Los Banos Rotary Club History
Speaker Reviews U.S. Policies

Herman Spindt, head of the placement department at the University of California and a brother of L. J. Spindt of this city spoke to members of the Rotary Club Tuesday noon on the subject of U. S. Foreign Policy and its possible effort on our post-war living.

Declaring that, regardless of proclamations and public statements, U.S. foreign policy has been and will continue to be to oppose and fight if necessary to prevent control of the two big oceans by any strong, aggressive and unfriendly foreign power, Spindt said our every effort today should and must be to channel and direct our thought and intelligence along lines that will prevent the recurrence of another world war twenty years from now.

As an example of our actual rather than expressed foreign policy, Spindt called attention to our proclaimed Neutrality Act of 1935, which specifically declared that the “Yanks were not coming.” in advent of another European war. Six years later we were actually involved in total war in both Europe and the Pacific to preserve our own way of life.

Commenting on the actual foreign policies of other nations, Spindt summarized briefly those of Britain, France and Russia. France, he said, has always been and will be primarily concerned with the safety of her eastern frontier, and all foreign policy will be directed along that line. Russia, by the same token, since the days of Peter the Great, some 200 years ago, has expressed her greatest concern over her three great rivers, emptying into the Baltic and Black seas on the western seaboard and the Pacific ocean on the east.

England, he explained, has for the past 350 years, opposed any strong military power that has naval ambitions, as evidenced first by her attitude toward France and in later years, her attitude toward Germany, which led directly to the first World War.

Los Banos first incidence of father and son membership in the Rotary Club was consummated Tuesday as R. M. Miano, past president and charter member of the club, officially extended the club welcome to the group’s newest member, Dr. Melvin Miano.

August 27, 1946

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