History
Concept: New Deal, Fascism, World War II
Overview of this Concept
Liberalism emerged in American politics as a response to progressivism. Unlike classical liberalism, which was concerned with limited government and the protection of individual rights, this new liberalism sought to secure freedoms through an expansive welfare state. In economics, liberals rejected the progressive notion of impartial and altruistic bureaucrats who would regulate industry for the good of society. Instead, they advocated government and industry cooperating to plan production and consumption in a way that would distribute wealth more equitably.
The liberal economic and political ideas manifested themselves in the creation of an American welfare state during the New Deal. Liberals believed the Great Depression was caused by overproduction, specialization, and mistakes by the Federal Reserve, and they argued the solution to these problems was government intervention. Relief came through government agencies that would help citizens secure jobs and material goods while maintaining their self-respect. Recovery meant controlling the unbridled competition that had led to the Great Depression through boards and commissions that heavily regulated industrial and agricultural markets.
The consensus held that the welfare state should be maintained at home and Communism should be opposed abroad. As Republicans under Eisenhower made peace with the New Deal, Democrats sought to distinguish themselves by criticizing the affluent society. Qualitative liberalism critiqued consumerism because it led Americans to pursue their private profits rather than a national good.
The preeminent historian Victor Davis Hanson accurately describes World War II:
“World War II was conceived and fought as a characteristic Western war in which
classical traditions of free markets, private property, unfettered natural
inquiry, personal freedom, and a secular tradition had for centuries often
translated to greater military dynamism in Europe than elsewhere. If the
conflict’s unique savagery and destructiveness can only be appreciated through
the lenses of 20th-century ideology, technology, and industry, its origins and
end still followed larger contours of conflict as they developed over 2,500
years of civilized history. The Western military’s essence had remained
unchanged but it was now delivered at an unprecedented volume and velocity, and
posed a specter of death on a massive scale. The internecine war was largely
fought with weaponry and technology that were birthed in the West, although
also used by Westernized powers in Asia. The atomic bombs, napalm, guided
missiles, and multi-engine bombers of World War II confirmed a general truth
that for over two millennia the war-making of Europe and its appendages had
proven brutal against the non-West, but when its savage protocols and
technology were turned upon itself, the corpses mounted in an unfathomable
fashion.”
To help balance a new pluralistic society, the liberals turned away from the older understanding of democracy towards a model of state management through research and polling. This required a new social contract in which the people give power away to the government and the government gives rights to the people. Franklin D. Roosevelt described this model in his Commonwealth Club Address, where he emphasized the new role of statesmanship to redefine and expand individual rights to life, liberty, and property.
Quantitative Liberalism
During the New Deal, the Big Six regulatory agencies were created to establish the government as a senior partner with business. The Second New Deal, from 1936 to 1938, went even further as it designed programs to redistribute wealth and power to disadvantaged groups—minorities, the elderly, and the poor. These New Deal programs transformed the size and scope of the federal government. Prior to the New Deal, local governments accounted for 57% of non-defense spending; by 1940, the federal government accounted for 56%. The federal bureaucracy exploded in size, growing from 600,000 in 1929 to 1,000,000 in 1940.
Qualitative Liberalism
Liberals, who prided themselves on not being absolutists, were challenged by World War II, which demanded an absolute for which men would be willing to sacrifice their lives. The central faith worth fighting for became the belief in the “vital center” that opposed absolutism on either side of politics. This led to a “liberal consensus” that emerged following WWII, between both Democrats and Republicans.
Thus, Kennedy and Johnson began a war on poverty, took up the cause of civil rights, and undertook nation-building projects abroad. The focus of these new qualitative liberal programs was to use America’s affluence to benefit those who did not share in her prosperity, whether in America or abroad.
Abroad, fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Fascism originated in Italy during World War I and spread to other European countries. Fascism opposes liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism and is usually wrongly placed on the far right within the traditional left-right political spectrum. Either the extreme left or the far right, both end up being tyrannical. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes in the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent of total war and total mass mobilization of society had broken down the distinction between civilian and combatant. A "military citizenship" arose in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner during the war. The war had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines and providing economic production and logistics to support them, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.
Additional
Resources for Teachers:
·
History of a
Free Nation, pp. 809–811, 828–848, pp.
861–876
·
Basic History
of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 22–56, 59–94,
99-119, 123-143
·
Lesson Aids: Politics and the New Deal,
Economics and the New Deal
·
Lesson Aid: The Holocaust
Student
Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this concept
(in order of introduction):
·
History of a
Free Nation, pp. 809–811, 828–848
·
Basic History
of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 22–50, 59–79
·
Source #1 (Excerpt from Herbert Hoover’s
Inaugural Address)
·
Source #2 (Excerpt from John Maynard Keyes
letter to FDR, 25 March 1938)
·
Source
#3 (Paul H. Douglas, In the Fullness of Time [Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1972, 71]).
·
Source
#4 (“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”: FDR’s First Inaugural
Address)
·
Source #5 (FDR’s Campaign Address at Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
October 1, 1936)
·
Source #6 (FDR’s Annual Message to
Congress on January 3, 1938)
Source #7 (John Maynard Keyes letter to FDR, 25 March 1938
Source #8 (Franklin D.
Roosevelt, State of the Union Message to Congress January 11, 1944, Economic Bill of Rights)
·
Source #9 (Transcript by Lee Ohanion, Professor of Economics at UCLA: Did FDR End the Great Depression? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9HT4fQWtdg)
·
Source #10 (State of the
Union Address: Franklin D. Roosevelt January 4, 1935)
Source #11 (Benito
Mussolini The Doctrine of
Fascism, Benito Mussolini, 1932)
·
Source #12 (Neville
Chamberlain, 30 September 1938, “Peace in our time” speech)
·
Source #13 (FDR, “The
Great Arsenal of Democracy,” 29 December 1940)
·
Source
#14 (America First Committee, Charles
Lindbergh speech, Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941)
·
Source
#15 (FDR, 1941 State of the Union Address, “The Four Freedoms,” 6 January 1941)
·
Source
#16 (FDR, March 15, 1941: “On
Lend Lease”)
·
Source
#17 (FDR Declaration of War Against Japan, 8 December 1941)
·
Source #18 (Truman Announcement Dropping the
Atomic Bomb, August 6,
1945)
Objectives:
·
SWBAT explain that Roosevelt’s New Deal was based on Keynesian economics
(the idea that government spending stimulates economic growth) and regulation.
Sources/Handouts that will be used for
discussion/evaluation for this lesson:
·
Source #1 (Excerpt from Herbert Hoover’s
Inaugural Address)
·
Source #2 (Excerpt from John Maynard Keyes letter
to FDR, 25 March 1938)
Review—Key Question (s):
·
Why did the U.S. prosper during the 1920s?
·
What led to scandal on the part of executive branch officials during
Harding’s administration?
·
What did Coolidge support that fostered increased productivity and
economic success?
·
How did Ford’s automobile and its production influence both business
practices and American culture?
·
Prosperity in the 1920s spurred the development of what media which, in
turn, influenced society and how?
· What factors contributed to the onset of the Depression?
·
Who and how did the stock market crash affect nearly everyone in America?
·
Hoover feared that reliance on government would lead to what and as a
result his economic policies were attempts to help individuals to what?
Foundation
•
individualism v. collectivism, initiative v. no motivation, self-reliance v.
dependence, self-respect v. lack of self-respect
Resources
–
History of a Free Nation, pp. 797–799
– Basic
History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 14–22
Concept:
As a pacifist and former Secretary of Commerce, Hoover’s foreign policy focused
on peace and establishing good relations with nations.
Foundation
•
pacifism, goodwill, free trade
Resources
·
– History of a Free Nation, pp. 799–802
Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:
·
“Liberalism” replaced progressivism but this 20th
Century liberalism was of a collectivist, pro-government type, not the 19th
Century, free-market individualist liberalism. During FDR’s administration, monetary
policy, fiscal policy, and regulation and intervention are the key words.
·
In 1928, when Herbert Hoover defeated Al Smith
for the presidency, Hoover had every reason to believe that the future of the
country was bright. Read Source #1.
o
What did Hoover state in his Inaugural Address about
the U.S. and its resources, beauty, opportunity, and poverty? (He expressed his belief that the United
States was “rich in resources; stimulating in its glorious beauty; filled with
millions of happy homes; blessed with comfort and opportunity.” He later said,
“We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever
before in any land in history. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.”)
o
What was the relation of government to business?
(“The election has again confirmed the determination of the
American people that regulation of private enterprise and not Government
ownership or operation is the course rightly to be pursued in our relation to
business.”)
o What does he differentiate between? (“In recent years we have established a differentiation in the whole
method of business regulation between the industries which produce and
distribute commodities on the one hand and public utilities on the other.”)
o What is the difference between the two? (“In the former, our laws insist upon effective
competition; in the latter, because we substantially confer a monopoly by
limiting competition, we must regulate their services and rates.”)
·
What happened though in
October, 1929? (The stock market
crashed.)
o
Economists dispute how much weight to give the
stock market crash of October 1929. According to Milton Friedman, "the
stock market in 1929 played a role in the initial depression." It clearly
changed sentiment about and expectations of the future, shifting the outlook
from very positive to negative, with a dampening effect on investment and
entrepreneurship, but some feel that an increase in interest rates by the
Federal government could have also caused the slow steps into the downturn
towards the Great Depression.
o
What does laissez-faire
economist Thomas Sowell of Stanford
University state? (Sowell notes
that the rise in unemployment had peaked at 9% two months after the crash, and
had fallen to 6.3% by June.)
o
What then is to blame for the later unemployment
rate? Sowell points out how disastrous the Smoot-Harley Tariff was for the U.S.
economy. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of
1930 significantly raised import restrictions, reduced trade and
prosperity, provoked protectionist retaliation by foreign governments, and
damaged the spirit of peace, cooperation, and goodwill. In an unprecedented
move economists banded together and produced a statement to veto the
Smoot-Hawley tariff: Cf. http://www.aei.org/publication/the-economists-tariff-protest-of-1930/
o
The chief author seems to have been Paul H.
Douglas. Read Source #3. In his memoirs, In the Fullness of Time (Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1972, 71), what did economists warn Hoover about when he interfered
with the economy? (“The six months at
Swarthmore were crowded with activity. With Clair Wilcox I drafted an appeal to
President Herbert Hoover urging him to veto the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which
raised duties to their highest levels.”)
o
What happened when the U.S. raised duties? (“In this we pointed out how the increase in
duties on imports decreased the ability of other countries to buy goods from
us.”)
o
What would other countries do to retaliate? (“Also, it would provoke them to retaliatory
tariffs.”)
o
How many economists warned Hoover not to
interfere with the economy? (“No fewer
than 1,028 economists signed the appeal.”)
o
What was his party (Republican) committed to? (“I think poor Hoover wanted to take our
advice. His party was so strongly committed to protection, however, that he
felt compelled to sign the bill, with the result that all our predictions came
true.”)
o
What happened as a result and what happened to
democratic countries? (“The Depression
deepened and the Western democracies fell apart.”)
o
The tariffs that Hoover passed against the
advice of economists and six months after their implementation unemployment
rose to the double digit figures that characterized that decade.
§
Recent research has pointed to the effects of
capital taxation on property, capital stock, excess profits, undistributed
profits, and dividends on the severity of the Great Depression, noting such
taxation's role in significant declines in investment and equity values and
nontrivial declines in gross domestic product and hours of work.
·
Sowell contradicts the
conventional story of how FDR saved the economy after everyone lost their jobs
because of the stock market crash, Sowell draws on Richard Vedder and Lowell E.
Gallaway’s Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in
Twentieth-Century America to show that Hoover’s protectionist tariffs were the actual catalyst for
double-digit unemployment figures.
o
Although
unemployment rose as high as 9% a month after the crash in 1929, it later
subsided to 6.3% in June 1930, when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed.
Within five months, unemployment had risen to double digits. From February 1932
through December 1934, it remained above 20%. Sowell writes, “The evidence
suggests that it was not the ‘problem’ of the financial crisis in 1929 that
caused massive unemployment but politicians’ attempted ‘solutions.’
o
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide
economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great
Depression varied across nations; however, in most countries it started in 1929
and lasted until the late 1930s. It was the longest, deepest, and most
widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great
Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the world's economy can
decline.
o
The depression originated in the United States,
after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became
worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 (known as Black
Tuesday).
o
Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an
estimated 15%.
o
By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than
1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession.
o
Some economies started to recover by the
mid-1930s. However, in many countries including the U.S., the negative effects
of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II.
o
The Great Depression had devastating effects in
countries both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices
dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%.
o
Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25% and in some
countries rose as high as 33%.
o
Cities all around the world were hit hard,
especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted
in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices
fell by approximately 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources
of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and
logging suffered the most.
·
Read Source #4. “The Only Thing We Have to Fear
is Fear Itself.” FDR’s Inaugural address is famous in which he eloquently
declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
o
Franklin D. Roosevelt had campaigned against
Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential election by saying as little as
possible about what he might do if elected. Through even the closest working
relationships, none of the president-elect’s most intimate associates felt they
knew him well, with the exception perhaps of his wife, Eleanor. The affable,
witty Roosevelt used his great personal charm to keep most people at a
distance. In campaign speeches, he favored a buoyant, optimistic, gently
paternal tone spiced with humor. But his first inaugural address took on an
unusually solemn, religious quality. And for good reason—by 1933 the depression
had reached its depth. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address outlined in broad
terms how he hoped to govern and reminded Americans that the nation’s “common
difficulties” concerned “only material things.”
o Roosevelt
tried to reassure the country about its future. Should the crisis continue, he
said, he would ask for power “to wage a war against the emergency, as great as
the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign
foe.” The very next day, March 5, 1933, Roosevelt declared a four-day national
bank holiday and summoned Congress into special session to deal with the
worsening situation.
o How did he
address fear? (“So, first of all, let me
assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless,
unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert
retreat into advance.”)
o Common
difficulties only concern what type of things? (“They concern, thank God, only material things.”)
o
Oddly, for a president who was not
particularly religious, what biblical allusions does he make? Why do you think
he resorted to extensive biblical imagery? (“We
are stricken by no plague of locusts” [cf. Exodus 10]. “Practices of the
unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion,
rejected by the hearts and minds of men” [Cf. Matthew 21:12]. “They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish” [Cf.
Proverbs 29:18; Isaiah 58:13-14; Proverbs 15:22; Exodus 32:1-35; Acts 26:19; Mark 16:15; Proverbs 29:1-27; 1 Samuel 3:1]. “The money changers have fled from their
high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to
the ancient truths.” “The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be
forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth
all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered
unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.” “Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the
standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief
that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the
standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a
conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust
the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence
languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of
obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it
cannot live” [cf. Mark 8:36]).
o
On the other hand, how does FDR view the individual citizen
as a collective? (“If I read the temper
of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our
interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as
well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army
willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such
discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know,
ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because
it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to
offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred
obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.”)
o
How is FDR ready to upset the three co-equal branches of
government with his initiatives? (“It is
to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may
be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that
an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary
departure from that normal balance of public procedure.”)
o
How does he justify setting aside the balance of powers? (“But in the event that the Congress shall
fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national
emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that
will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining
instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the
emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact
invaded by a foreign foe.”)
o
Whose help does he ask? (“In
this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect
each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.”).
o
Over the course of his first hundred days in
office, Roosevelt dramatically boosted the nation's mood. With the help of what
he called his Brain Trust (a group of leading intellectuals charged with
formulating policy), Roosevelt proposed a series of dramatic measures meant to
reorganize the country's financial system and raise the living standards of all
Americans, especially working Americans. He offered, he said, “relief,
recovery, and reform,” and that is the best way to characterize what historians
call the First New Deal.
·
FDR began his 1932 campaign for the presidency espousing
orthodox fiscal beliefs. He promised to balance the federal budget, which
Herbert Hoover had been unable to do. Indeed, when FDR came into office, the
national deficit was nearly $3,000,000,000.
o FDR's budget
balancing was not only based on traditional fiscal economics, but also on
politics. Roosevelt believed that a balanced budget was important to instill
confidence in consumers, business, and the markets, which would thus encourage
investment and economic expansion. As the economy recovered, tax revenues would
increase making budget balancing even easier. This traditional view that
deficits were bad was also supported by public opinion polls.
o But the fiscal
orthodoxy of budget balancing did not match the reality of the economic
situation of an America with nearly a quarter of its working population
unemployed. From 1933 to 1937, FDR maintained his belief in a balanced budget,
but recognized the need for increased government expenditures to put people
back to work. Each year, FDR submitted a budget for general expenditures that
anticipated a balanced budget, with the exception of government expenditures
for relief and work programs.
o He considered
such programs to be emergency in nature, and therefore separate from usual
governmental outlays. FDR’s emergency spending brought protests from fiscal
conservatives, which FDR answered in 1936 at a campaign speech in Pittsburgh
(Cf. https://fdrlibrary.org/budget).
o Read Source #5 FDR’S Campaign
Address at Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 1, 1936. To balance
the budget would have been what against the American people? (“To
balance our budget in 1933 or 1934 or 1935 would have been a crime against the
American people.”).
o If the nation has no money who or what does have the responsibility to
spend? (“No one lightly lays a burden on the income of a Nation. But this
vicious tightening circle of our declining national income simply had to be
broken. The bankers and the industrialists of the Nation cried aloud that
private business was powerless to break it. They turned, as they had a right to
turn, to the Government. We accepted the final responsibility of Government,
after all else had failed, to spend money when no one else had money left to
spend.”)
o As the economy
improved, more Americans were working, and there was an anticipation of
increased tax revenues as a result of the recovery. From 1933 to 1937,
unemployment had been reduced from 25% to 14% - still a large percentage, but a
vast improvement. FDR's reaction was to turn back to the fiscal orthodoxy of
the time, and he began to reduce emergency relief and public works spending in
an effort to truly balance the budget. The country then lurched into what is
now known as the Roosevelt Recession of 1937-1938. Unemployment threatened to
rise to pre-New Deal levels, and the economy came grinding to a halt.
o Treasury
Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and aides within the Treasury Department
favored an approach that sought to balance the federal budget. But other
advisers in the President's inner circle, including Harry Hopkins, Marriner
Eccles, and Henry Wallace, had accepted the recent theories of British
economist John Maynard Keynes, who argued that technically advanced economies
would need permanent budget deficits or other measures (such as redistribution
of income away from the wealthy) to stimulate consumption of goods and to
maintain full employment. It was the reduction of federal spending that these
advisers viewed as the cause of the recession.
o FDR found Keynesian arguments compelling, had
met him in 1935, and during 1938 FDR’s thoughts on the economy evolved. In the wake of
the Recession during his Annual Message to Congress on January 3, 1938,
President Roosevelt declared his intention to seek funding for massive
government spending without tax increases.
