PRESIDENT ASKS FOR UNITY

Southland Times, Issue 24230, 13 September 1940, Page 5

PRESIDENT ASKS FOR UNITY

AMERICAN • DEFENCE EFFORT (Received September 12, 9.40 p.m.) WASHINGTON, September 11. The President, Mr Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a speech at. the Teamsters’ Union convention, said that America was rising to meet the evergrowing need for adequate armed defence. He promised not to abandon Labour, who would gain as a result of rearmament. At the same time he pointed out that in countries where unions had disappeared the iron hand of the dictator had taken command. He emphasized that people who yielded liberty for revolutionary promises received only rationing of news, religion, clothes and bread. “Our mighty defence effort against all present and potential threats cannot be measured alone in terms of a mathematical increase in soldiers, sailors, guns, tanks and planes,” said the President. “Behind must stand a united people. I hate war more than ever. I have one supreme determination, to do all I can to keep war from these shores for all time. Let us have an end to appeasement, which seeks to keep us helpless by playing on fear by indirect sabotage of all progress we are making.”