ROOSEVELT SPEAKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1940, Page 5

ROOSEVELT SPEAKS

THREATS OF THE DICTATORSHIPS DEFIED

America To Be Great Arsenal of Democracy

ASSURANCE THAT THE AXIS POWERS WILL BE OVERCOME

CALL FOR UNRESTRICTED NATIONAL EFFORT (By Telegraph.—Press Association—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, December 29. President Roosevelt, in a talk broadcast throughout the nation, flatly rejected proposals that the United States should initiate a peace movement. He. promised that American soldiers would not be sent to Europe and confidently predicted that the Axis Powers would lose the war. He appealed to the nation to turn itself into “the great arsenal of democracy,” and pledged the Government to expand its aid, short of war, to Britain. The President denounced the new order which the Axis professes as its objective, as “an unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate the enslave the human race.” He asserted that the United States’ ability to keep out of war would be affected by the outcome of the Battle for Britain. If Britain were defeated the United States would be living at the point of a gun. A British defeat would bring a new, terrible era to the whole world, and to survive in such a world ol brute force the United States would have to become a permanently militaristic Power. It was a dangerous form of wishful thinking to assume that the Axis Powers did not desire to attack this hemisphere, the vast resources and wealth of which formed the most tempting loot in the world. “1 wish to make a direct, statement to the American people,” he added, “that there is far less chance of the United States getting into war if we do all we can now to support the nations defending themselves against attack by the Axis than if they acquiesce in their defeat, submit tamely to an Axis victory and wait for our turn to be the object of attack in another war later.” The experience of the last two years had proven beyond doubt that no nation could appease the Nazis. They could have peace only at the price of total surrender. He asserted that American appeasers ignored the warnings found in the fate of the conquered European countries and the dictated peace they wanted would not be a peace at all. It would only be another armistice leading to the most gigantic armament race and the most devastating trade wars in history.

NATIONAL SECURITY This is not a fireside chat on war ” the President began. “It is a talk on national security, because the whole purpose of your President is to keep you now, your childrn later, and your grandchildren much later from the last ditch war for the preservation of American independence and all things it means for you, me and ours. Never before has our American civilisation been in such danger, for on September 27, by an agreement signed in Berlin, three powerful nations, two in Europe and one in Asia, joined in a threat that, if the United States interfered with or blocked, the expansion programme of these three nations aimed at world control, they would unite in ultimate action against the United States. “Germany's Nazi masters have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but to enslave the whole of Europe and then use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world. Three weeks ago, their leaders said: ‘There are two worlds that stand opposed to each other.’ Then, in a defiant reply to his opponents, he declared: ‘Others are correct when they say that with this world we cannot ever feconcile ourselves. I can beat any other power in the world.’ In other words the Axis not merely admits but proclaims that there cannot be ultimate peace between their philosophy of government and ours.

“In view of the nature of this undeniable threat it can be asserted pro-' perly and categorically that the Uni-] ted States has no right or reason to encourage talk of peace till the day comes when there is a clear intention on the part of the aggressor nations to abandon all thought of dominating or conquering the world. ATLANTIC & PACIFIC “At this moment the forces of the States leagued against all peoples living in freedom are being held away from our shores. The Italians and the Germans are blocked on the other side of the Atlantic by the British and the Greeks and thousands of soldiers and sailors have been able to escape from the subjugated countries. The Japanese are being engaged in Asia by the Chinese in another great defence. In the Pacific is our fleet. “Some of our people like to believe that the wars in Europe and Asia are not a concern of ours, but it is a matter of the most vital concern for us that the European and Asiatic warmakers do not gain control of the oceans leading to this hemisphere. One hundred and seventeen years ago the Monroe doctrine was conceived as a measure of defence in the face of a threat against this hemisphere by an alliance in continental Europe. Thereafter we stood guard in the Atlantic with the British as our neigh- ■ bours. There is no treaty and there is no written agreement, yet there is the feeling, proven by history, that we as neighbours could settle any disputes peacefully. The fact is that during the whole of this time the western hemisphere has remained free from aggression from Europe and from Asia. "Does anyone seriously believe that we need fear an attack while a free Britain remains our most powerful naval neighbour in the Atlantic? Does anyone seriously believe, on the other hand, that we could rest easy if the Axis powers were our neighbours? “IF BRITAIN GOES DOWN” “If Britain goes down, the Axis Powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the high seas —and they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere. It is no exaggeration to say that all of us Americas would be living at the point of a gun—a gun loaded with explosive bullets, economic as well as military. We should enter a new and terrible era in which the whole world, our hemisphere included, would be run by threats of brute force.

