Two articles in the May number of Scribners attempt to settle the two most important and most controversial points facing America today: why we must be involved in the next war, and secondly, how it is possible to keep out.

The first article, of the gloomy point of view, is written by Hartley Grattan, who appears to be an able student of modern war and world affairs. The second, "How America Can Keep Out of the Next War," is written by Lothrop Stoddard, in a manner to prove that Mr. Stoddard was probably living on the northern shore of Baffin Land, or perhaps inside the Mammoth Caverns during the last war. Mr. Stoddard desires with a great earnestness to keep out of the next war, unless "a vital natural interest" (i.e. not that of keeping out of war) is involved. The war danger in America, however, is that there are too many Stoddards, trying to play the Olympian game in diplomacy, and the spoils game in commerce.

While Mr. Stoddard was basking in the memories of 1812, in sunny Raratonga during the years 1914-1917, Mr. Grattan was learning that the problems of Europe are not so much political as they are economic, however the headlines describe them. And to that knowledge he has added that the European situation in 1934 shows a fantastic similarity with that of 1914, with a complete renaissance of what Mr. Stoddard calls "Europe's ancient feuds." The only difference are some new components in the Balkan alliances and a strong and enigmatical Italy. He cannily observed the Orient, too, including America's suckers-game in China, and predicts America's participation, willy-nilly, in either a protracted naval war on the Atlantic or the Pacific. He cites President Roosevelt's palpable navalism, as creating the sort of moral and material tension that eventuates in war. Lastly, he points out that the fact that no one wants a war is no argument against its inevitability, since public morality is lower than personal morality on such a point, and national morality is lowest of all.

Mr. Stoddard unfortunately begins with the dislike of Americans for a new war as an important point. It was this dislike of war that brought Mr. Wilson to his second term in 1916. The basker from Baffin Land goes on to tell us that "the problems are not virtually our own" and that we will "have to ferret out insidious propaganda." Surely Mr. Wilson saw these obvious facts as early as 1914. But Mr. Stoddard gets more practical, he says "that we should export arms only f.o.b., so that ships flying our flag would not be involved." Similarly Americans should only sail in American boats, lest they get hurt; otherwise it's their own fault, and the government should forget them. Such naivete is dangerous. When an American or British ship was torpedoed in 1915, and its cargo lest, it meant another order for the Yankees, c.o.d., or f.o.b. It was just tough luck on the crew, but it was also another million-dollar order. And let Mr. Stoddard consider that the war propaganda was largely generated not by those who wanted to buy, but by those who wanted to sell American products. Mr. Stoddard is kind to those men. An embargo on arms would be perhaps "too heroic a self-denying ordinance." He says we should do as much war-business as "we legitimately can," on gold payment, goods-payment, and short-term credits if necessary. And finally, by maintaining a strong armed neutrality, and at the worst "only entering war against those who had grossly injured us" we are to stay out of the next conflict!

Where Mr. Stoddard's conflicting polices of trading with the belligerents and keeping perfect "isolation" will lead us is not hard to say. Wall Street is adept at this game but knows where it leads. The only true method--and neutrality is a manifest possibility--is to keep our goods off the seas, or protected by a squadron of our own destroyers, and to give up our frenzied isolation and look for a strong ally before it is too late.