A GREAT LEADER PASSES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 65, 17 April 1945, Page 4

A GREAT LEADER PASSES

THE death of President Roosevelt removes a great and powerful figure from the arena of national affairs.. It does more than that it creates a gaping void in the solidarity which has characterised the unbroken front of unanimity presented by the three major powers who have marshalled their strength in the cause of freedom and of democracy. His death at the eleventh hour of the struggle, when victory was so close at hand, has occurred too late to afford humbled Germany any fresh burst of rekindled hope, but it has nevertheless deprived the world of one of its finest figureheads in the prospective peace which will follow the conflict, and which will bring new and burning problems in its train. A staunch friend of Britain and of the Empire, it were well for us that he occupied the presidential chair when war was declared by us upon the Nazi disturbers of the peace in Europe in 1939. His attitude of open friendship for Great Britain during those terrible days following Dunkirk, runs like a warming current through the war history of those. th»ee fateful years. Not only did he make over an appreciable section of the U.S. navy to us in 1940 under the sponsorship of the Lease-Lend agreement, but he actively combatted a large and growing section of Isolationists in his own country. Pearl Harbour proved his policy up to the hilt and routed all opposition. Since then in the procession of world-shaking events that has taken place, the name of Franklin D. Rooseyelt has figured in conferences which have helped shape the very destiny of mankind. His hand has signed the Atlantic Charter upon which the future hopes of the world are based ; with Winston Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kai-Shek he helped forge the agreements of Teheran, and of Algiers. Latterly at Yalta when the 'Big Three' met for what was destined to be the last time, he was the conciliating factor between the old order and the new signalised by our own great leader and by Marshal Stalin. As we have remarked his guidance, clear and forceful reasoning," and remarkable foresight will be greatly missed in ( the vast problems of the perplexing peace. In the death of President Roosevelt we can say that the 'greatest of modern Americans has passed away/