o Read Source #__. Did FDR balance the budget? (No. “We have heard
much about a balanced budget, and it is interesting to note that many of those
who have pleaded for a balanced budget as the sole need now come to me to plead
for additional government expenditures at the expense of unbalancing the
budget. . . . The proposed budget for 1939, which I shall shortly send to the
Congress, will exhibit a further decrease in the deficit, though not a balance
between income and outgo.” Expenditures exceeded revenue.)
o How did FDR challenge fiscal conservatives? What was their
compelling alternatives during that time of national economic crisis? (They had none according to FDR. “To many who have pleaded with me for an
immediate balancing of the budget, by a sharp curtailment or even elimination
of government functions, I have asked the question: "What present
expenditures would you reduce or eliminate?" And the invariable answer has
been "that is not my business -- I know nothing of the details, but I am
sure that it could be done." That is not what you or I would call helpful
citizenship.”)
o The acceptance
by the Roosevelt Administration of what became known as Keynesianism
established the precedent of using deficit spending as a vehicle for promoting
economic recovery in times of national fiscal crisis. Deficit spending continued
throughout the war, when the economy expanded rapidly and employment reached
full capacity, with the goal of the successful prosecution of the war.
o The obvious
connection between deficit spending and economic expansion was not lost on many
Americans, including business leaders who much preferred large deficits to
Keynes's alternative of massive redistribution of wealth through taxation as a
way to sustain America's prosperity in peacetime.
o
Read Source __ John Maynard Keyes’ letter to
FDR, 25 March 1938. What does Keynes urge FDR to do in regards to business? (The government should take over business
functions. "But further experience since I wrote does seem to show that
you are treading a very dangerous middle path. You must either give more encouragement
to business or take over more of their functions yourself.”)
o
In regards to the public acceptance of FDR
taking over business functions? (The
public should be educated and led to believe that the government can best run
businesses. “If public opinion is not ready for the latter, then it is
necessary to wait until public opinion is educated.”)
o According
to the Constitution did FDR have the enumerated power over the economy? (No, nowhere in the Constitution does it
state that the executive has the power over the economy but FDR’s policies
exceeded executive authority. “Your present policies seem to presume that you
possess more power than you actually have.")
o FDR's support
for deficit spending was yet another shift in the relationship between the
government and the people that took place during his Administration.
o President
Roosevelt expressed his vision for a country where each citizen was guaranteed
a basic level of economic security most eloquently in his Economic Bill of
Rights speech on January 11, 1944.
o Read Source __:
this is Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State
of the Union Message to Congress January
11, 1944, or often referred to as the Economic Bill of Rights.
o
Some of the oft-quoted lines are where FDR writes: “We have come
to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist
without economic security and independence. . . . Necessitous men are not free
men. . . . People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which
dictatorships are made.”
o
What dictatorships did FDR have in mind? (Most likely he is thinking here of Hitler and Stalin).
o In
his 1944 Annual Message to Congress, FDR famously declared that the American
people had accepted a “second Bill of Rights” that provided a new basis of
security and prosperity for all. What was the original Bill of Rights about and
how did it contrast with FDR’s view? (The
first ten amendments to the Constitution, ratified by the American people—had
been formulated in order to establish additional constitutional protections for
the unalienable natural rights enunciated in the Declaration of Independence.
For example, Congress may not establish a religion; or abridge freedom of
speech or of the press. By contrast, in FDR’s view, the Constitution should be
used as an instrument of progress. For FDR, the old doctrine of freedom of
contract now should be understood as liberty within a social organization—a
corporation, for example—which requires the protection of law against the evils
which menace the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people. Such
protections become necessary because economic security and independence are
prerequisites for true individual freedom: i.e., “Necessitous men are not free
men.”)
o
What is the contrast between the view about
property in FDR’s statement and the original Bill of Rights? (FDR transformed
the right to earn and keep property into the right to receive such goods from
funds exacted from fellow citizens by the government. This transformation
required a substantial increase in the powers and duties of a centralized
administration, which transformation FDR argued was necessary in order to
establish social equality, the centerpiece of social justice.)
o
What rights does Roosevelt name in his “Second
Bill of Rights”? (“The right to a useful
and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the
Nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and
recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a
return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every
businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair
competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every
family to a decent home; The right to adequate protection from the economic
fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a useful
and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the
Nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and
recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a
return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right to a good education.” FDR designed
his “second Bill of Rights” to establish social equality as a fact by providing
for the economic security and independence of individuals. He maintained that
individuals have a right to such things as a useful and remunerative job; a
right to earn enough to afford food, clothing, and recreation; the right to
trade in an atmosphere free from unfair competition and monopolies; the right
to be free from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and
unemployment; and the right to a good education.)
o How
in his 1944 Annual Message to Congress, did FDR famously declare that the
American people had accepted a “second Bill of Rights” that provided a new
basis of security and prosperity for all? How does FDR’s Bill of Rights differ
from the original Bill of Rights? (The
original Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution, ratified
by the American people—had been formulated in order to establish additional
constitutional protections for the unalienable natural rights enunciated in the
Declaration of Independence. For example, Congress may not establish a
religion; or abridge freedom of speech or of the press. By contrast, in FDR’s
view, the Constitution should be used as an instrument of progress. For FDR,
the old doctrine of freedom of contract now should be understood as liberty
within a social organization—a corporation, for example—which requires the
protection of law against the evils which menace the health, safety, morals,
and welfare of the people. Such protections become necessary because economic
security and independence are prerequisites for true individual freedom: i.e.,
“Necessitous men are not free men.”)
o President
Roosevelt argues that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” should be
modified by adding “security.” What does he mean by “security”? (Various: but just as when armed forces
fight “Congress faces the responsibility for taking those measures which are
essential to national security in this the most decisive phase of the Nation's
greatest war. . . . We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights
under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all
regardless of station, race, or creed.”)
o FDR
argued that “Necessitous men are not free men.” What does this mean? ("People who are hungry and out of a
job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”)
o FDR
states that “For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
meaningless in the face of ____________ inequality.” How did this view
influence the creation of the New Deal?
o
Why does adding
“security” to the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
undermine them, rather than ensure them? (He
is arguing that the government, and not the individual will pursue and secure
happiness.)
o
What is the
difference between “political equality” and “economic equality”? (FDR means that the government must secure
economic, and not only political equality. This can only be accomplished by
picking winners and losers in the economy.”)
o
How does FDR’s
definition of “equality” differ from the Founders’ definition? (The Founders favored the pursuit but not
the governmental guarantee of economic equality).
o
How does Franklin
D. Roosevelt define statesmanship? What is the proper understanding of
statesmanship? How does Franklin D. Roosevelt’s definition differ from that of
the Founders? (Thoroughly
educated in Progressive principles, Franklin D. Roosevelt believed that the
task of statesmanship is to redefine our rights “in the terms of a changing and
growing social order.” While the Founders thought the truths they celebrated in
the Declaration of Independence were self-evident and so also timeless and
unchanging, FDR argued for a new self-evident economic truth. His proposed
“Economic Bill of Rights” lays out the means by which our new economic rights
are to be secured, thereby achieving social equality and social justice.)
o
The similarities
between the Economic Bill of Rights and the ICESCR (International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights are striking);
this is largely due to the Rooseveltian influence on both documents.
o What
does the International statement and FDR seek to alter? (Both seek to fundamentally alter the relationship between the
individual and the government by establishing a new, wide-ranging set of
positive rights afforded to all citizens and requiring government action to
adequately deliver those rights. In essence, both the Economic Bill of Rights
and the ICESCR are based on good intentions, but good intentions do not
automatically translate into good, feasible, or Constitutional public policy.)
o
Despite the Supreme Court's challenge, Roosevelt
believed that, without a national plan for economic reform, the country would
succumb to demagogues like Huey Long and Fr. Charles Coughlin. Emboldened by
the Democratic victories in the 1934 elections, Roosevelt laid out a new set of
proposals in January 1935 that would push the New Deal even further in
assisting the working and lower classes. Ultimately enacted by Congress in July
and August of 1935, these new reform measures are known collectively as the “Second
New Deal.” Despite their passage, Roosevelt was aware that a judicial showdown
about the constitutionality of his New Deal was on the horizon.
o
After the election, the New Deal appeared to be
at its height. But Roosevelt soon committed a series of political and economic
errors that scuttled the most far-reaching elements of the New Deal. Rather
than disappearing altogether, after 1936 the New Deal entered a period of
consolidation, when its changes in culture, labor relations, and politics took
firm root in American life.
o
Although the major political accomplishments of
the New Deal had ended by the late 1930s, the programs that had already become
law continued to influence American politics, society, and culture for the
remainder of the twentieth century. The New Deal thus effected changes in the
American landscape more far-reaching than just economics or legislation. Most
especially, they affected culture, crime, labor, politics, race relations, and
minorities.
4:32 Thomas Sowell Explains
the Great Depression (TBA for CMS)
https://youtu.be/AQQon4tjlSA
https://youtu.be/AQQon4tjlSA
Concept:
The New Deal did not work and only deepened the Depression by pulling capital
out of the economy to fund government programs and projects.
Foundation
• capital, government spending, regulation and
intervention, political promises v. reality
Resources
– Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 50–56,
79–86, 90–94
– Lesson Aids: Politics and the New Deal, Economics
and the New Deal
Review—Key Question (s)
·
How did FDR’s view of the Bill of Rights
contrast with the Founder’s view?
·
Why and how did FDR’s view of balancing the
budget change?
·
What is Sowell’s account of the Great
Depression?
Prompt Question for Next Lesson:
·
Why
didn’t the New Deal work and how did FDR’s plans only deepen the Depression by
pulling capital out of the economy to fund government programs and projects?
Day __
Objectives:
·
SWBAT explain the New Deal and why FDR’s
increase in federal spending did not end unemployment despite the many
government programs instituted.
Sources/Handouts that will be used for
discussion/evaluation for this lesson:
·
Source #__ (Transcript by Lee Ohanion, Professor of Economics
at UCLA)
Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:
·
Did FDR End the Great Depression? Read Source #__ the
transcript by Lee Ohanion, Professor of Economics at UCLA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9HT4fQWtdg
o The centerpiece of
Roosevelt’s New Deal plan to fix the economy was the National Industrial
Recovery Act, or NIRA, which the President announced with great fanfare in June
of 1933.
o
How did FDR believe that he could use the government to artificially raise
both prices and wages? (“It would work
like this: higher prices would raise profits—that makes business happy; and
higher wages would raise income—that makes workers happy.”)
o
In the short term doesn’t this rapidly improve the economy? (“More profits for business means more money
to hire new workers. Higher wages for workers means more money to buy consumer
goods. A virtuous cycle is set into motion and the economy improves rapidly.”)
o
If the economy rapidly improves, what did FDR miss? (“Artificially raising wages also raises labor costs. And when labor
costs go up, business hires fewer workers or no workers at all, especially in a
difficult economic environment.”)
o
What happens in the meantime? (“Meanwhile,
artificially raising prices reduces demand for the obvious reason that people
buy less of something when its price goes higher.”)
o
So, why did FDR do this? (“FDR based
his New Deal policy largely on what happened during World War I, which had
ended only 15 years earlier, in 1918. During that war, the government
established planning boards to set wages and prices, and economic activity
increased. If it worked during wartime, FDR reasoned, it should work during
peacetime.)
o
Why was Roosevelt confused? (“But
Roosevelt confused the economic activity that was actually the result of
inflated war demands as being due to government planning.”)
o
What was his premise? What did Roosevelt conclude? (“The government, Roosevelt concluded, could much better manage the
economy in a time of crisis than private enterprise, which, in his worldview,
only considered its own selfish interests.”)
o
What was the American’s ally according to FDR? (“Therefore, government guidance—not free enterprise—was Americans’
steadfast ally.”)
o
Ultimately, why didn’t FDR’s plan work? (“Contrary
to what you might think, big business, including autos and steel, were happy to
go along with FDR’s plan—at least, at first. If the government was going to
ensure their profits, who were they to complain? So, instead of prohibiting
monopolies—something the government is actually supposed to do—the NIRA created
monopolies on the condition that these favored industries immediately raised
wages significantly and bargained collectively with labor.”)
Concept:
The Social Security Act (1935) expanded the welfare state and has had a
profound impact on American workers.
Foundation
• welfare, government paternalism, political monopoly
Resources
– History of a Free Nation, pp. 844–848
– Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 59–90
·
You are the new President, as FDR was, and the
New York Times reports this story: “MINNEAPOLIS—Several
hundred men and women in an unemployed demonstration today stormed a grocery
store and meat market in the Gateway district, smashed plate glass windows and
helped themselves to bacon and ham, fruit and canned goods..” —from the New York Times, February 26, 1931
o
If you are the president, what do you do? Are
you ready to provide Federal relief? (Various
but this is the issue and why FDR was pressed to come up with an answer.
Students should realize that this situation was unprecedented and for the first
time in American history a president was directly involved with local relief.)
o
Most elderly Americans did not have personal
savings or retirement pensions to support them in normal times, let alone
during a national economic crisis. Those few able to set aside money for
retirement often found that their savings and investments had been wiped out by
the financial crash in 1929. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois made this
observation in 1936:
§
“The impact of all these forces increasingly
convinced the majority of the American people that individuals could not by
themselves provide adequately for their old age, and that some form of greater
security should be provided by society.”
o
Even skilled workers, business owners,
successful farmers, and professionals of all kinds found themselves in severe
economic difficulty as one out of four in the labor force lost their jobs.
Words like "bewildered," "shocked," and "humiliated,"
were often used at the time to describe increasing numbers of Americans as the
Depression deepened.
o
By 1935, a national welfare system had been
established for the first time in American history.
o The
states previously were mainly responsible for taking care of the so-called
"unemployables" (widows, poor children, the elderly poor, and the
disabled). But states and private charities, too, were unable to keep up the
support of these people at a time when tax collections and personal giving were
declining steeply.
o
Because of the crisis FDR decided on new plans
in his State of the Union address. Read Source #__ Source #__ (State of the Union Address: Franklin D. Roosevelt January 4,
1935)
o What
did President Roosevelt declare? ("the
time has come for action by the national government" to provide
"security against the major hazards and vicissitudes [uncertainties] of
life." He went on to propose the creation of federal unemployment and
old-age insurance programs. He also called for guaranteed benefits for poor
single mothers and their children along with other dependent persons.)
o The
world is changing and what is no longer a distant ideal and now a goal? (“Throughout the world, change
is the order of the day. In every Nation economic problems, long in the making,
have brought crises of many kinds for which the masters of old practice and
theory were unprepared. In most Nations social justice, no longer a distant
ideal, has become a definite goal, and ancient Governments are beginning to
heed the call.”)
o What is the problem with the
acquisition of wealth? Who should decide what is enough wealth, power, and
leisure? (Various, but some may say the
individual should decide, not the government. “We have, however, a clear
mandate from the people, that Americans must forswear that conception of the
acquisition of wealth which, through excessive profits, creates undue private
power over private affairs and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well.
In building toward this end we do not destroy ambition, nor do we seek to divide
our wealth into equal shares on stated occasions. We continue to recognize the
greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the
ambition of the individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a
reasonable leisure, and a decent living throughout life, is an ambition to be
preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.”)
o What does FDR offer the
American people? (“security against the
major hazards of life. . . . I shall send to you, in a few days, definite
recommendations based on these studies. These recommendations will cover the
broad subjects of unemployment insurance and old age insurance, of benefits for
children, form others, for the handicapped, for maternity care and for other
aspects of dependency and illness where a beginning can now be made.”)
o Did FDR plan for continued
dependence upon the state? Has that happened? What do the lessons of history
confirm? (Various, students may not know
that situations of continued dependence have occurred and welfare has extended
into a continued dependence upon the state. However, FDR does point out the
lessons of history which is clear. “The lessons of history, confirmed by the
evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence
upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally
destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to
administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical
to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of
America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers.”)
o
Even FDR realizes what will happen if the Federal Government is in the
business of relief. What happens? (“The
Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief. I am not
willing that the vitality of our people be further sapped by the giving of
cash, of market baskets, of a few hours of weekly work cutting grass, raking
leaves or picking up .papers in the public parks. We must preserve not only the
bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also their self-respect, their
self-reliance and courage and determination.”)
o
Nonetheless, by permanently expanding federal
responsibility for the security of all Americans, Roosevelt made Social Security
a way of life for Americans.
o
A few months later, on August 18, 1935,
Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. It set up a federal retirement
program for persons over 65, which was financed by a payroll tax paid jointly
by employers and their workers. FDR believed that federal old-age pensions
together with employer-paid unemployment insurance (also a part of the Social
Security Act) would provide the economic security people needed during both
good and bad times.
o
In addition to old-age pensions and unemployment
insurance, the Social Security Act established a national welfare system. The
federal government guaranteed one-third of the total amount spent by states for
assistance to needy and dependent children under age 16 (but not their
mothers). Additional federal welfare aid was provided to destitute old people,
the needy blind, and crippled children. Although financed partly by federal tax
money, the states could still set their own eligibility requirements and
benefit levels.
o
This is how welfare began as a federal
government responsibility. Roosevelt and the members of Congress who wrote the
welfare provisions into the Social Security Act thought that the need for
federal aid to dependent children and poor old people would gradually wither
away as employment improved and those over 65 began to collect Social Security
pensions. Also, since 1935, increasing divorce and father desertion rates have
dramatically multiplied the number of poor single mothers with dependent
children.
o
The debate still continues over who should be
responsible for the welfare of destitute old people, disabled persons, and poor
single mothers and their children. There are basic positions about welfare:
what do you favor? (A. Welfare should be
a national government responsibility so that needy single mothers of dependent
children, elderly, and disabled persons in every part of the country can get
support when they meet certain qualifications; B. Welfare should be a state
government responsibility so that each of the 50 states will be free to design
its own qualifications and levels of support; C. Welfare should be the
responsibility of charities, churches, and other non-profit groups; or D. There
should be no welfare. Individuals should take care of themselves with the help
of their families, friends, and neighbors.)
Review
How did needy Americans get help before Social
Security?
Did President Franklin D. Roosevelt view the Social
Security Act's welfare provisions helping needy children and other dependent
persons as permanent or temporary? Explain FDR's reasoning on this matter.
Foundation
• fascism, totalitarianism, threat to individual
rights
Resources
– History of a Free Nation, pp. 860–861, 873 (Holocaust)
– Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp.
100–101
– Lesson Aid: The Holocaust
·
Concept: Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy established
totalitarian governments through persuasion, manipulation, and force.
o
What is fascism?
Italian Fascism involved a corporatist political
system in which the economy was collectively managed by employers, workers and
state officials by formal mechanisms at the national level.
