PRESIDENT’S SPEECH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1941, Page 4

PRESIDENT’S SPEECH

RECEIVED WITH APPROVAL IN U.S.A. “CALL TO CRUSH HITLER.” STATEMENTS BY LABOUR LEADERS. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) WASHINGTON, September 1. President Roosevelt’s speech has evoked general agreement that production must be stepped up and strikes must cease. The Acting Republican leader, Mr Earl Mitchener, said the country would hail the. President’s declaration that industry and labour must cease obstructing the defence programme. The President of the American Federation of Labour, Mr William Green, in a broadcast called for peace in the labour ranks in the interests of national safety and disclaimed all responsibility for the continuance of civil war within organised labour. Mr A. Flaywood, organising director of the Congress of Industrial Organisations, broadcasting, said the forces of labour shared with all other patriotic Americans a deep aversion to the forces of dictatorship threatening the American way of life. The C. 1.0. had thrown its wholehearted support behind the national defence programme and would not only resist foreign aggression but also undermining forces from within. Mr Roosevelt is having conferences with Mr Cordell Hull and Mr Wallace. These are stated to be with the object of ascertaining the reaction of Congress to the President’s speech. This morning’s United States newspapers describe the speech with, headlines as a call to crush Hitler. The New York “Daily Post” calls the speech a personal declaration of war against Hitler. The “New York Times” says the President was speaking frankly as a belligerent. COMMENT IN BRITAIN MORE FORCIBLE POLICY. LONDON. September 1. London reactions to President Roosevelt's broadcast are summed up by “The Times,” which says that the speech should put an end to the tendency, on both sides of the Atlantic, to question the effectiveness of American help and the determination by which it is inspired. The speech was a more direct challenge to Hitler than any President Roosevelt had yet made, but whether Hitler would take it up was another matter. The “Daily Telegraph” heads its editorial “Freedom Calls,” and says that the President has spoken plainly in the past, but that his latest, speech declares a more forcible policy. His argument was that American men and women were bound, in duty and honour, to preserve the rights and freedom which they had enjoyed, and that they must do ' their full part in conquering Nazism. The “Daily Mail” says the speech was an answer to appeasers who had attempted personal intervention with the President himself. They werfe a noisy and powerful minority, but now they had their answer and it waspme that would be welcomed by the American nation as a whole.