WE HAVE HELPED THE DICTATORS
We Have Helped the Dictators -[From The NEW YORK POSTJ. ITALY threatens to strike. Her striking power is high. What made it high' A partial answer may be found in the statistics of our own...
...Germany is still getting our steel, indirectly...
...NOW the word comes that the Soviet Union, partner of Hitler's Germany, has increased her purchases in America by 81 per cent since the war started, and that most of these purchases are of war materials...
...In 1934 however, she bought 213 American engines, valued at $1,166,774...
...Exports were maintained at this pace and increased, so that the 1939 total of our scrap sales to Italy came to the awe-inspiring figure of 425,896 tons...
...We helped arm Hitler in the air, fo rthese American engines not only powered a sizable number of planes, but became the models with which a new German air industry could work...
...Our connection with Germany has not been broken off, in spite of the blockade...
...What made it high' A partial answer may be found in the statistics of our own American trade with Mussolini...
...The story tells itself through monthly shipments data...
...382,775 tons...
...In 1935...
...Examination of our exports of scrap metal leads to the sickening conclusion that not only did we arm Hitler but that we are still arming him...
...In 1931 we sent 2,176 tons of scrap iron and steel to Italy...
...In 1936 she took 6.799 tons...
...WHAT of Germany...
...During the first three months of the present year Russia bought $59.-090.072 of goods in this country, compared with $32,509,000 of purchases in the first three months of 1939...
...LET us turn to another nation whose military apparatus constitutes a world menace— Japan...
...Modern wars are fought with steel...
...In 1934, 225.644 tons...
...Hitler came to power in 1933, and a new era began in Europe...
...In that year our shipments of scrap to Italy rose to 114.419 tons...
...These purchases were almost a declaration by Germany that she planned war —with the help of our metal...
...It has never dropped below a million tons a year since, and in 1939 it rose to the almost inconceivable level of 2,016.065 tons...
...The steel that may soon ride against the Allies, and fly against them, and drop upon them is, in larga measure, American steel...
...She bought 48 American engines in that year, an important purchase under the circumstances...
...In March, 1940, we sent no scrap to Germany, but we delivered 48,258 tons to Italy—more than previous average monthly totals to Germany and Italy combined...
...In 1937, shipments boomed to 88,153 tons and in 1938 skyrocketed to 230,903 tons...
...In January, 1939, for example, we sent 11,635 tons of scrap to Germany, 26,055 to Italy...
...In 1932, 6,678 tons...
...In 1933 Germany had virtually no air fleet...
...Obviously Italy is the door through which our metal goes to Hitler, to be used against the Allies...
...Before the war she received large quantities of it directly...
...Then in 1933 it climbed to 547,539 tons, and in 1934 to 1,168,496 tons...
...AIRPLANES are worth a note...
...Had we been clever enough, in fact, we would have known, merely by studying the export data, that Germany was preparing for war...
...In 1932 the figure became 164,001 tons...
...This, be it noted, was the year In which we began to feel that the Japanese navy menaced us, and decided that it was necessary to keep our fleet in the Pacific in order to protect ourselves against a Japanese fleet—built of American metal...
...Thus: In 1935 Germany took only 4,113 tons of American scrap...
...This is of enormous consequence, for 213 engines in that year were as important, proportionately, as 2.130 engines would be today...
...In 1931 we sent 48,036 tons of scrap metal to Japan...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 24
