CALL TO ARMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1941, Page 5

CALL TO ARMS

OVERFLOWING RESPONSE IN U.S.A. RECRUITING OFFICES. RUSHED. AN END OF ISOLATIONISM. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) WASHINGTON, December 8. Americans accepted Japan’s war today with an outpouring of pledges of unity and loyalty. Japan’s sudden attack virtually wiped out the lines of difference between the supporters and the opponents of the Roosevelt Administration. Message after message reached the White House from person high and low offering to do what they could. Senator Vandenberg, the leading isolationist, said: “I have fought every trend leading toward war, but when war comes to us I stand for the swiftest and most invincible answer. _ The unprovoked Japanese attack is a brutal disclosure of purpose which violates every element of civilised society.” As more ominous details of Japan s blitzkrieg on Hawaii and other Pacific

possessions filtered in, Congressmen assembled. After solemn prayer by the House chaplain, the House immediately adopted a joint resolution for a joint session with the Senate to hear the President’s momentous message. The Supreme Court adjourned to enable the Judges to attend the joint session and hear President Roosevelt address Congress.. . Army, navy, and marine. recruiting offices’ throughout the United States were besieged with volunteers today. In New York the navy recruiting offices had to close shortly after noon, when the enlistments were higher than double those taken on the first day of the war in 1917. . Mr William Green, president of the American Federation of Labour, today appealed for an end of strikes in the defence industries and called on the workers to produce as the workers of no other country have ever produced and keen steadfastly on the job until victory and final peace are won. Colonel Lindbergh, who has previously been an isolationist, today stated: “Now that war has come we must meet it as united Americans, regardless of our attitude in the past.”