“To survive in such a world we have to convert ourselves permanently into a militaristic power on the basis of war economy. Some of us like to believe that even if Britain falls we shall still be safe, because of the broad expanse of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but the width of these oceans is not what it was in the days ol the clipper ships. At one point between Africa and Brazil, the distance is Jess than from Washington to Denver —five hours by the latest type of bomber — and at the north of the Pacific Ocean America and Asia almost touch. Even today we have planes which could fly from the British Isles to New England and back without refuelling, and the range of the modern bomber is ever increasing. DANGER TO BE FACED “In the past week many people in all parts of the nation have told me what they wanted me to say of the situation, but one telegram expressed the attitude of a small minority wanting to see and hear no evil, even though they know in their hearts that evil exists. The telegram begged me not to tell again of the ease with which American cities could be bombed by a hostile Power gaining bases in the Western Hemisphere. “The gist of the telegram was: ‘Please, President, don’t frighten us by telling the | facts.’ Frankly and definitely there’ is danger ahead, danger against which we must prepare. All know that we can’t escape danger or the fear of danger by crawling into bed and pulling up the covers over our heads.

“Some nations in Europe were bound by solemn non-intervention pacts with Germany and others were assured by Germany that they need never fear invasion. Non-intervention pact or not, the fact remains that they were attacked, overrun and thrown into a modern form of slavery at an hour’s notice, even without notice. As an exiled leader on these shores said to me the other day: ‘The notice was a minus quantity. It was given to my Government two hours after the German troops poured into my country at a hundred places.’ (Continued on page 3.) “NON=DECLARED WAR” GAYDA ASSAILS PRESIDENT. (Received This Day, 9.10 a.m.) ROME, December 30. Signor Virgino Gayda in an.editorial in the “Giornale D'ltalia,” assails President Roosevelt after his speech. “Roosevelt,” he says, “is a man of nondeclared war against the Axis and Japan and side by side with England.’’

EPOCHAL SPEECH MAY BE TURNING POINT IN STRUGGLE. DECLARATION IN OTTAWA. (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) OTTAWA, December 30. A Government official said President Roosevelt’s speech might be the turning point in the world struggle against Hitlerism. It was epochal speech. WAR SUPPLIES SPEEDING UP PRODUCTION IN U.S.A. (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) NEW YORK, December 30. The Journal of Commerce” states that in order to expedite shipments to Britain and Canada, the State Department has granted the British Iron and Steel Coipotation blanket licences for the export of the iron and steel commodities covered by President Roosevelt’s proclamation on December 12. A Detroit message states that the War Department and Defence Com-

mision have tentatively accepted plans calling on the General Motors, Chrysler and Ford companies each to accept responsibilty for the production of parts, under assemblies, of one of three types of bombers. A Washington cablegram, reports that Mr Roosevelt invited Mr A. Purvis, head of the British purchasing mission, to a luncheon conference. The President’s secretary (Mr S. Early) said that Mr Roosevelt was tremendously pleased with the reception of his speech, and especially with the fact that it was approved by some of the Republican leaders.

“The fate of these nations tells us what it means to live at the point of the Nazi gun. The Nazis have justified such actions by various pious frauds. One of these is the claim that they are occupying a nation for the purpose of restoring order. Another is that they are occupying or controlling a nation on the excuse that they are protecting it against the aggression of somebodj’ else.

MENACE TO AMERICAS “For example, Germany has said that she is occupying Belgium to save Belgium from the British. Would she hesitate to say to any- South American country: ‘We.are occupying you to protect you from aggression by the United States?’ Belgium today is being used as an invasion base against Britain now fighting for her life. Any South American country in Nazi hands would always constitute a jumping-off place for a German attack on any of the other republics in this hemisphere. “Analyse for yourselves the future of two other places even nearer to Germany if the Nazis won. Could Ireland hold out? Would Irish freedom be permitted as an amazing exception in an unfree world? Or the islands of the Azores which still fly the flag of Portugal after five centuries? We think of Hawaii as an outpost of defence in the Pacific, yet the Azores are closer to our shores in the Atlantic than is Hawaii.

