spite of the fact it was not considered within the Foreign Affairs Committee. The amendment says that 2 years from now we will again think about this matter. I presume if my good friend the gentleman from Tennessee is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at that time we will not have an opportunity to properly and fairly consider the question on the floor of the House.
My amendment simply adds the words “materials of war” to “arms, ammunition, and implements of war.” A great deal has been said in the public press and from the public platform about profits in war, war booms, and the devastating after effects of war;
May I read from an address of our President. I do not know whether the committee considered the President’s views while they were considering the neutrality bill which
