'A new stage was reached in the American attitude towards the war by the beginning of 1941, this being the third stage since the war began. To understand the difference between these various stages it must first be remembered that the Constitution gives the Executive branch of the Government, that is to say the President, certain definite powers over foreign policy, while Congress also was aletted certain powers.
When the war broke out, Congress and the President both carried out a policy of complete neutrality. The President, using his Constitutfonal and independent authority, neted in exactly the same way as the President performing his function as the agent of Congress. This stage lasted for about six months. The second stage began during the German attack on France. In fact, the precise date can be given, June 10, the day on which the President declared that America hoped for a victory of the Democra~ ies and would give all the material aid possible {0 those who were fighting aggression, The President could say this on his own authority, but nothing he said could change the policy of Congress. "Thus, for the remainder of the year, one had the President as his own master advocating one course of action while compelled, as the servant of Congress, to carry out an entirely different course of action. The Neutrality Act remained on the statute books"and the President had to enforce its provisions. But this did not interfere with his use of his own independent authority in an unneutral manner. Congress, by statute, was impartial; the President was on the side of Bngland"and her Allies.
American assistance could obviously not be particularly effective, while the two branches of the government were acting at cross-purposes. When the new session of Congress met, therefore, on January 3, the task was begun of swinging it into ' tine with the President. In the frst and the last" stuges of American war—policy. the two branches of the Government were pursuing a common purpose. Only in the intermediate period were their objectives different. That common purpose, however, during the first period was to remain neutral and during the second period it was to check the Axis and (o aid the Allies The necessity for the transition from the second the third stage arose from the fact that the President had come to the end of his {ether in using his own powers. Un-ess Congress could be swung into line, he would no longer be able to assist Britain. When the late Lord Lothian arrived back from his vacation in London, he declared when stepping off the plane that Britain was coming to an end of her dollar resources. There was no way in which the President could meet a dim culty of this kind, since the power of the purse was clearly vested in the Legislative branch of the Government, Another aspect of the new British requirements which differentiated it from previous transactions was that there was no way of Justifying it on purely commercial grounds. hat is to say, that if there had been no war there would have been little reason from the standpoint of American domestic economy why money should have been invested in a foreign Joan. When the British wore paying for their goods cash down and at quite high prices, American business was winning profits and American unemployed wore being absorbed, but if it were a case of lending money, it would be more to America's advantage to make a domestic Joan oF a relief grant than to make a foreign Joan. For the first, time the phrase "give full aid to the Allies" was coined the action required might have been described as giving aid, There were other developments which took place about the same time. 'The Greek forces aided by the R.A.P. were rolling back the Italian' invaders, while the Imperial Army of the Nile had driven the Talians out of Egypt and was pursuing them into Libya. This demonstrated that if the Allied forees had the proper equipment, they were well able to make successful use of it Thus it was the Italian entry into the war on June 10 which inaugurated the second stage of the American altitude towards the war, while it was the failure of the Italians to carry out their schemes of conquest: which contributed {o the transition from stage two to stage three.
A parallel development was an increasing frankness on the part of the Axis spokesmen in classifying the United States as one of their enemies. Friends of England, such as the William Allen White Committee, had hammered home for some time the argument that if America could not support those who were defending the outer bastions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, she herself would be in danger. The isolationists had protested that this suggestion was fantastic since none of the Axis powers would think
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.