·
Supporters claimed that corporatism could better
recognize or "incorporate" every divergent interest into the state
organically, unlike in a majority-rules democracy which they said could
marginalize specific interests.
·
Read Source __. This total consideration was the
inspiration for their use of the term "totalitarian", described
without coercion (although in reality there is much coercion) in the 1932
Doctrine of Fascism which stated:
§ “When brought within the
orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to
socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or
corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized
in the unity of the State.
§ [The state] is not simply
a mechanism which limits the sphere of the supposed liberties of the individual.
. . . Neither has the Fascist conception of authority anything in common with
that of a police ridden State. . . . Far from crushing the individual, the
Fascist State multiplies his energies, just as in a regiment a soldier is not
diminished but multiplied by the number of his fellow soldiers.”
§ A popular slogan of the
Italian Fascists under Mussolini was "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di
fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" ("everything for the state,
nothing outside the state, nothing against the state").
§ Fascism threatens individual liberties.
Foundation
• fascism, territorial expansion, integrity,
appeasement, diplomacy, war
Resources
– History of a Free Nation, pp. 861–864
– Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 99–107
·
Concept: Hitler began a policy of conquest to expand German territory.
Though western European powers attempted to stem aggression through
appeasement, war erupted with the invasion of Poland.
·
Germany, with
Hitler at the helm aggressively moved in the late 1930s before the invasion of
Poland.
·
He also took steps to gain “living space” for
Germans in Eastern Europe.
·
Hitler, who believed in the superiority of the
German people, or “Aryan race,” thought that Germany had a right to conquer the
inferior Slavs to the east. “Nature is cruel,” he claimed, “therefore we, too,
may be cruel. . . .I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that
breeds like vermin.”
·
Throughout the 1930s, challenges to peace
followed a pattern. Dictators took aggressive action but met only verbal
protests and pleas for peace from the democracies. Mussolini, Hitler, and the
leaders of Japan viewed that desire for peace as weakness and responded with
new acts of aggression. With hindsight, we can see the shortcomings of the
democracies’ policies. These policies, however, were the product of long and
careful deliberation. At the time, some people believed they would work.
·
Hitler, too, had tested the will of the Western
democracies and found it weak. First, he built up the German military in
defiance of the treaty that had ended World War I. Then, in 1936, he sent
troops into the “demilitarized” Rhineland bordering France—another treaty
violation.
·
Germans hated the Versailles treaty, and
Hitler’s successful challenge made him more popular at home. The Western
democracies denounced his moves but took no real action. Instead, they adopted
a policy of appeasement, or giving in to the demands of an aggressor in order
to keep the peace.
·
The Western policy of appeasement developed for
a number of reasons. France was demoralized, suffering from political divisions
at home. It could not take on Hitler without British support. The British,
however, had no desire to confront the German dictator. Some even thought that
Hitler’s actions constituted a justifiable response to the terms of the Treaty
of Versailles, which they believed had been too harsh on Germany.
·
In both Britain and France, many saw Hitler and
fascism as a defense against a worse evil—the spread of Soviet communism.
Additionally, the Great Depression sapped the energies of the Western
democracies. Finally, widespread pacifism, or opposition to all war, and
disgust with the destruction from the previous war pushed many governments to
seek peace at any price.
·
As war clouds gathered in Europe in the
mid-1930s, the United States Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts. One
law forbade the sale of arms to any nation at war. Others outlawed loans to
warring nations and prohibited Americans from traveling on ships of warring
powers. The fundamental goal of American policy, however, was to avoid
involvement in a European war, not to prevent such a conflict.
·
In the face of the apparent weakness of Britain,
France, and the United States, Germany, Italy, and Japan formed what became
known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. Known as the Axis powers, the three
nations agreed to fight Soviet communism. They also agreed not to interfere
with one another’s plans for territorial expansion. The agreement cleared the
way for these anti-democratic, aggressor powers to take even bolder steps.
·
In Italy, Mussolini decided to act on his own
imperialist ambitions. Italy’s defeat by the Ethiopians at the battle of Adowa
in 1896 still rankled. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, located in northeastern
Africa. Although the Ethiopians resisted bravely, their outdated weapons were
no match for Mussolini’s tanks, machine guns, poison gas, and airplanes. The
Ethiopian king Haile Selassie (hy luh suh lah see) appealed to the League of
Nations for help. The League voted sanctions against Italy for violating international
law. But the League had no power to enforce the sanctions, and by early 1936,
Italy had conquered Ethiopia.
·
From the beginning, Nazi propaganda had found
fertile ground in Austria. By 1938, Hitler was ready to engineer the Anschluss
(ahn shloos), or union of Austria and Germany. Early that year, he forced the
Austrian chancellor to appoint Nazis to key cabinet posts. When the Austrian
leader balked at other demands in March, Hitler sent in the German army to
“preserve order.” To indicate his new role as ruler of Austria, Hitler made a
speech from the Hofburg Palace, the former residence of the Hapsburg emperors.
·
The Anschluss violated the Versailles treaty and
created a brief war scare. Some Austrians favored annexation. Hitler quickly
silenced any Austrians who opposed it. And since the Western democracies took
no action, Hitler easily had his way.
·
Germany turned next to Czechoslovakia. At first,
Hitler insisted that the three million Germans in the Sudetenland (soo day tun
land)—a region of western Czechoslovakia—be given autonomy. Czechoslovakia was
one of only two remaining democracies in Eastern Europe. (Finland was the
other.) Still, Britain and France were not willing to go to war to save it. As
British and French leaders searched for a peaceful solution, Hitler increased
his demands. The Sudetenland, he said, must be annexed to Germany.
·
At the Munich Conference in September 1938,
British and French leaders again chose appeasement. They caved in to Hitler’s
demands and then persuaded the Czechs to surrender the Sudetenland without a
fight. In exchange, Hitler assured Britain and France that he had no further
plans to expand his territory.
·
After the horrors of World War I, Western
democracies desperately tried to preserve peace during the 1930s while ignoring
signs that the rulers of Germany, Italy, and Japan were preparing to build new
empires. Despite the best efforts of Neville Chamberlain and other Western
leaders, the world was headed to war again.
·
Read Source __. British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain spoke to a jubilant crowd upon returning to London from a
conference with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, in September 1938:
§
“For the second time in our history, a British
Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe
it is peace for our time . . . Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”
o
Just as Churchill predicted, Europe plunged
rapidly toward war. In March 1939, Hitler broke his promises and gobbled up the
rest of Czechoslovakia. The democracies finally accepted the fact that
appeasement had failed. At last thoroughly alarmed, they promised to protect
Poland, most likely the next target of Hitler’s expansion.
o
In August 1939, Hitler stunned the world by
announcing a nonaggression pact with his great enemy—Joseph Stalin, the Soviet
dictator. Publicly, the Nazi-Soviet Pact bound Hitler and Stalin to peaceful
relations. Secretly, the two agreed not to fight if the other went to war and
to divide up Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between them.
o
The pact was based not on friendship or respect
but on mutual need. Hitler feared communism as Stalin feared fascism. But
Hitler wanted a free hand in Poland. Also, he did not want to fight a war with
the Western democracies and the Soviet Union at the same time. For his part,
Stalin had sought allies among the Western democracies against the Nazi menace.
Mutual suspicions, however, kept them apart. By joining with Hitler, Stalin
tried to protect the Soviet Union from the threat of war with Germany and
grabbed a chance to gain land in Eastern Europe.
o
On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland under
the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage
operations against German targets near the border. Two days later, on 3
September, after a British ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations
was ignored, Britain and France, followed by the fully independent Dominions of
the British Commonwealth—Australia (3 September), Canada (10 September), New
Zealand (3 September), and South Africa (6 September)—declared war on Germany.
However, initially the alliance provided limited direct military support to
Poland, consisting of a cautious, half-hearted French Probe into the Saarland.
The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to
damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat
warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which was to later escalate into
the Battle of the Atlantic.
o
On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire
with Japan, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. The Polish army was
defeated and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, with final
pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October. Poland's territory was divided
between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Lithuania and Slovakia also
receiving small shares. After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish
resistance established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army. About
100,000 Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic
countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other
theatres of the war. Poland’s Enigma codebreakers were also evacuated to
France.
o
On 6 October Hitler made a public peace overture
to Britain and France, but said that the future of Poland was to be determined
exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. Chamberlain rejected this on 12
October, saying "Past experience has shown that no reliance can be placed
upon the promises of the present German Government." After this rejection
Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France, but bad weather forced
repeated postponements until the spring of 1940.
o
After signing the German-Soviet Treaty of
Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation, the Soviet Union forced the Baltic
countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—to allow it to station Soviet troops in
their countries under pacts of “mutual assistance.” Finland rejected
territorial demands, prompting a Soviet invasion in November 1939. The
resulting Winter War ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions. Britain and
France, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to its entering the
war on the side of the Germans, responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting
the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations.
o
In June 1940, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania and disputed Romanian regions. Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political
rapprochement and economic co-operation gradually stalled, and both states
began preparations for war.
o
Just as World War II transformed the world, it
also transformed the United States’ role in world affairs.
o
If the New Deal could not end the Great
Depression, a world war would.
o
Beginning in the early 1930s, tensions were
fierce between China and Japan, eventually leading to full-scale war by 1937.
o
By the late 1930s, talk of war was becoming more
urgent throughout Europe as well.
o
The financial uncertainty of the worldwide
depression had created political vulnerabilities that assisted the rise of
militant, expansion-minded dictators in Japan, Italy, and Germany.
o
Americans watched all these situations
nervously, uncertain how Asian and European affairs might affect them.
o
Little did they know that, in the end, the
Second World War would transform America even more than the New Deal.
·
There were multiple causes of the Second World
War, but the Great Depression was perhaps the most significant.
o
The stock market collapse between 1929 and 1932
ended American investment in Europe and caused economic slowdowns there.
Without American dollars, European countries faced industrial decline,
unemployment, and widespread homelessness for workers. The depression had
spread around the world.
o
These problems increased political tensions. In
France and Spain, fighting broke out between Communists and Nationalists over
which group had the best plan to manage the disrupted economy.
o
But the crash had a devastating effect on
Germany, whose reparation payments for World War I were largely financed by
American lenders. When American businesses were forced to withdraw investments
in Germany, German production fell by half between 1929 and 1933.
§
In 1933, with the economy in a shambles and
chaos raging throughout German politics and in German streets, Adolf Hitler’s
National Socialist (Nazi) Party ascended to power and ruthlessly consolidated
its control of the state. Hitler then began a massive armament campaign that
put millions of Germans to work on public works projects and in factories.
§
In some ways, it was a militant and extreme
version of the New Deal. The depression there was over by 1936, implying that
the deficit spending advocated by John Maynard Keynes would work. A similar
program for reform emerged in Italy under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.
·
Many Americans hoped the United States would
avoid armed conflict in both Asia and Europe. Congress passed a series of
neutrality acts between 1935 and 1937 that placed arms embargoes on all
belligerent powers. Roosevelt signed these measures, but, leery of the
offensive actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan, in 1937 he called for the world
community to “quarantine” these states. Eventually, he would come to regret
signing the neutrality acts at all.
o
Americans at first tried to stay out of the war,
but this became less feasible as Hitler’s aggression continued.
o
In the United States, the Great Depression had
provoked a strong drift toward isolationism. The trend was already manifested
in the American rejection of the League of Nations following World War I, but
during the depression many Americans remained preoccupied by domestic affairs.
·
Hitler's Early Victories Blitzkrieg Tactic
o
During the Battle of Britain the RAF battled in
the skies with the German Luftwaffe and in the closing stages of the battle the
Germans were defeated causing Hitler to postpone his invasion plans for
Britain.
·
Foundation
neutrality,
isolationism v. internationalism, aggression, alliances, entanglement,
executive power
Resources
–
History of a Free Nation, pp.
861–862, 864–867
– Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp.
106–110
·
Concept: Most Americans were not in favor of joining the war effort, so
Roosevelt instituted the Lend-Lease Program.
o
Roosevelt pressured Congress, in March 1941, to
pass the Lend-Lease Act, empowering the president to lend weapons and supplies
to nations fighting the Germans or the Japanese.
o
These measures became even more urgent with a
series of victories in late 1940 and early 1941 for the German, Italian, and
Japanese powers. In fact, Germany, planning an attack on Russia and searching
for a Pacific partner, had begun to make overtures to Japan to form an
alliance. Japan, still stalemated with China, thought the resources won from
the toppling of the British Empire (if Germany had won) would help Japan
control the Pacific. Along with Italy, the nation’s came together in the
Tripartite Pact; they were known as “the Axis Powers.”
o
American public sentiment still fell
considerably short of favoring direct intervention, but the idea that the
United States should grant some form of aid had been growing since Germany’s
invasion of Poland in 1939. Many Americans foresaw dangers for the United
States should Germany conquer Britain. With control of Europe, Germany might
become unbeatable. American Jews were especially active in advocating a more
aggressive stance against Hitler, but with American antisemitism still socially
acceptable and growing, the urgings of American Jews did not carry enough
weight to power a full-scale intervention.
o
Read Source __. In late 1940, Roosevelt approved
the first peacetime draft in U.S. history. He also announced that the United
States was giving the British fifty renovated naval destroyers, referring to
the United States as “the arsenal of democracy.”
o
Read Source __. Roosevelt’s moves prompted
criticism from the left and the right, but it was conservatives like William
Randolph Hearst and Montana senator Burton Wheeler who formed an opposing
organization, called the “America First Committee.” Aviator Charles Lindbergh
became the group’s most notable spokesman.
o
Opinion polls found that most Americans
supported providing aid to Britain. American politicians responded. In the fall
of 1940, Roosevelt, running for an unprecedented third term of office,
repeatedly declared that the United States would not enter the war, but he
warned that dangerous waters lay ahead. What he proposed instead was “aid short
of war.”
·
Read Source __ “The Four Freedoms” speech of
FDR. America had to take a stand, Roosevelt declared, in order to create a
world based on what he dubbed the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of
worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. This was Roosevelt’s
clearest statement yet that the United States would take a powerful role in
creating a new order in world affairs. In almost every way, these four freedoms
were directly opposed to what the Nazis were doing in conquering Europe. If
Roosevelt had his way, the war would be fought on ideological grounds.
o
Franklin Roosevelt
was elected president for an unprecedented third term in 1940 because at the
time the world faced unprecedented danger, instability, and uncertainty. Much
of Europe had fallen to the advancing German Army and Great Britain was barely
holding its own. A great number of Americans remained committed to isolationism
and the belief that the United States should continue to stay out of the war, but
President Roosevelt understood Britain's need for American support and
attempted to convince the American people of the gravity of the
situation.
o
In his Annual
Message to Congress (State of the Union Address) on January 6, 1941, Franklin
Roosevelt presented his reasons for American involvement, making the case for
continued aid to Great Britain and greater production of war industries at
home. In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was
fighting for the universal freedoms that all people possessed.
o
As America entered
the war these "four freedoms" - the freedom of speech, the freedom of
worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear - symbolized
America's war aims and gave hope in the following years to a war-wearied people
because they knew they were fighting for freedom.
o
Roosevelt’s
preparation of the Four Freedoms Speech was typical of the process that he went
through on major policy addresses. To assist him, he charged his close advisers
Harry L. Hopkins, Samuel I. Rosenman, and Robert Sherwood with preparing
initial drafts. Adolf A. Berle, Jr., and Benjamin V. Cohen of the State
Department also provided input. But as with all his speeches, FDR edited,
rearranged, and added extensively until the speech was his creation. In the
end, the speech went through seven drafts before final delivery.
o
The famous Four
Freedoms paragraphs did not appear in the speech until the fourth draft. One
night as Hopkins, Rosenman, and Sherwood met with the President in his White
House study, FDR announced that he had an idea for a peroration (the closing
section of a speech). As recounted by Rosenman: “We waited as he leaned far
back in his swivel chair with his gaze on the ceiling. It was a long pause—so
long that it began to become uncomfortable. Then he leaned forward again in his
chair” and dictated the Four Freedoms. “He dictated the words so slowly that on
the yellow pad I had in my lap I was able to take them down myself in longhand
as he spoke.”
o
Analysis
o
The ideas enunciated
in the Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms were the foundational principles that evolved
into the Atlantic Charter declared by Winston Churchill and FDR in August 1941;
the United Nations Declaration of January 1, 1942; President Roosevelt’s vision
for an international organization that became the United Nations after his
death; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United
Nations in 1948 through the work of Eleanor Roosevelt.
·
Roosevelt then pressured Congress, in March
1941, to pass the Lend-Lease Act, empowering the president to lend weapons and
supplies to nations fighting the Germans or the Japanese.
Foundation
•
aggression, defense, self-government v. imperialism, strategy, resources
Resources
–
History of a Free Nation, pp. 867–876
– Basic
History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 111–118, 123–139, 140–143
·
Concept: The U.S. joined the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor and
fought the war on two fronts to combat fascist, imperialistic aggression.
o
World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the
Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although
related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's
nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing
military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.
o
It was the most widespread war in history, and
directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a
state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire
economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort,
erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources.
o
Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including
the Holocaust (in which approximately 11 million people were killed) and the
strategic bombing of industrial and population centres (in which approximately
one million were killed, and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities.
o
These made World War II the deadliest conflict
in human history.
o
The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate Asia and
the Pacific and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937, but the
world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the invasion
of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France
and the United Kingdom.
o
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of
campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental
Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union
partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland,
Finland, Romania and the Baltic states.
o
The war continued primarily between the European
Axis powers and the coalition of the United Kingdom and the British
Commonwealth, with campaigns including the North Africa and East Africa
campaigns, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz bombing campaign, the Balkan
Campaign as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic.
o
In June 1941, the European Axis powers launched
an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in
history, which trapped the major part of the Axis' military forces into a war
of attrition.
·
In December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered
much of the Western Pacific.
o
Read Source __. FDR Declaration of War Against
Japan, 8 December 1941
The decision to incarcerate Japanese Americans during World War II was made by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democratic president.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which allowed for the removal and incarceration of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, including over 60% who were American citizens. This was done based on fears of potential disloyalty and espionage, despite a lack of evidence implicating Japanese Americans as a threat.
The incarceration impacted Japanese American families all along the West Coast, who were forced to leave their homes and businesses and relocate to isolated internment camps in remote areas of the country. Conditions in the camps were harsh, with poor facilities, lack of privacy, and disruption of lives and livelihoods.
The order received opposition from civil liberties groups and some public leaders at the time. The decision was heavily influenced by wartime panic that pervaded society during that era.
It was not until 1988 under Republican President Ronald Reagan that the United States formally apologized and provided reparations to the Japanese American survivors through the Civil Liberties Act. Reagan's act took responsibility for this injustice to correct FDR's decision.
