GREAT LEADERS

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21370, 14 March 1941, Page 4

GREAT LEADERS

ROOSEVELT—CHURCHILL TWO INSPIRING MESSAGES EXCHANGE OF NOTES Sail on, O Ship of State, Sail on, O Union strong and great. Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! These words of Longfellow, an extract from his “The Building of a Ship,” are published prominently on the front page of the Globe and Mail, Toronto, on February 10, with photographs of President F. D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and a panel stating that when Mr Wendell Willkie left the United States for Britain it was announced that he carried with him a personal message from President Roosevelt to Mr Churchill. On February 9 Mr Churchill made public its text, which was the wording quoted above from Longfellow’s poem, and gave his response thereto. The sentiments expressed by the two great leaders, says the paper, constitute the most dramatic exchange between world figures in written history. Mr Churchill’s reply to Mr Roosevelt was:— “Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and under Providence all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”

The prominence given to these messages in a leading Toronto paper is impressive, and serves to indicate the keen interest displayed in Eastern Canada in the prosecution of the war effort.