Shortly after the "Washington Post" urged. President Roosevelt to give the United States a strong lead for increased aid to Britain, the Chief Executive broadcast to the nation speech which history may show to be an; poch-making. one. If was a plain straight forward statement of the issues involved in. the present war and the danger to the western. hemisphere should the unholy tri-partite alliance succeed in achieving the ambitions which inspired it. Furthermore it was a direct reply to the talkers of peace -in Washington:—"It can be asserted properly, and categorically that the United States has 20 right or reason to encotirage the talk for peace until the day shall come when there is a clear intention on the part of the aggres~ sor nations to abandon all thought of dominating, or conquering the world." Pres ident Roosevelt has told Senator Wheeler and those who think like him that the time for peace has not yet come, and cannot until the success of democracy is assured.
The determination of President Roosevelt that the United States shall never be called upon to fight a last ditch war against the enemies of democracy indicates his complete appreciation of the issues involved in this struggle and the manner in which the interests of his great nation can best be served. That is obviously by supplying Great Britain and her Allies with all the material assistance they desire, With the enormous resources of Great Britain backed by those of the United States, with the determination of the British and their Allies to continue this fight until the forces of evil have been beaten to the ground, there cannot be the slightest doubt as tothe outcome of this war, Great Britain will not surrender into slavery, and cannot be foreed into it so long as she has the means of continuing resistance, and that being the case the best insurance for the pence of the United States Is provided along the lines the President has indicated, Mr. Roosevelt's warning to his. fellow citizens needs to be engraved upon the minds of all who treasure the principles for which Great Britain and the Allies are fighting in Europe. They are the final rampart against the spread of loathsome ideologies which animate the aggressor Powers, and should they be swept away,—as it is firmly believed they will not-—the people of the United States would have to face just as fierce a struggle as that which is toward in Europe. That the President emphasized with no mincing of words:—"I make the direct state~ mont to the American peoples that there is far less chance of the United States getting into the war, if we do all that we can now to support the nations who are defending themselves against Axis attack, than if we acquiesce in their defeat, submit tamely to an Axis victory and await our tum to be the object of attack in another war later.
That sums up the whole American position in this war, The actions of Germany, Ttaly and Japan have made it quite clear what the rest of the world has to face—the abolition of notional independence and the enslavement of the whole world, first perhaps to the parties to the tri-partite alliance and finally 0 the Germans alone. But this broadcast of the President's is something more than a mere expose of possibilities. It is a direct and uncompromising answer to all the sabre rattling in which the Axis has been indulging with regard to the United States. It is an asseveration that the United States are not to be brow beaten and that in the defence of democracy they will go to whatever lengths are necessary to secure victory. Were Great Britain and her Allies to fail,—and that is inconceivable—the turn of the western hemisphere would not be Jong in coming, and it would stand alone against a world completely organized against That the President has told his people, and it is believed that they will understand the lesson which the has read out to them. If they do, and they act accord ingly, the fate of the Axis Powers will never be in doubt
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.