·
The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost
the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, and Germany was defeated in North
Africa and then, decisively, at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union.
o
In 1943, with a series of German defeats on the
Eastern Front, the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Allied invasion of Italy
which brought about Italian surrender, and Allied victories in the Pacific, the
Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts.
o On
16 December 1944, Germany made a last attempt on the Western Front by using
most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the
Ardennes to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied
troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp to prompt a political
settlement. By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic
objectives fulfilled. In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the
German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets and Poles attacked in
Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder River in Germany, and overran East
Prussia. On 4 February, US, British, and Soviet leaders met for the Yalta
Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany and when the
Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.
o In
February, the Soviets entered Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allies
entered western Germany and closed to the Rhine River. By March, the Western
Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling the German
Army Group B, while the Soviets advanced to Vienna. In early April, the Western
Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across western Germany, while
Soviet and Polish forces stormed Berlin in late April. American and Soviet
forces joined on the Elbe River on 25 April. On 30 April 1945, the Reichstag was
captured, signaling the military defeat of Nazi Germany.
o Several
changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, President
Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed
by Italian partisans on 28 April. Two days later, Hitler committed suicide, and
was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz.
o
German forces surrendered in Italy on 29 April. Total
and unconditional surrender was signed on 7 May, to be effective by the end of 8
May. German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.
o
In 1944, the Western Allies invaded
German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial
losses and invaded Germany and its allies.
o
During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major
reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies
crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.
o
The war in Europe concluded with an invasion of
Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture
of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional
surrender on 8 May 1945.
Foundation
• national pride, peace
Resources
– History of a Free Nation, pp. 875–876
– Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp.
141–143
·
Concept: Because the Japanese valued national pride above life, they
would not capitulate. The war ended only after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs.
o The
Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War, was the theatre of World
War II that was fought in the Pacific and East Asia. It was fought over a vast
area that included the Pacific Ocean and islands, the South West Pacific,
South-East Asia, and in China (including the 1945 Soviet–Japanese conflict).
o It
is generally considered that the Pacific War began on 7/8 December 1941, on
which date Japan invaded Thailand and attacked the British possessions of
Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong as well as the United States military bases in
Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines.
§ Some
historians contend that the conflict in Asia can be dated back to 7 July 1937
with the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan
and the Republic of China, or possibly 19 September 1931, beginning with the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria. However, it is more widely accepted that the
Pacific War itself started in early December 1941, with the Sino-Japanese War
then becoming part of it as a theater of the greater World War II.
o The
Pacific War saw the Allied powers pitted against the Empire of Japan, the
latter briefly aided by Thailand and to a much lesser extent by its Axis
allies, Germany and Italy.
o In
the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine
Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April
1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and recaptured Manila in March
following a battle which reduced the city to ruins. Fighting continued on
Luzon, Mindanao, and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.
On the night of 9–10 March, B-29 bombers of the US Army Air Forces struck Tokyo
with incendiary bombs, which killed 100,000 people within a few hours. Over the
next five months, American bombers firebombed 66 other Japanese cities, causing
the destruction of untold numbers of buildings and the deaths of between
350,000–500,000 Japanese civilians.
o
In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo,
over-running the oilfields there. British, American, and Chinese forces
defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to
reach Rangoon by 3 May. Chinese forces started to counterattack in Battle of
West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American naval and
amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa
by the end of June. At the same time American bombers were destroying Japanese
cities, American submarines cut off Japanese imports, drastically reducing
Japan's ability to supply its overseas forces.
o
On 11 July, Allied leaders met in Potsdam,
Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany, and reiterated the
demand for unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces by Japan,
specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter
destruction". During this conference, the United Kingdom held its general
election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister.
o
The Allies called for unconditional Japanese
surrender in the Potsdam declaration of 27 July, but the Japanese government
was internally divided on whether to make peace and did not respond.
·
President
Harry Truman issued this statement after the first atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima. His statement unveiled the top secret Manhattan Project and portrays
it as an immense success in the history of science and warfare. President
Truman envisions the production and use of atomic energy for power within the
United States and as a force for maintaining world peace. Read Source __.
o How does Truman characterize
Hiroshima? (“an important Japanese Army
base.”)
o Compared
to previous bombs how does the first atomic bomb compare? (“That bomb had more power than 20,000
tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the
British “Grand Slam” which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of
warfare.”)
o Does Truman state that more
are coming? (“The end is not yet. With
this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to
supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs
are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.”)
§ The planners expected to have another
atomic bomb ready for use on August 19, with three more in September and a
further three in October. On August 10, planners sent a memorandum which noted
that the next bomb should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather
after 17 or 18 August. There was already discussion in the War Department about
conserving the bombs then in production for a subsequent operation and a
suggestion that the remaining cities on the target list be spared from an attack
with atomic bombs. Two more assemblies were readied, and scheduled to leave for
the East on August 11 and 14. At Los Alamos, technicians worked 24 hours
straight to cast another plutonium core. Although cast, it still needed to be
pressed and coated, which would take until August 16. Therefore, it could have been
ready for use on August 19. The U.S. really did not have more atomic bombs
ready to deploy. Fortunately, the Japanese did not know that fact and in the
meantime, surrendered.
o What is it? (“It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing
of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its
power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”)
o Who else was developing an
atomic bomb? (“By 1942, however, we knew
that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to
the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they
failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1’s and the
V-2’s late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that they did not get
the atomic bomb at all.”)
o In developing this bomb what
does Truman emphasize? (“American and
British scientists working together we entered the race of discovery against
the Germans. . . . [The U.S.] had the tremendous industrial and financial
resources necessary for the project and they could be devoted to it without
undue impairment of other vital war work. . . . out of reach of enemy bombing.
. . . Many have worked there for two and a half years. . . . We have spent two
billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history—and won. . . . the
greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost,
but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex
pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a
workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to
design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never
done before so that the brain child of many minds came forth in physical shape
and performed as it was supposed to do. . . . What has been done is the
greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high
pressure and without failure.”)
o Is it the “greatest
achievement of organized science in history”? (Various but the students should realize the cooperation, complexity,
and speed with which the accomplishment was achieved.)
o After Hiroshima, what will
happen according to Truman? (“We are now
prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise
the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their
factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall
completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”)
o What was the point of the
ultimatum that was issued in Potsdam? (“It
was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of
July 26 was issued at Potsdam.”)
o Since Japanese leaders
rejected Potsdam what will happen? (“If
they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air,
the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack
will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet
seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.”)
o Other than against the
Japanese how can atomic power be used? (“The
fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man's
understanding of nature's forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement
the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it
cannot be produced on a basis to compete with them commercially.”)
o What will happen in regards
to scientific knowledge? (“It has never
been the habit of the scientists of this country or the policy of this
Government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally,
therefore, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public. But
under present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical
processes of production or all the military applications, pending further
examination of possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from
the danger of sudden destruction.”)
o What does Truman recommend? (“I shall recommend that the Congress of the
United States consider promptly the establishment of an appropriate commission
to control the production and use of atomic power within the United States. I
shall give further consideration and make further recommendations to the
Congress as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence
towards the maintenance of world peace.”)
o
In early August, the United States dropped
atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Like the
Japanese cities previously bombed by American airmen, the US and its allies
justified the atomic bombings as military necessity to avoid invading the
Japanese home islands which would cost the lives of between 250,000–500,000
Allied troops and millions of Japanese troops and civilians.
o
Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant
to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria, and quickly defeated
the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force. The Red Army
also captured Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands.
o
On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender
documents finally signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS
Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.
o
Following its defeat, Japan's Shinto Emperor
stepped down as the divine leader through the Shinto Directive, because the
Allied Powers believed this was the major political cause of Japan's military
aggression and deconstruction process soon took place to install a new
liberal-democratic constitution to the Japanese public as the current
Constitution of Japan.
·
World War II altered the political alignment and
social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to
foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious
great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom,
and France—became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
o
The Soviet Union and the United States emerged
as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the
next 46 years.
o
Meanwhile, the influence of European great
powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia and Africa began.
o
Most countries whose industries had been damaged
moved towards economic recovery.
o
Political integration, especially in Europe,
emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and to create a common identity.
The
Holocaust
One of the most horrendous
episodes in the history of man was the Holocaust wherein millions of Jews and
other “undesirables” were murdered. It is important to discuss the evils of the
Holocaust to demonstrate the threat totalitarian governments pose to individual
rights.
The Holocaust 1238
The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"),[2] also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews.[3] The victims included 1.5 million children[4] and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe.[5] Some definitions of the Holocaust include the additional five million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to about 11 million. Killings took place throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories.[6]
From 1941 to 1945, Jews were systematically murdered in one of the deadliest genocides in history, which was part of a broader aggregate of acts of oppression and killings of various ethnic and political groups in Europe by the Nazi regime.[7] Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics and the carrying out of the genocide. Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, other Slavs, Romanis, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and the mentally and physically disabled.[8][9] A network of about 42,500 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territories was used to concentrate victims for slave labor, mass murder, and other human rights abuses.[10] Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators.[11]
The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages, culminating in what Nazis termed the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (die Endlösung der Judenfrage), an agenda to exterminate Jews in Europe. Initially the German government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Nazis established a network of concentration camps starting in 1933 and ghettos following the outbreak of World War II in 1939. In 1941, as Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized paramilitary units called Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million Jews and "partisans",[clarification needed] often in mass shootings. By the end of 1942, victims were being regularly transported by freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. This continued until the end of World War II in Europe in April–May 1945.
Jewish armed resistance was limited. The most notable exception was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, when thousands of poorly-armed Jewish fighters held the Waffen-SS at bay for four weeks. An estimated 20–30,000 Jewish partisans actively fought against the Nazis and their collaborators in Eastern Europe.[12][13] French Jews took part in the French Resistance, which conducted a guerilla campaign against the Nazis and Vichy French authorities. Over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings took place.[14]
✔ Would You Survive The Holocaust? 5:05
Would you have survived in Nazi Germany as a Jew or Gypsy? Can you survive the gas chamber in Nazi concentration camps? Be my friend on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/iqlol Like my Facebook Page ► https://www.facebook.com/iqlolcom Follow me on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/iqlol Find me on Google ► https://plus.google.com/+Iqlol Visit my awesome website ► http://www.iqlol.com Get in touch by email ► contact@iqlol.com Watch me on Youtube ► https://www.youtube.com/user/IQtests If you like my work, please join me on my social networks!
AUDIO: Deep Horrors - Kevin MacLeod (Cinematic - Dark)
https://youtu.be/mw2WsxAercg
The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"),[2] also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews.[3] The victims included 1.5 million children[4] and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe.[5] Some definitions of the Holocaust include the additional five million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to about 11 million. Killings took place throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories.[6]
From 1941 to 1945, Jews were systematically murdered in one of the deadliest genocides in history, which was part of a broader aggregate of acts of oppression and killings of various ethnic and political groups in Europe by the Nazi regime.[7] Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics and the carrying out of the genocide. Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, other Slavs, Romanis, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and the mentally and physically disabled.[8][9] A network of about 42,500 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territories was used to concentrate victims for slave labor, mass murder, and other human rights abuses.[10] Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators.[11]
The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages, culminating in what Nazis termed the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (die Endlösung der Judenfrage), an agenda to exterminate Jews in Europe. Initially the German government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Nazis established a network of concentration camps starting in 1933 and ghettos following the outbreak of World War II in 1939. In 1941, as Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized paramilitary units called Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million Jews and "partisans",[clarification needed] often in mass shootings. By the end of 1942, victims were being regularly transported by freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. This continued until the end of World War II in Europe in April–May 1945.
Jewish armed resistance was limited. The most notable exception was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, when thousands of poorly-armed Jewish fighters held the Waffen-SS at bay for four weeks. An estimated 20–30,000 Jewish partisans actively fought against the Nazis and their collaborators in Eastern Europe.[12][13] French Jews took part in the French Resistance, which conducted a guerilla campaign against the Nazis and Vichy French authorities. Over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings took place.[14]
✔ Would You Survive The Holocaust? 5:05
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AUDIO: Deep Horrors - Kevin MacLeod (Cinematic - Dark)
https://youtu.be/mw2WsxAercg
History, Grade 8
Student Sources, Supplement __
Concept: New Deal, Fascism, World War II
Source
Excerpt from Herbert Hoover’s
Inaugural Address
March 04, 1929
[Delivered in person at the Capitol]
My countrymen:
This occasion is not alone the
administration of the most sacred oath which can be assumed by an American
citizen. It is a dedication and consecration under God to the highest office in
service of our people. I assume this trust in the humility of knowledge that
only through the guidance of Almighty Providence can I hope to discharge its
ever-increasing burdens.
It is in keeping with tradition
throughout our history that I should express simply and directly the opinions
which I hold concerning some of the matters of present importance.
OUR PROGRESS
If we survey the situation of our
Nation both at home and abroad, we find many satisfactions; we find some causes
for concern. We have emerged from the losses of the Great War and the
reconstruction following it with increased virility and strength. From this
strength we have contributed to the recovery and progress of the world. What
America has done has given renewed hope and courage to all who have faith in
government by the people. In the large view, we have reached a higher degree of
comfort and security than ever existed before in the history of the world.
Through liberation from widespread poverty we have reached a higher degree of
individual freedom than ever before. The devotion to and concern for our
institutions are deep and sincere. We are steadily building a new race--a new
civilization great in its own attainments. The influence and high purposes of
our Nation are respected among the peoples of the world. We aspire to
distinction in the world, but to a distinction based upon confidence in our
sense of justice as well as our accomplishments within our own borders and in
our own lives. For wise guidance in this great period of recovery the Nation is
deeply indebted to Calvin Coolidge.
But all this majestic advance should
not obscure the constant dangers from which self-government must be
safeguarded. The strong man must at all times be alert to the attack of
insidious disease.
THE FAILURE OF OUR SYSTEM OF
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The most malign of all these dangers
today is disregard and disobedience of law. Crime is increasing. Confidence in
rigid and speedy justice is decreasing. I am not prepared to believe that this
indicates any decay in the moral fibre of the American people. I am not
prepared to believe that it indicates an impotence of the Federal Government to
enforce its laws.
It is only in part due to the
additional burdens imposed upon our judicial system by the 18th amendment. 1
The problem is much wider than that. Many influences had increasingly
complicated and weakened our law enforcement organization long before the
adoption of the 18th amendment.
1 The 18th
amendment to the Constitution, ratified January 16, 1919, prohibited "the
manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the
transportation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States
and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes."
To reestablish the vigor and
effectiveness of law enforcement we must critically consider the entire Federal
machinery of justice, the redistribution of its functions, the simplification
of its procedure, the provision of additional special tribunals, the better selection
of juries, and the more effective organization of our agencies of investigation
and prosecution that justice may be sure and that it may be swift. While the
authority of the Federal Government extends to but part of our vast system of
national, State, and local justice, yet the standards which the Federal
Government establishes have the most profound influence upon the whole
structure.
We are fortunate in the ability and
integrity of our Federal judges and attorneys. But the system which these officers
are called upon to administer is in many respects ill adapted to present-day
conditions. Its intricate and involved rules of procedure have become the
refuge of both big and little criminals. There is a belief abroad that by
invoking technicalities, subterfuge, and delay, the ends of justice may be
thwarted by those who can pay the cost.
Reform, reorganization, and
strengthening of our whole judicial and enforcement system, both in civil and
criminal sides, have been advocated for years by statesmen, judges, and bar
associations. First steps toward that end should no longer be delayed. Rigid
and expeditious justice is the first safeguard of freedom, the basis of all
ordered liberty, the vital force of progress. It must not come to be in our
Republic that it can be defeated by the indifference of the citizens, by
exploitation of the delays and entanglements of the law, or by combinations of
criminals. Justice must not fail because the agencies of enforcement are either
delinquent or inefficiently organized. To consider these evils, to find their
remedy, is the most sore necessity of our times.
ENFORCEMENT OF THE 18th AMENDMENT
Of the undoubted abuses which have
grown up under the 18th amendment, part are due to the causes I have just
mentioned; but part are due to the failure of some States to accept their share
of responsibility for concurrent enforcement and to the failure of many State
and local officials to accept the obligation under their oath of office
zealously to enforce the laws. With the failures from these many causes has
come a dangerous expansion in the criminal elements who have found enlarged
opportunities in dealing in illegal liquor.
But a large responsibility rests
directly upon our citizens. There would be little traffic in illegal liquor if
only criminals patronized it. We must awake to the fact that this patronage
from large numbers of law-abiding citizens is supplying the rewards and
stimulating crime.
I have been selected by you to
execute and enforce the laws of the country. I propose to do so to the extent
of my own abilities, but the measure of success that the Government shall
attain will depend upon the moral support which you, as citizens, extend. The
duty of citizens to support the laws of the land is coequal with the duty of their
Government to enforce the laws which exist. No greater national service can be
given by men and women of good will--who, I know, are not unmindful of the
responsibilities of citizenship--than that they should, by their example,
assist in stamping out crime and outlawry by refusing participation in and
condemning all transactions with illegal liquor. Our whole system of
self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will
enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support. The worst evil of
disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law. For our
citizens to patronize the violation of a particular law on the ground that they
are opposed to it is destructive of the very basis of all that protection of
life, of homes and property which they rightly claim under other laws. If
citizens do not like a law, their duty as honest men and women is to discourage
its violation; their right is openly to work for its repeal.
To those of criminal mind there can
be no appeal but vigorous enforcement of the law. Fortunately they are but a
small percentage of our people. Their activities must be stopped.
A NATIONAL INVESTIGATION
I propose to appoint a national
commission for a searching investigation of the whole structure of our Federal
system of jurisprudence, to include the method of enforcement of the 18th
amendment and the causes of abuse under it. Its purpose will be to make such
recommendations for reorganization of the administration of Federal laws and
court procedure as may be found desirable. In the meantime it is essential that
a large part of the enforcement activities be transferred from the Treasury
Department to the Department of Justice as a beginning of more effective
organization. 2
2 Although the
final sentence of this paragraph was included in the official text printed as
Senate Document 1 (71st Cong., special sess.), it was reported in the press
that the President omitted the sentence in his delivery of the address.
THE RELATION OF GOVERNMENT TO
BUSINESS
The election has again confirmed the
determination of the American people that regulation of private enterprise and
not Government ownership or operation is the course rightly to be pursued in
our relation to business. In recent years we have established a differentiation
in the whole method of business regulation between the industries which produce
and distribute commodities on the one hand and public utilities on the other.
In the former, our laws insist upon effective competition; in the latter,
because we substantially confer a monopoly by limiting competition, we must
regulate their services and rates. The rigid enforcement of the laws applicable
to both groups is the very base of equal opportunity and freedom from
domination for all our people, and it is just as essential for the stability
and prosperity of business itself as for the protection of the public at large.
