FDR - Jean Edward Smith [264]
When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.
War is a contagion.… The peace of the world is today being threatened.… We are determined to keep out of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the dangers of involvement.8
Reaction was mixed. “Stop Foreign Meddling; America Wants Peace,” bellowed The Wall Street Journal.9 The Chicago Tribune and the Hearst press were equally caustic. But The New York Times, The Washington Post, and most national chains were supportive. A press survey by Time reported “more words of approval … than have greeted any Roosevelt step in many a month.”10 Overseas reaction was enthusiastic (save in Tokyo and Berlin), and White House mail ran 4 to 1 in favor of the president’s remarks. But on Capitol Hill it was a different story. While isolationist members rushed to the barricades, Democrats hunkered down and said nothing. Fearful of a fickle electorate, the president’s supporters passed up the opportunity to place themselves on the record. “It’s a terrible thing,” FDR told Sam Rosenman, “to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead—and to find no one there.”11
At his press conference the following day Roosevelt pulled back. “Do you care to amplify your remarks at Chicago, especially where you referred to a possible quarantine?” the president was asked.
“No,” he replied dismissively.
Ernest K. Lindley of the Herald Tribune, who had covered FDR for years, persisted. “I think it would be very valuable if you would answer a few questions or else talk for background.”
Roosevelt demurred. “All off the record.”
Q: Is anything contemplated?
FDR: No, just the speech itself.
Q: Doesn’t [quarantine] mean economic sanctions?
FDR: No. “Sanctions” is a terrible word to use. They are out the window.
Q: Is there a likelihood that there will be a conference of the peace-loving nations?
FDR: No; conferences are out the window.12
The president sparred with reporters for another ten minutes, and it was clear he had no new policy in mind. “Mr. Roosevelt was defining an attitude and not a program,” reported The Times of London.13 Isolationism remained the order of the day. FDR had commenced the laborious process of changing the nation’s course. In typical fashion he had taken two steps forward and one step back. “I am fighting against a public psychology of long standing,” he wrote Rector Endicott Peabody at Groton. “A psychology which comes very close to saying, ‘Peace at any price.’ ”14
The nation’s calm was shattered on Sunday, December 12, 1937, when Japanese warplanes bombed, strafed, and sank the gunboat USS Panay, lying at anchor in the Yangtze River, twenty miles above Nanking. With the Panay were three Standard Oil Company tankers, which were also sunk. The attack lasted more than an hour. Shore batteries joined in, and at one point Japanese soldiers boarded the vessels. Three persons were killed and fifty injured, including Panay’s captain, Lieutenant Commander James Hughes.15
The attack bore every earmark of being premeditated. The Panay, which had been on station since its construction in Shanghai in 1928, was part of the Asiatic Fleet’s Yangtze Patrol, assigned to protect American commercial and missionary interests.* It was plainly marked with abundant insignia, including two large American flags, eighteen feet by fourteen feet, painted horizontally across the canvas shading her top deck. The flags were clearly visible from the air