Berlin, May 9, 1935. Personal Dear Mr. President: The remark with which you closed your letter of April 16 only emphasizes the attitudes of us all here: What can anyone do now to change the fixed drift everywhere towards war? I sometimes wonder if all democratic peoples ought not to with- draw their representatives to countries which flout all democratic principles and talk constantly of the great honor of bearing arms, shooting fellow- men and the necessity of annexing other peoples' territory. You know how Wilson struggled in Paris to show Europe how foolish such policies are. The United States saved Italy from conquest in 1918, yet Italian statesmen (?) behaved as if they had won the war, and they made annexations which started the movement which now has that country in a hopeless position. That is, Italy is armed and drilled to the last degree. If Mus- solini ceases building great warships, stops making bombing planes or sends his million sol- diers to their homes (he is adding 500,000 more), he will have an unemployment which would overthrow him -the imaginary Caesar. If he goes on arming and drilling as heretofore, the debt of his govern- ment will soon equal what a hundred billion dollars would be to us| The only other procedure is war, and that would ruin him and his country, unless England and France came to his aid. This began when the Italians demanded in Paris what they had no right to ask - yet Senator Lodge lined up Italians and Irishmen in Massachusetts in behalf of Italian demands| The President, The The White House, Washington, D.C. |