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US officially neutral today

By HOBART C. MONTEE, United Press Staff Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 1939 (UP) - The United States is officially neutral today and the sale of arms, ammunition and implements of war to belligerents is forbidden.

President Roosevelt, in two proclamations, established neutrality under international law and invoked the neutrality law signed to safeguard this country against involvement.

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The two proclamations were issued separately and several hours apart yesterday.

First Mr. Roosevelt announced to the world that the United States intended to remain neutral. This, he said, would be accomplished under the terms and stipulations of international law and numerous treaties.

Under this edict he laid down 17 specific prohibitions upon American citizens and aliens temporarily or permanently residents.

A few hours later the President formally invoked the Neutrality Act which made it mandatory on him to impose an embargo on sale or shipment of arms, munitions or implements of war to all warring powers.

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In both proclamations the President named the belligerents as "France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom (Britain), India, Australia and New Zealand." He did not include Canada and South Africa. Later, in executive orders to the governmental agencies which will enforce the neutrality laws. Mr. Roosevelt said Canada and South Africa were exempt because they have not entered the war.

In event Canada or South Africa declare war later the neutrality law makes it mandatory that they be included in the embargo. Prime Minister MacKenzie king of Canada has said that Canada was "automatically" at war when Britain declared war.

It was said that American arms could not be purchased by Canada and trans-shipped to Great Britain. This is specifically prohibited by the neutrality law. How the United States could prevent trans-shipping was not clear.

It was disclosed that the Republic of Panama, with the indorsement of this country, was sending out invitations for a consultative conference of the 21 American nations for the purpose of evolving a neutrality policy for the hemisphere. Canada is not included, as it is a dominion of the British Empire.

The conference, called under the terms of the Declaration of Lima, will be held at Panama City, at a date to be announced later. It will have the full support of President Roosevelt and the State Department.

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The President has said that the safety of the United States is bound up in the safety of all the Americas and that the best way to keep war from our firesides is to keep it from the New World.

Invocation of the neutrality law, in addition to banning the sale or shipment of war material to belligerents, automatically prohibits Americans from purchasing or dealing in securities of these countries; sets up a national munitions control board and bans the travel of American citizens on belligerent ships after 90 days.

In a third proclamation, he added new safeguards to the Panama Canal zone. He limited the time belligerent warships may remain there to 24 hours, exclusive of the time required to pass through the canal, and decreed that no more than three warships of one belligerent nation and its allies may be present simultaneously in terminal ports of the canal, or six at any time anywhere in canal waters.

The governor of the canal was empowered to place armed guards on all vessels passing through, and require commanding officers of all ships seeking transit to provide written assurance that rules, regulations and treaties of the United States will be faithfully observed.

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These restrictions reflected the fear of military authorities that in event of hostilities some merchant ship might be blown up while moving through a critical stretch of the canal.

Among other bans embraced in the proclamation was a prohibition against flights of belligerent aircraft of any character over the Canal Zone, and against the embarking or disembarking of troops, munitions or "warlike materials" in the zone, except when required by canal authorities.

Another potential source of embarrassment to this nation's neutrality - the solicitation and collection of funds in the United States to aid belligerents - was hit in rules and regulations issued last night by Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

He banned such activity except for humanitarian purposes. Collections for this purpose must be approved by the President and those so engaged must be licensed by the State Department.

The American Red Cross is exempt because it makes an annual report to the War Department.

The penalty for violation of this rule is a fine of $50,000, five years' imprisonment or both.

Other proposed regulations would be directed at the stock markets, grain exchanges and the communications industry.

Other parts of the general program include the formation by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau Jr. of a special advisory committee of fiscal experts drawn from private banking to aid the Treasury during the emergency.

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Morgenthau announced the appointment of W.R. Burgess, vice chairman of the National City Bank of New York and former vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York; Tom K. Smith, president of the Boatman's National Bank of St. Louis; and Earle Baillie, chairman of the Tri-Continental Corp. investment company, and member of the board of J.W. Seligman Co.

Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace is forming a special group in private enterprises to deal with agriculture and financial problems created by the war. The Securities and Exchange Commission is studying additional ways and means to cushion the shock of the war to the American economy.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull has informed the Spanish charge d'affaires that the United States is prepared to use all its influence "for the restoration and maintenance of peace between nations," the State Department said today.

The Spanish official, Senor Don Luis De Silva, left with Hull a memorandum containing the peace appeal issued by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, head of the Spanish government.

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