Such regulation should be extended by the Federal Government within the
limitations of the Constitution and only when the individual States are without
power to protect their citizens through their own authority. On the other hand,
we should be fearless when the authority rests only in the Federal Government.
COOPERATION BY THE GOVERNMENT
The larger purpose of our economic
thought should be to establish more firmly stability and security of business
and employment and thereby remove poverty still further from our borders. Our
people have in recent years developed a new-found capacity for cooperation
among themselves to effect high purposes in public welfare. It is an advance
toward the highest conception of self-government. Self-government does not and
should not imply the use of political agencies alone. Progress is born of
cooperation in the community--not from governmental restraints. The Government should
assist and encourage these movements of collective self-help by itself
cooperating with them. Business has by cooperation made great progress in the
advancement of service, in stability, in regularity of employment, and in the
correction of its own abuses. Such progress, however, can continue only so long
as business manifests its respect for law.
There is an equally important field
of cooperation by the Federal Government with the multitude of agencies, State,
municipal, and private, in the systematic development of those processes which
directly affect public health, recreation, education, and the home. We have
need further to perfect the means by which Government can be adapted to human
service.
CONCLUSION
This is not the time and place for
extended discussion. The questions before our country are problems of progress
to higher standards; they are not the problems of degeneration. They demand
thought and they serve to quicken the conscience and enlist our sense of
responsibility for their settlement. And that responsibility rests upon you, my
countrymen, as much as upon those of us who have been selected for office.
Ours is a land rich in resources,
stimulating in its glorious beauty, filled with millions of happy homes,
blessed with comfort and opportunity. In no nation are the institutions of
progress more advanced. In no nation are the fruits of accomplishment more
secure. In no nation is the government more worthy of respect. No country is
more loved by its people. I have an abiding faith in their capacity, integrity,
and high purpose. I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright
with hope.
In the presence of my countrymen,
mindful of the solemnity of this occasion, knowing what the task means and the
responsibility which it involves, I beg your tolerance, your aid, and your
cooperation. I ask the help of Almighty God in this service to my country to
which you have called me.
Note: The President
spoke, in a downpour of rain, from a platform erected at the east front of the
Capitol. Immediately before the address the oath of office was administered by
Chief Justice William Howard Taft. The address was broadcast on worldwide
radio.
Source
Paul H. Douglas wrote about the period in his memoirs,
In the Fullness of Time (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972, 71).
“The six months at Swarthmore were crowded with
activity. With Clair Wilcox I drafted an appeal to President Herbert Hoover
urging him to veto the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which raised duties to their
highest levels. In this we pointed out how the increase in duties on imports
decreased the ability of other countries to buy goods from us. Also, it would
provoke them to retaliatory tariffs. No fewer than 1,028
economists signed the appeal, and I think poor Hoover
wanted to take our advice. His party was so strongly committed to protection,
however, that he felt compelled to sign the bill, with the result that all
our predictions came true. The Depression deepened and
the Western democracies fell apart. Our letter did make it somewhat easier for
Congress later to pass Cordell Hull’s reciprocal-trade bill, and thus
helped to lead the way to a
reversal of our trade policy.”
Source
“The Only Thing We Have to
Fear is Fear Itself,” FDR’s Inaugural Address
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on
my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a
decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently
the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we
shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation
will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all,
let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts
to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a
leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support
of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you
will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our
common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have
shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen;
government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of
exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial
enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the
savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the
grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return.
Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance.
We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our
forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still
much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have
multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes
in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the
exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and
their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices
of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public
opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast
in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have
proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by
which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted
to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the
rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is
no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled from their high seats in
the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient
truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply
social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it
lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and
moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of
evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they
teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to
ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the
standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief
that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the
standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a
conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust
the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence
languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of
obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it
cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics
alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.
This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be
accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating
the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time,
through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and
reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the
overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a
national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the
land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite
efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to
purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically
the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our
farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments
act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be
helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered,
uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and
supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other
utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in
which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it.
We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work
we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there
must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there
must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be
provision for an adequate but sound currency.
There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge
upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment,
and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.
Through this program of action we address ourselves to
putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our
international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time
and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I
favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no
effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the
emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that guides these specific means of
national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a
first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all
parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important
manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery.
It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will
endure.
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this
Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects
himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who
respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and
with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now
realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other;
that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go
forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the
good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is
made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to
submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a
leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that
the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity
of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the
leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack
upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under
the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our
Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet
extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of
essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the
most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It
has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter
internal strife, of world relations.
It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive
and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task
before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed
action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public
procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to
recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world
may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build
out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional
authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take
one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still
critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront
me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the
crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as
the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign
foe.
For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage
and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the
warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old
and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the
stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a
rounded and permanent national life.
We do not distrust the future of essential democracy.
The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have
registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked
for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present
instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the
blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in
the days to come.
Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address,
March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York:
Random House, 1938), 11–16.
Source
FDR’s Campaign
Address at Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 1, 1936.
To balance our budget in 1933 or 1934
or 1935 would have been a crime against the American people. To do so we should
either have had to make a capital levy that would have been confiscatory, or we
should have had to set our face against human suffering with callous
indifference. When Americans suffered, we refused to pass by on the other side.
Humanity came first.
No one lightly lays a burden on the
income of a Nation. But this vicious tightening circle of our declining
national income simply had to be broken. The bankers and the industrialists of
the Nation cried aloud that private business was powerless to break it. They
turned, as they had a right to turn, to the Government. We accepted the final
responsibility of Government, after all else had failed, to spend money when no
one else had money left to spend.
Source #6
(FDR’s Annual Message to
Congress on January 3, 1938)
We have heard much about a balanced
budget, and it is interesting to note that many of those who have pleaded for a
balanced budget as the sole need now come to me to plead for additional
government expenditures at the expense of unbalancing the budget. As the Congress
is fully aware, the annual deficit, large for several years, has been declining
the last fiscal year and this. The proposed budget for 1939, which I shall
shortly send to the Congress, will exhibit a further decrease in the deficit,
though not a balance between income and outgo.
To many who have pleaded with me for
an immediate balancing of the budget, by a sharp curtailment or even
elimination of government functions, I have asked the question: "What
present expenditures would you reduce or eliminate?" And the invariable
answer has been "that is not my business -- I know nothing of the details,
but I am sure that it could be done." That is not what you or I would call
helpful citizenship.
Source
John Maynard Keyes letter to
FDR, 25 March 1938
"But further experience
since I wrote does seem to show that you are treading a very dangerous middle
path. You must either give more encouragement to business or take over more of
their functions yourself. If public opinion is not ready for the latter, then it
is necessary to wait until public opinion is educated. Your present policies
seem to presume that you possess more power than you actually have." John
Maynard Keyes letter to FDR, 25 March 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Papers as
President: The President's Secretary's File (PSF), 1933-1945 | Franklin D.
Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum, Box 37
Source
Franklin D. Roosevelt
State of the Union Message
to Congress January 11, 1944
To the Congress:
This Nation in the past two years has become an active
partner in the world's greatest war against human slavery.
We have joined with like-minded people in order to
defend ourselves in a world that has been gravely threatened with gangster
rule.
But I do not think that any of us Americans can be
content with mere survival. Sacrifices that we and our allies are making impose
upon us all a sacred obligation to see to it that out of this war we and our
children will gain something better than mere survival.
We are united in determination that this war shall not
be followed by another interim which leads to new disaster- that we shall not
repeat the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism—that we shall not repeat the
excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy ride on a roller
coaster which ended in a tragic crash.
When Mr. Hull went to Moscow in October, and when I
went to Cairo and Teheran in November, we knew that we were in agreement with
our allies in our common determination to fight and win this war. But there
were many vital questions concerning the future peace, and they were discussed
in an atmosphere of complete candor and harmony.
In the last war such discussions, such meetings, did
not even begin until the shooting had stopped and the delegates began to
assemble at the peace table. There had been no previous opportunities for
man-to-man discussions which lead to meetings of minds. The result was a peace
which was not a peace. That was a mistake which we are not repeating in this war.
And right here I want to address a word or two to some
suspicious souls who are fearful that Mr. Hull or I have made
"commitments" for the future which might pledge this Nation to secret
treaties, or to enacting the role of Santa Claus.
To such suspicious souls—using a polite terminology—I
wish to say that Mr. Churchill, and Marshal Stalin, and Generalissimo Chiang
Kai-shek are all thoroughly conversant with the provisions of our Constitution.
And so is Mr. Hull. And so am I.
Of course we made some commitments. We most certainly
committed ourselves to very large and very specific military plans which
require the use of all Allied forces to bring about the defeat of our enemies
at the earliest possible time.
But there were no secret treaties or political or
financial commitments.
The one supreme objective for the future, which we
discussed for each Nation individually, and for all the United Nations, can be
summed up in one word: Security.
And that means not only physical security which
provides safety from attacks by aggressors. It means also economic security,
social security, moral security—in a family of Nations.
In the plain down-to-earth talks that I had with the
Generalissimo and Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, it was
abundantly clear that they are all most deeply interested in the resumption of
peaceful progress by their own peoples—progress toward a better life. All our
allies want freedom to develop their lands and resources, to build up industry,
to increase education and individual opportunity, and to raise standards of
living.
All our allies have learned by bitter experience that
real development will not be possible if they are to be diverted from their
purpose by repeated wars—or even threats of war.
China and Russia are truly united with Britain and
America in recognition of this essential fact:
The best interests of each Nation, large and small,
demand that all freedom-loving Nations shall join together in a just and
durable system of peace. In the present world situation, evidenced by the
actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan, unquestioned military control over
disturbers of the peace is as necessary among Nations as it is among citizens
in a community. And an equally basic essential to peace is a decent standard of
living for all individual men and women and children in all Nations. Freedom
from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want.
There are people who burrow through our Nation like
unseeing moles, and attempt to spread the suspicion that if other Nations are encouraged
to raise their standards of living, our own American standard of living must of
necessity be depressed.
The fact is the very contrary. It has been shown time
and again that if the standard of living of any country goes up, so does its
purchasing power- and that such a rise encourages a better standard of living
in neighboring countries with whom it trades. That is just plain common
sense—and it is the kind of plain common sense that provided the basis for our
discussions at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran.
Returning from my journeyings, I must confess to a
sense of "let-down" when I found many evidences of faulty perspective
here in Washington. The faulty perspective consists in overemphasizing lesser
problems and thereby underemphasizing the first and greatest problem.
The overwhelming majority of our people
have met the demands of this war with magnificent courage and understanding.
They have accepted inconveniences; they have accepted hardships; they have
accepted tragic sacrifices. And they are ready and eager to make whatever
further contributions are needed to win the war as quickly as possible- if only
they are given the chance to know what is required of them.
However, while the majority goes on about its great
work without complaint, a noisy minority maintains an uproar of demands for
special favors for special groups. There are pests who swarm through the
lobbies of the Congress and the cocktail bars of Washington, representing these
special groups as opposed to the basic interests of the Nation as a whole. They
have come to look upon the war primarily as a chance to make profits for
themselves at the expense of their neighbors- profits in money or in terms of
political or social preferment.
Such selfish agitation can be highly dangerous in
wartime. It creates confusion. It damages morale. It hampers our national
effort. It muddies the waters and therefore prolongs the war.
If we analyze American history impartially, we cannot
escape the fact that in our past we have not always forgotten individual and
selfish and partisan interests in time of war—we have not always been united in
purpose and direction. We cannot overlook the serious dissensions and the lack
of unity in our war of the Revolution, in our War of 1812, or in our War
Between the States, when the survival of the Union itself was at stake.
In the first World War we came closer to national
unity than in any previous war. But that war lasted only a year and a half, and
increasing signs of disunity began to appear during the final months of the
conflict.
In this war, we have been compelled to learn how
interdependent upon each other are all groups and sections of the population of
America.
Increased food costs, for example, will bring new
demands for wage increases from all war workers, which will in turn raise all
prices of all things including those things which the farmers themselves have
to buy. Increased wages or prices will each in turn produce the same results.
They all have a particularly disastrous result on all fixed income groups.
And I hope you will remember that all of us in this
Government represent the fixed income group just as much as we represent
business owners, workers, and farmers. This group of fixed income people
includes: teachers, clergy, policemen, firemen, widows and minors on fixed
incomes, wives and dependents of our soldiers and sailors, and old-age
pensioners. They and their families add up to one-quarter of our one hundred
and thirty million people. They have few or no high pressure representatives at
the Capitol. In a period of gross inflation they would be the worst sufferers.
If ever there was a time to subordinate individual or
group selfishness to the national good, that time is now. Disunity at
home—bickerings, self-seeking partisanship, stoppages of work, inflation, business
as usual, politics as usual, luxury as usual these are the influences which can
undermine the morale of the brave men ready to die at the front for us here.
Those who are doing most of the complaining are not
deliberately striving to sabotage the national war effort. They are laboring
under the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious
sacrifices- that the war is already won and we can begin to slacken off. But
the dangerous folly of that point of view can be measured by the distance that
separates our troops from their ultimate objectives in Berlin and Tokyo—and by
the sum of all the perils that lie along the way.
Overconfidence and complacency are among our deadliest
enemies. Last spring—after notable victories at Stalingrad and in Tunisia and
against the U-boats on the high seas—overconfidence became so pronounced that
war production fell off. In two months, June and July, 1943, more than a
thousand airplanes that could have been made and should have been made were not
made. Those who failed to make them were not on strike. They were merely
saying, "The war's in the bag- so let's relax."
That attitude on the part of anyone—Government or
management or labor—can lengthen this war. It can kill American boys.
Let us remember the lessons of 1918. In the summer of
that year the tide turned in favor of the allies. But this Government did not
relax. In fact, our national effort was stepped up. In August, 1918, the draft
age limits were broadened from 21-31 to 18-45. The President called for
"force to the utmost," and his call was heeded. And in November, only
three months later, Germany surrendered.
That is the way to fight and win a war—all out—and not
with half-an-eye on the battlefronts abroad and the other eye-and-a-half on
personal, selfish, or political interests here at home.
Therefore, in order to concentrate all our energies
and resources on winning the war, and to maintain a fair and stable economy at
home, I recommend that the Congress adopt:
(1) A realistic tax law—which will tax all
unreasonable profits, both individual and corporate, and reduce the ultimate
cost of the war to our sons and daughters. The tax bill now under consideration
by the Congress does not begin to meet this test.
(2) A continuation of the law for the renegotiation of
war contracts—which will prevent exorbitant profits and assure fair prices to
the Government. For two long years I have pleaded with the Congress to take
undue profits out of war.
(3) A cost of food law—which will enable the
Government (a) to place a reasonable floor under the prices the farmer may
expect for his production; and (b) to place a ceiling on the prices a consumer
will have to pay for the food he buys. This should apply to necessities only;
and will require public funds to carry out. It will cost in appropriations
about one percent of the present annual cost of the war.
(4) Early reenactment of. the stabilization statute of
October, 1942. This expires June 30, 1944, and if it is not extended well in
advance, the country might just as well expect price chaos by summer.
We cannot have stabilization by wishful thinking. We
must take positive action to maintain the integrity of the American dollar.
(5) A national service law- which, for the duration of
the war, will prevent strikes, and, with certain appropriate exceptions, will
make available for war production or for any other essential services every
able-bodied adult in this Nation.
These five measures together form a just and equitable
whole. I would not recommend a national service law unless the other laws were
passed to keep down the cost of living, to share equitably the burdens of
taxation, to hold the stabilization line, and to prevent undue profits.
The Federal Government already has the basic power to
draft capital and property of all kinds for war purposes on a basis of just
compensation.
As you know, I have for three years hesitated to
recommend a national service act. Today, however, I am convinced of its
necessity. Although I believe that we and our allies can win the war without
such a measure, I am certain that nothing less than total mobilization of all
our resources of manpower and capital will guarantee an earlier victory, and
reduce the toll of suffering and sorrow and blood.
I have received a joint recommendation for this law
from the heads of the War Department, the Navy Department, and the Maritime
Commission. These are the men who bear responsibility for the procurement of
the necessary arms and equipment, and for the successful prosecution of the war
in the field. They say:
"When the very life of the Nation is in peril the
responsibility for service is common to all men and women. In such a time there
can be no discrimination between the men and women who are assigned by the
Government to its defense at the battlefront and the men and women assigned to
producing the vital materials essential to successful military operations. A
prompt enactment of a National Service Law would be merely an expression of the
universality of this responsibility."
I believe the country will agree that those statements
are the solemn truth.
National service is the most democratic way to wage a
war. Like selective service for the armed forces, it rests on the obligation of
each citizen to serve his Nation to his utmost where he is best qualified. It
does not mean reduction in wages. It does not mean loss of retirement and
seniority rights and benefits. It does not mean that any substantial numbers of
war workers will be disturbed in their present jobs. Let these facts be wholly
clear.
Experience in other democratic Nations at war—Britain,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand- has shown that the very existence of
national service makes unnecessary the widespread use of compulsory power.
National service has proven to be a unifying moral force based on an equal and
comprehensive legal obligation of all people in a Nation at war.
There are millions of American men and women who are
not in this war at all. It is not because they do not want to be in it. But
they want to know where they can best do their share. National service provides
that direction. It will be a means by which every man and woman can find that
inner satisfaction which comes from making the fullest possible contribution to
victory.
I know that all civilian war workers will be glad to
be able to say many years hence to their grandchildren: "Yes, I, too, was
in service in the great war. I was on duty in an airplane factory, and I helped
make hundreds of fighting planes. The Government told me that in doing that I
was performing my most useful work in the service of my country."
It is argued that we have passed the stage in the war
where national service is necessary. But our soldiers and sailors know that
this is not true. We are going forward on a long, rough road- and, in all
journeys, the last miles are the hardest. And it is for that final effort—for
the total defeat of our enemies-that we must mobilize our total resources. The
national war program calls for the employment of more people in 1944 than in 1943.
It is my conviction that the American people will
welcome this win-the-war measure which is based on the eternally just principle
of "fair for one, fair for all."
It will give our people at home the assurance that
they are standing four-square behind our soldiers and sailors. And it will give
our enemies demoralizing assurance that we mean business -that we, 130,000,000
Americans, are on the march to Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo.
I hope that the Congress will recognize that, although
this is a political year, national service is an issue which transcends
politics. Great power must be used for great purposes.
As to the machinery for this measure, the Congress
itself should determine its nature—but it should be wholly nonpartisan in its
make-up.
