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Hull, Cantilo Hit Total Italianism at Lima Parley; Cuban Resolution on Racialism Advances

December 12, 1938
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A resolution urging the eighth Pan-American Conference to take a stand condemning racial and religious persecution, submitted by the Cuban delegation, was approved for consideration last night by the commission on initiatives, the conference’s steering committee.

Meanwhile, private meetings between delegates of the participating states discussed the appeal of United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Argentine Foreign minister Jose Maria Cantilo for an embargo of totalitarian theories in the American republics.

While Mr. Hull served warning on Germany that American nations would not permit invasion by Nazi activities based on “fallacious theories of class or racial superiority,” Senor Cantilo advocated ” combined and direct action against everything that implies a threat to American order, to every infiltration of men and ideas that reflect or tend to implant on our soil and in our spirit concepts foreign to our ideals.”

Secretary Hull mentioned no country by name, but the implication was clear that the Reich was among the countries in his mind when he declared there was no place in the Western hemisphere for doctrines “which our nations, in common with an overwhelming majority of civilized mankind, rejected long ago.” after asserting that the United States would maintain adequate military strength for defense against foreign invasion, the American statesman declared:

“At the same time, we all know that armed force is not the only instrumentality by which nations can be conquered. Equally, the dissemination by nations of doctrines and the carrying on of many other types of activity can be utilized for the purpose of undermining and destroying in other nations established institutions of government and basic social order. Such activities are based on the fallacious theories of class or racial superiority, or claims to national dominance which are being revived again in some parts of the world. There is no place in the Western Hemisphere for a revival of such doctrines and theories, which our nations, in common with an overwhelming majority of civilized mankind, rejected long ago.

“Each and all of us desire to maintain friendly relations with every nation of the world — resting upon the basis of mutual respect for national independence, upon non-interference in the internal affairs of others, upon fair dealing in every phase of international relationships. But there should not be the shadow of a doubt anywhere as to the determination of the American nations not to permit the invasion of this hemisphere from any quarter by activities contrary or inimical to this basis among relations. Here again, with a full consciousness of our common interest and responsibility, each of our nations must decide for itself what measures it should take in order to meet these insidious dangers.”

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