“There are those who say the Axis Powers never have any desire to attack the western hemisphere. This is the same form of dangerous wishful thinking which destroyed the powers of resistance of many conquered peoples. The plain facts are that the Nazis have proclaimed time and again that all other races are their "inferiors and therefore subject to their orders. Most important of all, the vast resources of wealth of this hemisphere are the must tempting loot in all the world.

“Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed, undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our gates. Your Government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out. Their secret emissaries are active in our own and neighbouring countries.' “They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension and cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labour and vice versa and try to reawaken the long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should not have a place in this country. They are active in every group, promoting intolerance and exploiting for their own ends our natural abhorrence of war. These trouble breeders have but one purpose —to divide our people into hostile groups, destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.

ISOLATIONISTS DENOUNCED. “There are also American citizens, many in high places, who, unwittingly in most cases, are aiding and abetting the work of these agents. I do not charge these Americans with being foreign agents, but do charge them with doing exactly lhe kind of work the dictators want done in the United States. “These people not only believe we can save our own skins by shutting our eyes io the fate of other nations. Some go much farther and say we can and should become friends, even partners, with the Axis Powers. Some even suggest that we should imitate the methods of dictatorships.

“Americans never can or will do that. The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. No man can tame the tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness, there can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. “We know now that a nation can have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender. Even the people of Italy have been forced to beI come accomplices of the Nazis, but at this moment they do not know how soon they will bo embraced to death by their allies. "American appeasers ignore the warning which can be found in the fate of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and France. They tell you the Axis Powers are going to win anyway, that all this bloodshed would be saved and that the United States may just as well throw its influence into the scale of a dictated peace and get the best out of it we can. “They call it a ‘negotiated peace.’ Nonsense! Is it a negotiated peace if a gang of outlaws surrounds your community and on the threat of extermination makes you pay tribute to save your own skins? Such a dictated peace would be no peace at all. It would be only another armistice leading to the most gigantic armament race and the most devastating trade wars in history and in these contests the Americas would offer the only real resistance to the Axis Powers.

With all their vaunted efficiency and parade of pious purpose in this war, there is still in their background the concentration camp with servants of God in chains. Concentration camps are not simply transient tools but the very altars ot modern dictatorships. They may talk of a new order in the world, but what they have in mind is but the revival of the oldest and worst tyranny in which there is no liberty, religion or hope. "The proposed new order is the very opposite to a United States of Europe or Asia. It is not a government based upon Ihe consent of the governed. It is not a union of ordinary sell-respect-ing men and women to protect themselves and their freedom and dignity from oppression. It is an unholy alliance of power and selfishness to dominate and enslave the human race. “The British people are conducting active war against this unholy alliance. Our own future security is greatly dependent on Hie outcome of that light and our ability to keep out ol the war is going to be affected by that outcome. “Thinking in terms of today and tomorrow I make a direct statement to the American people that there is far less chance of the United States getting into war if we do all we can now to support the nations defending themselves against attack by the Axis than if we acquiesce in their defeat, submit lamely to an Axis victory and wait our turn to be the object of attack in another war later. CHOICE OF RISKS. “If we are completely honest with ourselves we must admit that there is a risk in any course we take, but I deeply believe- that the great majority

of our people agree that the course I advocate involves the least; risk now and the greatest hope of world peace in the future.

“The people of Europe who are defending themselves do not ask us to do their fighting. They ask us for the implement's to enable them to fight for their liberty and our security. Emphatically, we must get these weapons to them in sufficient volume and quickly enough so that we and our children can be saved the agony and suffering of war which others have had to endure. “Do not let. the defeatists tell us it is overlate. It will never be earlier. Tomorrow will be later than today.

“Certain facts are self-evident in the military sense. Britain and her Empire today are the spearhead of resistance to world conquest. They are putting up a fight which will live forever in the story of human gallantry. “There is no demand for sending an American expeditionary force outside our own borders. There is no intention by any member of your Government to send such a force. You can nail any talk about sending armies to Europe as a deliberate untruth. Our national policy is not directed to war. Its sole purpose is to keep war from our country and our people. "Democracy's fight against world conquest is being greatly aided and must be aided more by the rearmament of the United States and by sending every ounce and every ton of munitions and supplies we can possibly spare to help the defenders who are in the front lines. It is no more unneutral for us to do that than for Sweden and Russia and the other nations near Germany to send steel, ore, oil and other war materials into Germany daily.