Our armed forces are valiantly fulfilling their
responsibilities to our country and our people. Now the Congress faces the
responsibility for taking those measures which are essential to national
security in this the most decisive phase of the Nation's greatest war. Several
alleged reasons have prevented the enactment of legislation which would
preserve for our soldiers and sailors and marines the fundamental prerogative
of citizenship—the right to vote. No amount of legalistic argument can becloud
this issue in the eyes of these ten million American citizens. Surely the
signers of the Constitution did not intend a document which, even in wartime,
would be construed to take away the franchise of any of those who are fighting
to preserve the Constitution itself.
Our soldiers and sailors and marines know that the
overwhelming majority of them will be deprived of the opportunity to vote, if
the voting machinery is left exclusively to the States under existing State
laws—and that there is no likelihood of these laws being changed in time to
enable them to vote at the next election. The Army and Navy have reported that
it will be impossible effectively to administer forty-eight different soldier
voting laws. It is the duty of the Congress to remove this unjustifiable discrimination
against the men and women in our armed forces- and to do it as quickly as
possible.
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and
determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment
of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be
content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some
fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth- is
ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its
present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political
rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by
jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to
life and liberty.
As our Nation has grown in size and stature,
however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved
inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that
true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and
independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are
hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted
as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under
which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all
regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the
industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and
clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his
products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to
trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by
monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity
to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic
fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war
is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these
rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in
large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice
for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be
lasting peace in the world.
One of the great American industrialists of our day—a
man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently
emphasized the grave dangers of "rightist reaction" in this Nation.
All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction
should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the
so-called "normalcy" of the 1920's—then it is certain that even
though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall
have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.
I ask the Congress to explore the means for
implementing this economic bill of rights- for it is definitely the
responsibility of the Congress so to do. Many of these problems are already
before committees of the Congress in the form of proposed legislation. I shall
from time to time communicate with the Congress with respect to these and
further proposals. In the event that no adequate program of progress is
evolved, I am certain that the Nation will be conscious of the fact.
Our fighting men abroad- and their families at home-
expect such a program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their
demands that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining demands
of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young
Americans are dying.
The foreign policy that we have been following—the
policy that guided us at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran—is based on the common
sense principle which was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin on July 4, 1776:
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang
separately."
I have often said that there are no two fronts for
America in this war. There is only one front. There is one line of unity which
extends from the hearts of the people at home to the men of our attacking
forces in our farthest outposts. When we speak of our total effort, we speak of
the factory and the field, and the mine as well as of the battleground -- we
speak of the soldier and the civilian, the citizen and his Government.
Each and every one of us has
a solemn obligation under God to serve this Nation in its most critical hour—to
keep this Nation great -- to make this Nation greater in a better world.
Source
Did FDR End the Great
Depression?
Let me explain.
The centerpiece of Roosevelt’s New Deal plan to fix the economy was the National Industrial Recovery Act, or NIRA, which the President announced with great fanfare in June of 1933.
FDR believed that he could use the government to artificially raise both prices and wages. It would work like this: higher prices would raise profits—that makes business happy; and higher wages would raise income—that makes workers happy.
More profits for business means more money to hire new workers. Higher wages for workers means more money to buy consumer goods. A virtuous cycle is set into motion and the economy improves rapidly.
But here’s what FDR missed: Artificially raising wages also raises labor costs. And when labor costs go up, business hires fewer workers or no workers at all, especially in a difficult economic environment. Meanwhile, artificially raising prices reduces demand for the obvious reason that people buy less of something when its price goes higher.
So, why did FDR do this?
FDR based his New Deal policy largely on what happened during World War I, which had ended only 15 years earlier, in 1918. During that war, the government established planning boards to set wages and prices, and economic activity increased. If it worked during wartime, FDR reasoned, it should work during peacetime. But Roosevelt confused the economic activity that was actually the result of inflated war demands as being due to government planning.
The government, Roosevelt concluded, could much better manage the economy in a time of crisis than private enterprise, which, in his worldview, only considered its own selfish interests. Therefore, government guidance—not free enterprise—was Americans’ steadfast ally.
Contrary to what you might think, big business, including autos and steel, were happy to go along with FDR’s plan—at least, at first. If the government was going to ensure their profits, who were they to complain? So, instead of prohibiting monopolies—something the government is actually supposed to do—the NIRA created monopolies on the condition that these favored industries immediately raised wages significantly and bargained collectively with labor.
Source #10 (State of the Union Address: Franklin D.
Roosevelt January 4, 1935)
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate and of
the House of Representatives:
The Constitution wisely provides that the Chief Executive
shall report to the Congress on the state of the Union, for through you, the
chosen legislative representatives, our citizens everywhere may fairly judge
the progress of our governing. I am confident that today, in the light of the
events of the past two years, you do not consider it merely a trite phrase when
I tell you that I am truly glad to greet you and that I look forward to common
counsel, to useful cooperation, and to genuine friendships between us.
We have undertaken a new order of things; yet we progress
to it under the framework and in the spirit and intent of the American
Constitution. We have proceeded throughout the Nation a measurable distance on
the road toward this new order. Materially, I can report to you substantial
benefits to our agricultural population, increased industrial activity, and
profits to our merchants. Of equal moment, there is evident a restoration of
that spirit of confidence and faith which marks the American character. Let
him, who, for speculative profit or partisan purpose, without just warrant
would seek to disturb or dispel this assurance, take heed before he assumes
responsibility for any act which slows our onward steps.
Throughout the world, change is the order of the day. In
every Nation economic problems, long in the making, have brought crises of many
kinds for which the masters of old practice and theory were unprepared. In most
Nations social justice, no longer a distant ideal, has become a definite goal,
and ancient Governments are beginning to heed the call.
Thus, the American people do not stand alone in the world
in their desire for change. We seek it through tested liberal traditions,
through processes which retain all of the deep essentials of that republican
form of representative government first given to a troubled world by the United
States.
As the various parts in the program begun in the
Extraordinary Session of the 73rd Congress shape themselves in practical
administration, the unity of our program reveals itself to the Nation. The
outlines of the new economic order, rising from the disintegration of the old,
are apparent. We test what we have done as our measures take root in the living
texture of life. We see where we have built wisely and where we can do still
better.
The attempt to make a distinction between recovery and
reform is a narrowly conceived effort to substitute the appearance of reality
for reality itself. When a man is convalescing from illness, wisdom dictates
not only cure of the symptoms, but also removal of their cause.
It is important to recognize that while we seek to outlaw
specific abuses, the American objective of today has an infinitely deeper,
finer and more lasting purpose than mere repression. Thinking people in almost
every country of the world have come to realize certain fundamental
difficulties with which civilization must reckon. Rapid changes—the machine
age, the advent of universal and rapid communication and many other new
factors—have brought new problems. Succeeding generations have attempted to
keep pace by reforming in piecemeal fashion this or that attendant abuse. As a
result, evils overlap and reform becomes confused and frustrated. We lose
sight, from time to time, of our ultimate human objectives.
Let us, for a moment, strip from our simple purpose the
confusion that results from a multiplicity of detail and from millions of
written and spoken words.
We find our population suffering from old inequalities,
little changed by vast sporadic remedies. In spite of our efforts and in spite
of our talk, we have not weeded out the over privileged and we have not
effectively lifted up the underprivileged. Both of these manifestations of
injustice have retarded happiness. No wise man has any intention of destroying
what is known as the profit motive; because by the profit motive we mean the
right by work to earn a decent livelihood for ourselves and for our families.
We have, however, a clear mandate from the people, that
Americans must forswear that conception of the acquisition of wealth which,
through excessive profits, creates undue private power over private affairs
and, to our misfortune, over public affairs as well. In building toward this
end we do not destroy ambition, nor do we seek to divide our wealth into equal
shares on stated occasions. We continue to recognize the greater ability of
some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the
individual to obtain for him and his a proper security, a reasonable leisure,
and a decent living throughout life, is an ambition to be preferred to the
appetite for great wealth and great power.
I recall to your attention my message to the Congress
last June in which I said: "among our objectives I place the security of
the men, women and children of the Nation first." That remains our first
and continuing task; and in a very real sense every major legislative enactment
of this Congress should be a component part of it.
In defining immediate factors which enter into our quest,
I have spoken to the Congress and the people of three great divisions:
1. The security of a livelihood through the better use of
the national resources of the land in which we live.
2. The security against the major hazards and
vicissitudes of life.
3. The security of decent homes.
I am now ready to submit to the Congress a broad program
designed ultimately to establish all three of these factors of security—a
program which because of many lost years will take many future years to
fulfill.
A study of our national resources, more comprehensive
than any previously made, shows the vast amount of necessary and practicable
work which needs to be done for the development and preservation of our natural
wealth for the enjoyment and advantage of our people in generations to come.
The sound use of land and water is far more comprehensive than the mere
planting of trees, building of dams, distributing of electricity or retirement
of sub-marginal land. It recognizes that stranded populations, either in the
country or the city, cannot have security under the conditions that now
surround them.
To this end we are ready to begin to meet this
problem—the intelligent care of population throughout our Nation, in accordance
with an intelligent distribution of the means of livelihood for that
population. A definite program for putting people to work, of which I shall
speak in a moment, is a component part of this greater program of security of
livelihood through the better use of our national resources.
Closely related to the broad problem of livelihood is
that of security against the major hazards of life. Here also, a comprehensive
survey of what has been attempted or accomplished in many Nations and in many
States proves to me that the time has come for action by the national
Government. I shall send to you, in a few days, definite recommendations based
on these studies. These recommendations will cover the broad subjects of
unemployment insurance and old age insurance, of benefits for children, form
others, for the handicapped, for maternity care and for other aspects of
dependency and illness where a beginning can now be made.
The third factor—better homes for our people—has also
been the subject of experimentation and study. Here, too, the first practical
steps can be made through the proposals which I shall suggest in relation to
giving work to the unemployed.
Whatever we plan and whatever we do should be in the
light of these three clear objectives of security. We cannot afford to lose
valuable time in haphazard public policies which cannot find a place in the
broad outlines of these major purposes. In that spirit I come to an immediate issue
made for us by hard and inescapable circumstance—the task of putting people to
work. In the spring of 1933 the issue of destitution seemed to stand apart;
today, in the light of our experience and our new national policy, we find we
can put people to work in ways which conform to, initiate and carry forward the
broad principles of that policy.
The first objectives of emergency legislation of 1933
were to relieve destitution, to make it possible for industry to operate in a
more rational and orderly fashion, and to put behind industrial recovery the
impulse of large expenditures in Government undertakings. The purpose of the
National Industrial Recovery Act to provide work for more people succeeded in a
substantial manner within the first few months of its life, and the Act has
continued to maintain employment gains and greatly improved working conditions
in industry.
The program of public works provided for in the Recovery
Act launched the Federal Government into a task for which there was little time
to make preparation and little American experience to follow. Great employment
has been given and is being given by these works.
More than two billions of dollars have also been expended
in direct relief to the destitute. Local agencies of necessity determined the
recipients of this form of relief. With inevitable exceptions the funds were
spent by them with reasonable efficiency and as a result actual want of food
and clothing in the great majority of cases has been overcome.
But the stark fact before us is that great numbers still
remain unemployed.
A large proportion of these unemployed and their
dependents have been forced on the relief rolls. The burden on the Federal
Government has grown with great rapidity. We have here a human as well as an
economic problem. When humane considerations are concerned, Americans give them
precedence. The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately
before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a
spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national
fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle
destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy.
It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for
able-bodied but destitute workers.
The Federal Government must and shall quit this business
of relief.
I am not willing that the vitality of our people be
further sapped by the giving of cash, of market baskets, of a few hours of
weekly work cutting grass, raking leaves or picking up .papers in the public
parks. We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution
but also their self-respect, their self-reliance and courage and determination.
This decision brings me to the problem of what the Government should do with
approximately five million unemployed now on the relief rolls.
About one million and a half of these belong to the group
which in the past was dependent upon local welfare efforts. Most of them are
unable for one reason or another to maintain themselves independently—for the
most part, through no fault of their own. Such people, in the days before the
great depression, were cared for by local efforts—by States, by counties, by
towns, by cities, by churches and by private welfare agencies. It is my thought
that in the future they must be cared for as they were before. I stand ready
through my own personal efforts, and through the public influence of the office
that I hold, to help these local agencies to get the means necessary to assume
this burden.
The security legislation which I shall propose to the
Congress will, I am confident, be of assistance to local effort in the care of
this type of cases. Local responsibility can and will be resumed, for, after
all, common sense tells us that the wealth necessary for this task existed and
still exists in the local community, and the dictates of sound administration
require that this responsibility be in the first instance a local one. There
are, however, an additional three and one half million employable people who
are on relief. With them the problem is different and the responsibility is
different. This group was the victim of a nation-wide depression caused by
conditions which were not local but national. The Federal Government is the
only governmental agency with sufficient power and credit to meet this
situation. We have assumed this task and we shall not shrink from it in the
future. It is a duty dictated by every intelligent consideration of national
policy to ask you to make it possible for the United States to give employment
to all of these three and one half million employable people now on relief,
pending their absorption in a rising tide of private employment.
It is my thought that with the exception of certain of
the normal public building operations of the Government, all emergency public
works shall be united in a single new and greatly enlarged plan.
With the establishment of this new system we can
supersede the Federal Emergency Relief Administration with a coordinated
authority which will be charged with the orderly liquidation of our present
relief activities and the substitution of a national chart for the giving of
work.
This new program of emergency public employment should be
governed by a number of practical principles.
(1) All work undertaken should be useful—not just for a
day, or a year, but useful in the sense that it affords permanent improvement
in living conditions or that it creates future new wealth for the Nation.
(2) Compensation on emergency public projects should be
in the form of security payments which should be larger than the amount now
received as a relief dole, but at the same time not so large as to encourage
the rejection of opportunities for private employment or the leaving of private
employment to engage in Government work.
(3) Projects should be undertaken on which a large percentage
of direct labor can be used.
(4) Preference should be given to those projects which
will be self-liquidating in the sense that there is a reasonable expectation
that the Government will get its money back at some future time.
(5) The projects undertaken should be selected and
planned so as to compete as little as possible with private enterprises. This
suggests that if it were not for the necessity of giving useful work to the
unemployed now on relief, these projects in most instances would not now be
undertaken.
(6) The planning of projects would seek to assure work
during the coming fiscal year to the individuals now on relief, or until such
time as private employment is available. In order to make adjustment to
increasing private employment, work should be planned with a view to tapering
it off in proportion to the speed with which the emergency workers are offered
positions with private employers.
(7) Effort should be made to locate projects where they
will serve the greatest unemployment needs as shown by present relief rolls,
and the broad program of the National Resources Board should be freely used for
guidance in selection. Our ultimate objective being the enrichment of human
lives, the Government has the primary duty to use its emergency expenditures as
much as possible to serve those who cannot secure the advantages of private
capital.
Ever since the adjournment of the 73d Congress, the
Administration has been studying from every angle the possibility and the
practicability of new forms of employment. As a result of these studies I have
arrived at certain very definite convictions as to the amount of money that
will be necessary for the sort of public projects that I have described. I
shall submit these figures in my budget message. I assure you now they will be
within the sound credit of the Government.
The work itself will cover a wide field including
clearance of slums, which for adequate reasons cannot be undertaken by private
capital; in rural housing of several kinds, where, again, private capital is
unable to function; in rural electrification; in the reforestation of the great
watersheds of the Nation; in an intensified program to prevent soil erosion and
to reclaim blighted areas; in improving existing road systems and in constructing
national highways designed to handle modern traffic; in the elimination of
grade crossings; in the extension and enlargement of the successful work of the
Civilian Conservation Corps; in non-Federal works, mostly self-liquidating and
highly useful to local divisions of Government; and on many other projects
which the Nation needs and cannot afford to neglect.
This is the method which I propose to you in order that
we may better meet this present-day problem of unemployment. Its greatest
advantage is that it fits logically and usefully into the long-range permanent
policy of providing the three types of security which constitute as a whole an
American plan for the betterment of the future of the American people.
I shall consult with you from time to time concerning
other measures of national importance. Among the subjects that lie immediately
before us are the consolidation of Federal regulatory administration over all
forms of transportation, the renewal and clarification of the general purposes
of the National Industrial Recovery Act, the strengthening of our facilities
for the prevention, detection and treatment of crime and criminals, the
restoration of sound conditions in the public utilities field through abolition
of the evil features of holding companies, the gradual tapering off of the
emergency credit activities of Government, and improvement in our taxation
forms and methods.
We have already begun to feel the bracing effect upon our
economic system of a restored agriculture. The hundreds of millions of
additional income that farmers are receiving are finding their way into the
channels of trade. The farmers' share of the national income is slowly rising.
The economic facts justify the widespread opinion of those engaged in
agriculture that our provisions for maintaining a balanced production give at
this time the most adequate remedy for an old and vexing problem. For the
present, and especially in view of abnormal world conditions, agricultural
adjustment with certain necessary improvements in methods should continue.
It seems appropriate to call attention at this time to
the fine spirit shown during the past year by our public servants. I cannot
praise too highly the cheerful work of the Civil Service employees, and of
those temporarily working for the Government. As for those thousands in our
various public agencies spread throughout the country who, without
compensation, agreed to take over heavy responsibilities in connection with our
various loan agencies and particularly in direct relief work, I cannot say too
much. I do not think any country could show a higher average of cheerful and
even enthusiastic team-work than has been shown by these men and women.
I cannot with candor tell you that general international
relationships outside the borders of the United States are improved. On the
surface of things many old jealousies are resurrected, old passions aroused;
new strivings for armament and power, in more than one land, rear their ugly
heads. I hope that calm counsel and constructive leadership will provide the
steadying influence and the time necessary for the coming of new and more
practical forms of representative government throughout the world wherein
privilege and power will occupy a lesser place and world welfare a greater.
I believe, however, that our own peaceful and neighborly
attitude toward other Nations is coming to be understood and appreciated. The
maintenance of international peace is a matter in which we are deeply and
unselfishly concerned. Evidence of our persistent and undeniable desire to
prevent armed conflict has recently been more than once afforded.
There is no ground for apprehension that our relations
with any Nation will be otherwise than peaceful. Nor is there ground for doubt
that the people of most Nations seek relief from the threat and burden
attaching to the false theory that extravagant armament cannot be reduced and
limited by international accord.
The ledger of the past year shows many more gains than
losses. Let us not forget that, in addition to saving millions from utter
destitution, child labor has been for the moment outlawed, thousands of homes
saved to their owners and most important of all, the morale of the Nation has
been restored. Viewing the year 1934 as a whole, you and I can agree that we have
a generous measure of reasons for giving thanks.
It is not empty optimism that moves me to a strong hope
in the coming year. We can, if we will, make 1935 a genuine period of good
feeling, sustained by a sense of purposeful progress. Beyond the material
recovery, I sense a spiritual recovery as well. The people of America are
turning as never before to those permanent values that are not limited to the
physical objectives of life. There are growing signs of this on every hand. In
the face of these spiritual impulses we are sensible of the Divine Providence
to which Nations turn now, as always, for guidance and fostering care.
