'HE historic battle over the Washington, Oct. 3.
Administration's neutrality programme to meet the emergency of the European War began at noon here yesterday after the Vice President, Mr. J. N. Garner, had repeatedly called the senate to order amid the noise of conversation on the floor and the scraping of chairs and talking in the galleries, and the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Key Pittman, opened the debate by explaining the objectives of the Administration's programme.
Senator Pittman said the present Neutrality Act handicaps American efforts to remain aloof from the European War.
He urged the repeal of the arms embargo provisions of the present act "because they are not a true symbol of American neutrality." "There is no cause to fear now that we will be drawn into the brutal and widening conflict in Europe," Senator Pittman, said. "However, we have no right to refuse to take into consideration that such a wi T a war that develops from it, many not some day be brought to the gateway of our own country."
Senator Pittman ridiculed assertions that the United States entered the Great War for the purpose of collecting debts owed by foreign countries to American citizens. He said America's entry into the war was the result of German submarine attacks which resulted in the loss of 63 American lives.
The Foreign Relations Committee chairman declared that the utilization of American vessels to carry contraband exports to belligerent nations was a more vital factor affecting American determination to remain aloof from the European war than the current embargo against the sale of arms and munitions to belligerent nations.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.