DEFENCE AND WELFARE, “We are planning our own defence with the utmost urgency and in its vast scale we must integrate the war needs of Britain and the other free nations resisting aggression. This is not a matter of sentiment or controversial personal opinion. It is a matter of realistic military policy based on the advice of military experts who are closely in touch with the existing warfare. These military and naval experts and members of Congress and the Administration have the singleminded purpose of the defence of the United States. This nation is making a great effort to produce everything necessary in this emergency with all possible " speed and this great effort requires great sacrifice. "I would not ask anyone to defend a democracj' which in turn would not defend everyone in the nation against want and privation. The strength of this nation shall not be diluted by the failure of the Government to protect the economic well-being of its citizens. If our capacity to produce is limited by machines it must ever be remembered that these machines are operated by the skill and stamina of the workers. As the Government is determined to protect the rights of the workers, so the nation has the right to expect the men manning the machines to discharge their full responsibilities for the urgent needs of defence. "The workers possess the same human dignity and are entitled to the same security of position as an engineer. manager or owner. The workers provide the human power for turning out destroyers, aeroplanes and tanks. The nation expects the defence industries to continue to operate without strikes and without lockouts. It expects and insists that the management and the workers reconcile their differences by voluntary or legal means in order to continue to produce the supplies so sorely needed.

ECONOMIC ORGANISATION. “On the economic side we are bending every effort to maintain the stability ol' prices and with that stability the cost of living. Nine days ago I announced the setting up of a more effective organisation to direct our gigigantic efforts ol increase the production of munitions. The appropriation of vast sums and the well-co-ordinated executive direction of our defence efforts are not in themselves enough. Guns and planes have to be built in factories and the arsenals of America have to be produced by workers, managers and engineers with the aid of machines which have to be built by hundreds and thousands of workers

throughout the land. In this great work there has been splendid co-oper-ation between the Government, industry and labour. “American industrial genius is unmatched throughout the world in the solution of production problems. It has been called to bring its resources and talents into action. Manufacturers of watches, farm implements, linotypes. cash registers, automobiles, sewing machines, lawn-mowers, and locomotives are now making fuses, bombcrates. telescope mounts, shells, pistols and tanks. “MORE OF EVERYTHING.” “But all the present efforts are not enough. We must have more ships, guns, planes—more of everything. This can only be accomplished if we discard the notion of business as usual. This job cannot be done merely by superimposing on existing productive facilities the added requirements for defence. Our defence efforts must not be blocked by those fearing consequences of surplus plant capacity. The possible consequences of failure of our defence efforts are much more to be feared.

“After the present needs of our defence are past, proper handling of the country’s peace time needs will require all the new productive capacity, if not more. No pessimistic policy about America's future shall delay the immediate expansion of those industries essential for defence. “I want to make it clear that it is the purpose of this nation to build now, with all possible speed, every machine and arsenal and factory needed for the manufacture of defence material. We ; have the men, skill and wealth, and! above all, the will. I am confident that ir ( and when certain industries require the use of machines and raw materials esential for defence, and now used for the production of consumer or luxury goods, such production must yield to our primary and compelling purpose. “I appeal to owners of plants, managers, workers and Government employees to put every ounce of effort into producing these munitions swiftly and without stint. I pledge that all officers of your Government will devote themselves to the same wholehearted extent to the great task ahead. As planes, ships, guns and shells are produced, the Government, with defence experts, will then determine how best to use them to defend this hemisphere. "The decision on how much shall be sent abroad and how much shall re-I main at home must be made on the basis of our over-all military necessities.

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy. To us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to the task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency and the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war. UNSHAKEN RESOLUTION. “We have furnished the British with great material support and will furnish far more in future. There will be no bottle-necks in our determination to aid Britain. No dictators and no combination of dictators will weaken that determination by threats of now they will construe that determination.

"The British have received invaluable military support from the heroic Greeks and the forces of all Governments in exile. Their strength is growing; it is the strength of men and women who value freedom more highly than their lives.

“I believe the Axis Powers are not going to win this war. I base that belief on the latest and best information. We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason to hope for peace to hope for the defence of our civilisation and for the building of a better civilisation in future.

"I have a profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forward a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase production of all implements of defence to meet the threat to our democratic faith.

“As President of the United States I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honour and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call on our people with absolute confidence that our common cause wil greatly succeed in the end.”