Source
Benito Mussolini, Doctrine of
Fascism
When brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism
recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism,
giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent
interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.
[The state] is not simply a mechanism which limits the sphere of the
supposed liberties of the individual. . . . Neither has the Fascist conception
of authority anything in common with that of a police ridden State. . . . Far
from crushing the individual, the Fascist State multiplies his energies, just
as in a regiment a soldier is not diminished but multiplied by the number of
his fellow soldiers.
Source
Neville Chamberlain, 30
September 1938, “Peace in our time” speech
The following
is the wording of a printed statement that Neville Chamberlain waved as he
stepped off the plane on 30 September, 1938 after the Munich Conference had
ended the day before: "We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for our two countries and for Europe.
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."
Chamberlain read the above statement in front of 10 Downing St. and said:
"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour.
I believe it is peace for our time...
Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."
Source
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The
Great Arsenal of Democracy,” 29 December 1940
My
friends:
This
is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security; because the
nub of the whole purpose of your President is to keep you now, and your
children later, and your grandchildren much later, out of a last-ditch war for
the preservation of American independence, and all of the things that American
independence means to you and to me and to ours.
Tonight,
in the presence of a world crisis, my mind goes back eight years to a night in
the midst of a domestic crisis. It was a time when the wheels of American
industry were grinding to a full stop, when the whole banking system of our
country had ceased to function. I well remember that while I sat in my study in
the White House, preparing to talk with the people of the United States, I had
before my eyes the picture of all those Americans with whom I was talking. I
saw the workmen in the mills, the mines, the factories, the girl behind the
counter, the small shopkeeper, the farmer doing his spring plowing, the widows
and the old men wondering about their life's savings. I tried to convey to the
great mass of American people what the banking crisis meant to them in their
daily lives.
Tonight,
I want to do the same thing, with the same people, in this new crisis which
faces America. We met the issue of 1933 with courage and realism. We face this
new crisis, this new threat to the security of our nation, with the same
courage and realism. Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our
American civilization been in such danger as now. For on September 27th, 1940
-- this year -- by an agreement signed in Berlin, three powerful nations, two
in Europe and one in Asia, joined themselves together in the threat that if the
United States of America interfered with or blocked the expansion program of
these three nations -- a program aimed at world control -- they would unite in
ultimate action against the United States.
The
Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to
dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the
whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest
of the world. It was only three weeks ago that their leader stated this:
"There are two worlds that stand opposed to each other." And then in
defiant reply to his opponents he said this: "Others are correct when they
say: 'With this world we cannot ever reconcile ourselves.''' I can beat any
other power in the world." So said the leader of the Nazis.
In
other words, the Axis not merely admits but the Axis proclaims that there can
be no ultimate peace between their philosophy -- their philosophy of government
-- and our philosophy of government. In view of the nature of this undeniable
threat, it can be asserted, properly and categorically, that the United States
has no right or reason to encourage talk of peace until the day shall come when
there is a clear intention on the part of the aggressor nations to abandon all
thought of dominating or conquering the world.
At
this moment the forces of the States that are leagued against all peoples who
live in freedom are being held away from our shores. The Germans and the
Italians are being blocked on the other side of the Atlantic by the British and
by the Greeks, and by thousands of soldiers and sailors who were able to escape
from subjugated countries. In Asia the Japanese are being engaged by the
Chinese nation in another great defense. In the Pacific Ocean is our fleet.
Some
of our people like to believe that wars in Europe and in Asia are of no concern
to us. But it is a matter of most vital concern to us that European and Asiatic
war-makers should not gain control of the oceans which lead to this hemisphere.
One hundred and seventeen years ago the Monroe Doctrine was conceived by our
government as a measure of defense 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 neighbors. There was no treaty. There was no
"unwritten agreement." And yet there was the feeling, proven correct
by history, that we as neighbors could settle any disputes in peaceful fashion.
And the fact is that during the whole of this time the Western Hemisphere has
remained free from aggression from Europe or from Asia.
Does
anyone seriously believe that we need to fear attack anywhere in the Americas
while a free Britain remains our most powerful naval neighbor in the Atlantic?
And does anyone seriously believe, on the other hand, that we could rest easy
if the Axis powers were our neighbors there? If Great Britain goes down, the Axis
powers will control the Continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Austral-Asia, 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 in all the Americas would be living at the point of a gun -- a gun loaded
with explosive bullets, economic as well as military. We should enter upon a
new and terrible era in which the whole world, our hemisphere included, would
be run by threats of brute force. And to survive in such a world, we would 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 are still safe, because of
the broad expanse of the Atlantic and of the Pacific. But the width of those
oceans is not what it was in the days of clipper ships. At one point between
Africa and Brazil the distance is less than it is from Washington to Denver,
Colorado, five hours for the latest type of bomber. And at the north end of the
Pacific Ocean, America and Asia almost touch each other. Why, even today we
have planes that could fly from the British Isles to New England and back again
without refueling. And remember that the range of the modern bomber is ever
being increased.
During
the past week many people in all parts of the nation have told me what they
wanted me to say tonight. Almost all of them expressed a courageous desire to
hear the plain truth about the gravity of the situation. One telegram, however,
expressed the attitude of the small minority who want to see no evil and hear
no evil, even though they know in their hearts that evil exists. That telegram
begged me not to tell again of the ease with which our American cities could be
bombed by any hostile power which had gained bases in this Western Hemisphere.
The gist of that telegram was: "Please, Mr. President, don't frighten us
by telling us the facts." Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead --
danger against which we must prepare. But we well know that we cannot escape
danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over
our heads.
Some
nations of Europe were bound by solemn nonintervention pacts with Germany.
Other nations were assured by Germany that they need never fear invasion.
Nonintervention pact or not, the fact remains that they were attacked, overrun,
thrown into modern slavery at an hour's notice -- or even without any notice at
all. As an exiled leader of one of these nations said to me the other day,
"The notice was a minus quantity. It was given to my government two hours
after German troops had poured into my country in a hundred places." The
fate of these nations tells us what it means to live at the point of a Nazi
gun.
The
Nazis have justified such actions by various pious frauds. One of these frauds
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 somebody else. For example, Germany has said that she was
occupying Belgium to save the Belgians from the British. Would she then
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 its life. And any
South American country, in Nazi hands, would always constitute a jumping off
place for German attack on any one of the other republics of this hemisphere.
Analyze
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 pet exception in an unfree world? Or the islands of the Azores, which
still fly the flag of Portugal after five centuries? You and I think of Hawaii
as an outpost of defense in the Pacific. And yet the Azores are closer to our
shores in the Atlantic than Hawaii is on the other side.
There
are those who say that the Axis powers would never have any desire to attack
the Western Hemisphere. That is the same dangerous form of wishful thinking
which has destroyed the powers of resistance of so 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. And most
important of all, the vast resources and wealth of this American hemisphere
constitute the most tempting loot in all of the round world.
Let
us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which
have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our
own gates. Your government knows much about them and every day is ferreting
them out. Their secret emissaries are active in our own and in neighboring
countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension, to cause internal
strife. They try to turn capital against labor, and vice versa. They try to
reawaken long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should have no
place in this country. They are active in every group that promotes
intolerance. They exploit for their own ends our own natural abhorrence
of war. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our
people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter
our will to defend ourselves.
There
are also American citizens, many of them in high places, who, unwittingly in
most cases, are aiding and abetting the work of these agents. I do not charge
these American citizens with being foreign agents. But I do charge them with
doing exactly the kind of work that the dictators want done in the United
States. These people not only believe that we can save our own skins by
shutting our eyes to the fate of other nations. Some of them go much further than
that. They say that we can and should become the friends and even the partners
of the Axis powers. Some of them even suggest that we should imitate the
methods of the dictatorships. But Americans never can and never 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 a 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
become accomplices of the Nazis; but at this moment they do not know how soon
they will be embraced to death by their allies.
The
American appeasers ignore the warning to be found in the fate of Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France.
They tell you that the Axis powers are going to win anyway; that all of this
bloodshed in the world could be saved, that the United States might just as
well throw its influence into the scale of a dictated peace and get the best
out of it that we can. They call it a "negotiated peace." Nonsense!
Is it a negotiated peace if a gang of outlaws surrounds your community and on
threat of extermination makes you pay tribute to save your own skins? For 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 all history. And in these contests the Americas would offer the only real
resistance to the Axis power. With all their vaunted efficiency, with all their
parade of pious purpose in this war, there are still in their background the
concentration camp and the servants of God in chains.
The
history of recent years proves that the shootings and the chains and the
concentration camps are not simply the transient tools but the very altars of
modern dictatorships. They may talk of a "new order" in the world,
but what they have in mind is only a revival of the oldest and the worst
tyranny. In that there is no liberty, no religion, no hope. The proposed
"new order" is the very opposite of a United States of Europe or a
United States of Asia. It is not a government based upon the consent of the
governed. It is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to
protect themselves and their freedom and their dignity from oppression. It is
an unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate and to enslave the human race.
The
British people and their allies today are conducting an active war against this
unholy alliance. Our own future security is greatly dependent on the outcome of
that fight. Our ability to "keep out of war" is going to be affected
by that outcome. Thinking in terms of today and tomorrow, I make the 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 tamely to an Axis victory, and wait our turn to be the
object of attack in another war later on.
If
we are to be completely honest with ourselves, we must admit that there is risk
in any course we may take. But I deeply believe that the great majority of our
people agree that the course that I advocate involves the least risk now and
the greatest hope for 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 implements of war, the planes, the tanks, the
guns, the freighters which will enable them to fight for their liberty and for
our security. Emphatically, we must get these weapons to them, get them to them
in sufficient volume and quickly enough so that we and our children will be
saved the agony and suffering of war which others have had to endure.
Let
not the defeatists tell us that it is too late. It will never be earlier.
Tomorrow will be later than today.
Certain
facts are self-evident.
In
a military sense Great Britain and the British Empire are today the spearhead
of resistance to world conquest. And 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 therefore, nail,
nail any talk about sending armies to Europe as deliberate untruth. Our
national policy is not directed toward war. Its sole purpose is to keep war
away from our country and away from our people.
Democracy's
fight against world conquest is being greatly aided, and must be more greatly
aided, by the rearmament of the United States and by sending every ounce and
every ton of munitions and supplies that we can possibly spare to help the
defenders who are in the front lines. And it is no more un-neutral for us to do
that than it is for Sweden, Russia, and other nations near Germany to send
steel and ore and oil and other war materials into Germany every day in the
week.
We
are planning our own defense with the utmost urgency, and in its vast scale we
must integrate the war needs of Britain and the other free nations which are
resisting aggression. This is not a matter of sentiment or of controversial
personal opinion. It is a matter of realistic, practical military policy, based
on the advice of our military experts who are in close touch with existing
warfare. These military and naval experts and the members of the Congress and
the Administration have a single-minded purpose: the defense of the United
States.
This
nation is making a great effort to produce everything that is necessary in this
emergency, and with all possible speed. And this great effort requires great
sacrifice. I would ask no one to defend a democracy which in turn would not
defend every one 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 the stamina of the workers.
As
the government is determined to protect the rights of the workers, so the
nation has a right to expect that the men who man the machines will discharge
their full responsibilities to the urgent needs of defense. The worker
possesses the same human dignity and is entitled to the same security of
position as the engineer or the manager or the owner. For the workers provide
the human power that turns out the destroyers, and the planes, and the tanks.
The nation expects our defense industries to continue operation without
interruption by strikes or lockouts. It expects and insists that management and
workers will reconcile their differences by voluntary or legal means, to
continue to produce the supplies that are so sorely needed. And on the economic
side of our great defense program, we are, as you know, bending every effort to
maintain stability of prices and with that the stability of the cost of living.
Nine
days ago I announced the setting up of a more effective organization to direct
our gigantic efforts to increase the production of munitions. The appropriation
of vast sums of money and a well-coordinated executive direction of our defense
efforts are not in themselves enough. Guns, planes, ships and many other things
have to be built in the factories and the arsenals of America. They have to be
produced by workers and managers and engineers with the aid of machines which
in turn have to be built by hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the
land. In this great work there has been splendid cooperation between the
government and industry and labor. And I am very thankful.
American
industrial genius, unmatched throughout all the world in the solution of
production problems, has been called upon to bring its resources and its
talents into action. Manufacturers of watches, of farm implements, of Linotypes
and cash registers and automobiles, and sewing machines and lawn mowers and
locomotives, are now making fuses and bomb packing crates and telescope mounts
and shells and pistols and tanks.
But
all of our present efforts are not enough. We must have more ships, more guns,
more planes -- more of everything. And this can be accomplished only if we
discard the notion of "business as usual." This job cannot be done
merely by superimposing on the existing productive facilities the added
requirements of the nation for defense. Our defense efforts must not be blocked
by those who fear the future consequences of surplus plant capacity. The
possible consequences of failure of our defense efforts now are much more to be
feared. And after the present needs of our defense are past, a proper handling
of the country's peacetime needs will require all of the new productive
capacity, if not still more. No pessimistic policy about the future of America
shall delay the immediate expansion of those industries essential to defense.
We need them.
I
want to make it clear that it is the purpose of the nation to build now with
all possible speed every machine, every arsenal, every factory that we need to
manufacture our defense material. We have the men, the skill, the wealth, and
above all, the will. I am confident that if and when production of consumer or
luxury goods in certain industries requires the use of machines and raw
materials that are essential for defense purposes, then such production must
yield, and will gladly yield, to our primary and compelling purpose.
So
I appeal to the owners of plants, to the managers, to the workers, to our own
government employees to put every ounce of effort into producing these
munitions swiftly and without stint. With this appeal I give you the pledge
that all of us who are officers of your government will devote ourselves to the
same whole-hearted extent to the great task that lies ahead.
As
planes and ships and guns and shells are produced, your government, with its
defense experts, can then determine how best to use them to defend this hemisphere.
The decision as to how much shall be sent abroad and how much shall remain at
home must be made on the basis of our overall military necessities.
We
must be the great arsenal of democracy.
For
us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to
our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit
of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.
We
have furnished the British great material support and we will furnish far more
in the future. There will be no "bottlenecks" in our determination to
aid Great Britain. No dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that
determination by threats of how they will construe that determination. The
British have received invaluable military support from the heroic Greek Army
and from the forces of all the governments in exile. Their strength is growing.
It is the strength of men and women who value their freedom more highly than
they value their lives.
I
believe that the Axis powers are not going to win this war. I base that belief
on the latest and best of information.
We
have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope -- hope for
peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building
of a better civilization in the future. I have the profound conviction that the
American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they
have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense,
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 honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our
people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.Source
America First Committee, Charles Lindbergh, Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941
Des Moines Speech:
It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict.
That effort has been carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that, today, our country stands on the verge of war.
At this time, as the war is about to enter its third winter, it seems appropriate to review the circumstances that have led us to our present position. Why are we on the verge of war? Was it necessary for us to become so deeply involved? Who is responsible for changing our national policy from one of neutrality and independence to one of entanglement in European affairs?
Personally, I believe there is no better argument against our intervention than a study of the causes and developments of the present war. I have often said that if the true facts and issues were placed before the American people, there would be no danger of our involvement.
Here, I would like to point out to you a fundamental difference between the groups who advocate foreign war, and those who believe in an independent destiny for America.
If you will look back over the record, you will find that those of us who oppose intervention have constantly tried to clarify facts and issues; while the interventionists have tried to hide facts and confuse issues.
We ask you to read what we said last month, last year, and even before the war began. Our record is open and clear, and we are proud of it.
We have not led you on by subterfuge and propaganda. We have not resorted to steps short of anything, in order to take the American people where they did not want to go.
What we said before the elections, we say [illegible] and again, and again today. And we will not tell you tomorrow that it was just campaign oratory. Have you ever heard an interventionist, or a British agent, or a member of the administration in Washington ask you to go back and study a record of what they have said since the war started? Are their self-styled defenders of democracy willing to put the issue of war to a vote of our people? Do you find these crusaders for foreign freedom of speech, or the removal of censorship here in our own country?
The subterfuge and propaganda that exists in our country is obvious on every side. Tonight, I shall try to pierce through a portion of it, to the naked facts which lie beneath.
When this war started in Europe, it was clear that the American people were solidly opposed to entering it. Why shouldn't we be? We had the best defensive position in the world; we had a tradition of independence from Europe; and the one time we did take part in a European war left European problems unsolved, and debts to America unpaid.
National polls showed that when England and France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their efforts, we must know exactly who they are.
The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.
Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.
I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators.
As I have said, these war agitators comprise only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda, their money, their patronage.
Let us consider these groups, one at a time.
First, the British: It is obvious and perfectly understandable that Great Britain wants the United States in the war on her side. England is now in a desperate position. Her population is not large enough and her armies are not strong enough to invade the continent of Europe and win the war she declared against Germany.
Her geographical position is such that she cannot win the war by the use of aviation alone, regardless of how many planes we send her. Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost.
As you all know, we were left with the debts of the last European war; and unless we are more cautious in the future than we have been in the past, we will be left with the debts of the present case. If it were not for her hope that she can make us responsible for the war financially, as well as militarily, I believe England would have negotiated a peace in Europe many months ago, and be better off for doing so.
England has devoted, and will continue to devote every effort to get us into the war. We know that she spent huge sums of money in this country during the last war in order to involve us. Englishmen have written books about the cleverness of its use.
We know that England is spending great sums of money for propaganda in America during the present war. If we were Englishmen, we would do the same. But our interest is first in America; and as Americans, it is essential for us to realize the effort that British interests are making to draw us into their war.
The second major group I mentioned is the Jewish.
It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race.
No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences.
Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not.
Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.
I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.
We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.
The Roosevelt administration is the third powerful group which has been carrying this country toward war. Its members have used the war emergency to obtain a third presidential term for the first time in American history. They have used the war to add unlimited billions to a debt which was already the highest we have ever known. And they have just used the war to justify the restriction of congressional power, and the assumption of dictatorial procedures on the part of the president and his appointees.
The power of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the maintenance of a wartime emergency. The prestige of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the success of Great Britain to whom the president attached his political future at a time when most people thought that England and France would easily win the war. The danger of the Roosevelt administration lies in its subterfuge. While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon which they were elected.
In selecting these three groups as the major agitators for war, I have included only those whose support is essential to the war party. If any one of these groups--the British, the Jewish, or the administration--stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement.
I do not believe that any two of them are powerful enough to carry this country to war without the support of the third. And to these three, as I have said, all other war groups are of secondary importance.
When hostilities commenced in Europe, in 1939, it was realized by these groups that the American people had no intention of entering the war. They knew it would be worse than useless to ask us for a declaration of war at that time. But they believed that this country could be entered into the war in very much the same way we were entered into the last one.
They planned: first, to prepare the United States for foreign war under the guise of American defense; second, to involve us in the war, step by step, without our realization; third, to create a series of incidents which would force us into the actual conflict. These plans were of course, to be covered and assisted by the full power of their propaganda.
Our theaters soon became filled with plays portraying the glory of war. Newsreels lost all semblance of objectivity. Newspapers and magazines began to lose advertising if they carried anti-war articles. A smear campaign was instituted against individuals who opposed intervention. The terms "fifth columnist," "traitor," "Nazi," "anti-Semitic" were thrown ceaselessly at any one who dared to suggest that it was not to the best interests of the United States to enter the war. Men lost their jobs if they were frankly anti-war. Many others dared no longer speak.
Before long, lecture halls that were open to the advocates of war were closed to speakers who opposed it. A fear campaign was inaugurated. We were told that aviation, which has held the British fleet off the continent of Europe, made America more vulnerable than ever before to invasion. Propaganda was in full swing.
There was no difficulty in obtaining billions of dollars for arms under the guise of defending America. Our people stood united on a program of defense. Congress passed appropriation after appropriation for guns and planes and battleships, with the approval of the overwhelming majority of our citizens. That a large portion of these appropriations was to be used to build arms for Europe, we did not learn until later. That was another step.
To use a specific example; in 1939, we were told that we should increase our air corps to a total of 5,000 planes. Congress passed the necessary legislation. A few months later, the administration told us that the United States should have at least 50,000 planes for our national safety. But almost as fast as fighting planes were turned out from our factories, they were sent abroad, although our own air corps was in the utmost need of new equipment; so that today, two years after the start of war, the American army has a few hundred thoroughly modern bombers and fighters--less in fact, than Germany is able to produce in a single month.
Ever since its inception, our arms program has been laid out for the purpose of carrying on the war in Europe, far more than for the purpose of building an adequate defense for America.
Now at the same time we were being prepared for a foreign war, it was necessary, as I have said, to involve us in the war. This was accomplished under that now famous phrase "steps short of war."
England and France would win if the United States would only repeal its arms embargo and sell munitions for cash, we were told. And then [illegible] began, a refrain that marked every step we took toward war for many months--"the best way to defend America and keep out of war." we were told, was "by aiding the Allies."
First, we agreed to sell arms to Europe; next, we agreed to loan arms to Europe; then we agreed to patrol the ocean for Europe; then we occupied a European island in the war zone. Now, we have reached the verge of war.
The war groups have succeeded in the first two of their three major steps into war. The greatest armament program in our history is under way.
We have become involved in the war from practically every standpoint except actual shooting. Only the creation of sufficient "incidents" yet remains; and you see the first of these already taking place, according to plan [ill.]-- a plan that was never laid before the American people for their approval.
Men and women of Iowa; only one thing holds this country from war today. That is the rising opposition of the American people. Our system of democracy and representative government is on test today as it has never been before. We are on the verge of a war in which the only victor would be chaos and prostration.
We are on the verge of a war for which we are still unprepared, and for which no one has offered a feasible plan for victory--a war which cannot be won without sending our soldiers across the ocean to force a landing on a hostile coast against armies stronger than our own.
We are on the verge of war, but it is not yet too late to stay out. It is not too late to show that no amount of money, or propaganda, or patronage can force a free and independent people into war against its will. It is not yet too late to retrieve and to maintain the independent American destiny that our forefathers established in this new world.
The entire future rests upon our shoulders. It depends upon our action, our courage, and our intelligence. If you oppose our intervention in the war, now is the time to make your voice heard.
Help us to organize these meetings; and write to your representatives in Washington. I tell you that the last stronghold of democracy and representative government in this country is in our house of representatives and our senate.
There, we can still make our will known. And if we, the American people, do that, independence and freedom will continue to live among us, and there will be no foreign war.
Source
FDR, 1941 State of the Union Address, “The Four Freedoms,”
6 JANUARY 1941
[1] Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Seventy-seventh
Congress:
[2] I address you, the Members of the members of this new
Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. I use the word
“unprecedented,” because at no previous time has American security been as
seriously threatened from without as it is today.
[3] Since the permanent formation of our Government under the
Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have
related to our domestic affairs. And fortunately, only one of these–the
four-year War Between the States–ever threatened our national unity. Today,
thank God, one hundred and thirty million Americans, in forty-eight States,
have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.
[4] It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had
been disturbed by events in other Continents. We had even engaged in two wars
with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West Indies, in
the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and
for the principles of peaceful commerce. But in no case had a serious threat
been raised against our national safety or our continued independence.
[5] What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United
States as a nation has at all times maintained opposition, clear, definite
opposition, to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while
the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and
of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other
part of the Americas.
[6] That determination of ours, extending over all these years,
was proved, for example, in the early days during the quarter century of wars
following the French Revolution.
[7] While the Napoleonic struggles did threaten interests of the
United States because of the French foothold in the West Indies and in
Louisiana, and while we engaged in the War of 1812 to vindicate our right to
peaceful trade, it is nevertheless clear that neither France nor Great Britain,
nor any other nation, was aiming at domination of the whole world.
[8] And in like fashion from 1815 to 1914–ninety-nine years–no
single war in Europe or in Asia constituted a real threat against our future or
against the future of any other American nation.
[9] Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign
power sought to establish itself in this Hemisphere; and the strength of the
British fleet in the Atlantic has been a friendly strength. It is still a
friendly strength.
[10] Even when the World War broke out in 1914, it seemed to
contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But, as time
went on, as we remember, the American people began to visualize what the
downfall of democratic nations might mean to our own democracy.
[11] We need not overemphasize imperfections in the Peace of
Versailles. We need not harp on failure of the democracies to deal with
problems of world reconstruction. We should remember that the Peace of 1919 was
far less unjust than the kind of “pacification” which began even before Munich,
and which is being carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to
spread over every continent today. The American people have unalterably set
their faces against that tyranny.
[12] I suppose that every realist knows that the democratic way
of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the
world–assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda
by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are
still at peace.
[13] During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the
whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations,
great and small. And the assailants are still on the march, threatening other
nations, great and small.
[14]Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional
duty to “give to the Congress information of the state of the Union,” I find
it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our
country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond
our borders.
[15] Armed defense of democratic existence is now being
gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population
and all the resources of Europe, and Asia, and Africa and Australasia will be
dominated by conquerors. And let us remember that the total of those
populations in those four continents, the total of those populations and their
resources greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of
the whole of the Western Hemisphere–yes, many times over.
[16] In times like these it is immature–and incidentally,
untrue–for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with
one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.
[17] No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace
international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament,
or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion–or even good business.
[18] Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our
neighbors. “Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
[19] As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are
softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.
[20] We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and
a tinkling cymbal preach the “ism” of appeasement.
[21] We must especially beware of that small group of selfish
men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their
own nests.
[22] I have recently pointed out how quickly the tempo of modern
warfare could bring into our very midst the physical attack which we must
eventually expect if the dictator nations win this war.
[23] There is much loose talk of our immunity from immediate and
direct invasion from across the seas. Obviously, as long as the British Navy
retains its power, no such danger exists. Even if there were no British Navy,
it is not probable that any enemy would be stupid enough to attack us by
landing troops in the United States from across thousands of miles of ocean,
until it had acquired strategic bases from which to operate.
[24] But we learn much from the lessons of the past years in
Europe-particularly the lesson of Norway, whose essential seaports were
captured by treachery and surprise built up over a series of years.
[25] The first phase of the invasion of this Hemisphere would
not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be
occupied by secret agents and by their dupes- and great numbers of them are
already here, and in Latin America.
[26] As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive,
they-not we–will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack.
[27] And that is why the future of all the American Republics is
today in serious danger.
[28] That is why this Annual Message to the Congress is unique
in our history.
[29] That is why every member of the Executive Branch of the
Government and every member of the Congress face great responsibility and great
accountability.
[30] The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy
should be devoted primarily–almost exclusively–to meeting this foreign peril.
For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency.
[31] Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been
based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all of our fellow
men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based
on a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all nations, large and
small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end.
[32] Our national policy is this:
[33] First, by an impressive expression of the public will and
without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive national
defense.
[34] Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and
without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support of all those
resolute people everywhere who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping
war away from our Hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination
that the democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the
security of our own nation.
[35] Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and
without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles
of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to
acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know
that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people’s freedom.
[36] In the recent national election there was no substantial
difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No
issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate. And today it
is abundantly evident that American citizens everywhere are demanding and
supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger.
[37] Therefore, the immediate need is a swift and driving
increase in our armament production.
[38] Leaders of industry and labor have responded to our
summons. Goals of speed have been set. In some cases these goals are being
reached ahead of time; in some cases we are on schedule; in other cases there
are slight but not serious delays; and in some cases–and I am sorry to say very
important cases–we are all concerned by the slowness of the accomplishment of
our plans.
[39] The Army and Navy, however, have made substantial progress
during the past year. Actual experience is improving and speeding up our
methods of production with every passing day. And today’s best is not good
enough for tomorrow.
[40] I am not satisfied with the progress thus far made. The men
in charge of the program represent the best in training, in ability, and in
patriotism. They are not satisfied with the progress thus far made. None of us
will be satisfied until the job is done.
[41] No matter whether the original goal was set too high or too
low, our objective is quicker and better results.
[43] We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes;
we are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and to catch up.
[44] We are ahead of schedule in building warships but we are
working to get even further ahead of that schedule.
[45] To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime
production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime production of
implements of war is no small task. And the greatest difficulty comes at the
beginning of the program, when new tools, new plant facilities, new assembly
lines, and new ship ways must first be constructed before the actual materiel begins
to flow steadily and speedily from them.
[46] The Congress, of course, must rightly keep itself informed
at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is certain
information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests
of our own security and those of the nations that we are supporting, must of
needs be kept in confidence.
[47] New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for
our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and
authorizations to carry on what we have begun.
[48] I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds
sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds,
to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor
nations.
[49] Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal
for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need man power, but they do need
billions of dollars worth of the weapons of defense.
[50] The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them
all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must
surrender, merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we
know they must have.
[51] I do not recommend that we make them a loan of dollars with
which to pay for these weapons–a loan to be repaid in dollars.
[52] I recommend that we make it possible for those nations to
continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders
into our own program. And nearly all of their materiel would, if the time ever
came, be useful in our own defense.
[53] Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities,
considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much
should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who by
their determined and heroic resistance are giving us time in which to make
ready our own defense.
[54] For what we send abroad, we shall be repaid, repaid within
a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, repaid in similar
materials, or, at our option, in other goods of many kinds, which they can
produce and which we need.
[55] Let us say to the democracies: “We Americans are vitally
concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our
resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and
maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships,
planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge.”
[56] In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated
by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international
law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their
aggression. Such aid . . . such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator
should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.
[57] And when the dictators, if the dictators, are ready to make
war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part. They did not
wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an act of war.
[58] Their only interest is in a new one-way international law,
which lacks mutuality in its observance, and, therefore, becomes an instrument
of oppression.
[59] The happiness of future generations of Americans may well
depend upon how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one
can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called
upon to meet. The Nation’s hands must not be tied when the Nation’s life is in
danger.
[60] Yes, and we must all prepare–all of us prepare–to make the sacrifices
that the emergency– almost as serious as war itself–demands. Whatever stands in
the way of speed and efficiency in defense–in defense preparations of any
kind–must give way to the national need.
[61] A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from
all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders of business, of
labor, and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among
other groups but within their own groups.
[62] The best way of dealing with the few slackers or trouble
makers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example, and, if that
fails, to use the sovereignty of government to save government.
[63] As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by
armaments alone. Those who man our defenses, and those behind them who build
our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakable
belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that
we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all things the worth
fighting for.
[64] The Nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from
the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their
individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those
things have toughened the fibre of our people, have renewed their faith and
strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.
[65] Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking
about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social
revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world.
[66] For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a
healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their
political and economic systems are simple. They are:
[67] Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
[68] Jobs for those who can work.
[69] Security for those who need it.
[70] The ending of special privilege for the few.
[71] The preservation of civil liberties for all.
[72] The enjoyment . . . the enjoyment of the fruits of
scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
[73] These are the simple, the basic things that must never be
lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The
inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent
upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.
[74] Many subjects connected with our social economy call for
immediate improvement.
[75] As examples:
[76] We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age
pensions and unemployment insurance.
[77] We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical
care.
[78] We should plan a better system by which persons deserving
or needing gainful employment may obtain it.
[79] I have called for personal sacrifice. And I am assured of
the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.
[80] A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in
taxes. In my Budget Message I will recommend that a greater portion of this
great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today.
No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of the program; and the
principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly
before our eyes to guide our legislation.
[81] If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters,
putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.
[82] In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look
forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
[83] The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in
the world.
[84] The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his
own way–everywhere in the world.
[85] The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world
terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a
healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
86] The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world
terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a
thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of
physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.
[87] That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite
basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind
of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the
dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
[88] To that new order we oppose the greater conception–the
moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and
foreign revolutions alike without fear.
[89] Since the beginning of our American history, we have been
engaged in change–in a perpetual peaceful revolution–a revolution which goes on
steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions–without the
concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we
seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly,
civilized society.
[90] This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads
and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom
under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights
everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and
keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.
[91] To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
SourceFDR, March 15, 1941: On Lend Lease
This dinner of the White House Correspondents' Association is unique. It is the first one at which I have made a speech in all these eight years. It differs from the press conferences that you and I hold twice a week, for you cannot ask me any questions tonight; and everything that I have to say is word for word "on the record."
For eight years you and I have been helping each other. I have been trying to keep you informed of the news of Washington, of the Nation, and of the world, from the point of view of the Presidency. You, more than you realize, have been giving me a great deal of information about what the people of this country are thinking and saying.
In our press conferences, as at this dinner tonight, we include reporters representing papers and news agencies of many other lands. To most of them it is a matter of constant amazement that press conferences such as ours can exist in any Nation in the world.
That is especially true in those lands where freedoms do not exist—where the purposes of our democracy and the characteristics of our country and of our people have been seriously distorted.
Such misunderstandings are not new. I remember that, a quarter of a century ago, in the early days of the first World War, the German Government received solemn assurances from their representatives in the United States that the people of America were disunited; that they cared more for peace at any price than for the preservation of ideals and freedom; that there would even be riots and revolutions in the United States if this Nation ever asserted its own interests.
Let not dictators of Europe or Asia doubt our unanimity now. Before the present war broke out on September 1, 1939, I was more worried about the future than many people—indeed, than most people. The record shows that I was not worried enough.
That, however, is water over the dam. Do not let us waste time in reviewing the past, or fixing or dodging the blame for it. History cannot be rewritten by wishful thinking. We, the American people, are writing new history today.
The big news story of this week is this: The world has been told that we, as a united Nation, realize the danger that confronts us—and that to meet that danger our democracy has gone into action.
We know that although Prussian autocracy was bad enough in the first war, Nazism is far worse in this.
Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries. They openly seek the destruction of all elective systems of government on every continent—including our own; they seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers who have seized power by force.
Yes, these men and their hypnotized followers call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order. For order among Nations presupposes something enduring—some system of justice under which individuals, over a long period of time, are willing to live. Humanity will never permanently accept a system imposed by conquest and based on slavery.
These modern tyrants find it necessary to—their plans to eliminate all democracies—eliminate them one by one. The Nations of Europe, and indeed we ourselves, did not appreciate that purpose. We do now. The process of the elimination of the European Nations proceeded according to plan through 1939 and well into 1940, until the schedule was shot to pieces by the unbeatable defenders of Britain.
The enemies of democracy were wrong in their calculations for a very simple reason. They were wrong because they believed that democracy could not adjust itself to the terrible reality of a world at war.
They believed that democracy, because of its profound respect for the rights of man, would never arm itself to fight.
They believed that democracy, because of its will to live at peace with its neighbors, could not mobilize its energies even in its own defense.
They know now that democracy can still remain democracy, and speak, and reach conclusions, and arm itself adequately for defense.
From the bureaus of propaganda of the Axis powers came the confident prophecy that the conquest of our country would be "an inside job"—a job accomplished not by overpowering invasion from without, but by disrupting confusion and disunion and moral disintegration from within.
Those who believed that knew little of our history. America is not a country which can be confounded by the appeasers, the defeatists, the backstairs manufacturers of panic. It is a country that talks out its problems in the open, where any man can hear them.
We have just now engaged in a great debate. It was not limited to the halls of Congress. It was argued in every newspaper, on every wave length, over every cracker barrel in all the land; and it was finally settled and decided by the American people themselves.
Yes, the decisions of our democracy may be slowly arrived at. But when that decision is made, it is proclaimed not with the voice of any one man but with the voice of one hundred and thirty millions. It is binding on us all. And the world is no longer left in doubt.
This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement in our land; the end of urging us to get along with dictators; the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of oppression.
And the urgency is now.
We believe firmly that when our production output is in full swing, the democracies of the world will be able to prove that dictatorships cannot win.
But, now, now, the time element is of supreme importance. Every plane, every other instrument of war, old and new, every instrument that we can spare now, we will send overseas because that is the common sense of strategy.
The great task of this day, the deep duty that rests upon each and every one of us is to move products from the assembly lines of our factories to the battle lines of democracy—Now!
We can have speed, we can have effectiveness, if we maintain our existing unity. We do not have and never will have the false unity of a people browbeaten by threats, misled by propaganda. Ours is a unity that is possible only among free men and women who recognize the truth and face reality with intelligence and courage.
Today, at last—today at long last—ours is not a partial effort. It is a total effort and that is the only way to guarantee ultimate safety.
Beginning a year ago, we started the erection of hundreds of plants; we started the training of millions of men.
Then, at the moment that the aid-to-democracies bill was passed, this week, we were ready to recommend the seven-billion-dollar appropriation on the basis of capacity production as now planned.
The articles themselves cover the whole range of munitions of war and of the facilities for transporting them across the seas.
The aid-to-democracies bill was agreed on by both houses of the Congress last Tuesday afternoon. I signed it one half hour later. Five minutes after that I approved a list of articles for immediate shipment; and today—Saturday night—many of them are on their way. On Wednesday, I recommended an appropriation for new material to the extent of seven billion dollars; and the Congress is making patriotic speed in making the money available.
Here in Washington, we are thinking in terms of speed and speed now. And I hope that that watchword—"Speed, and speed now"—will find its way into every home in the Nation.
We shall have to make sacrifices—every one of us. The final extent of those sacrifices will depend on the speed with which we act Now!
I must tell you tonight in plain language what this undertaking means to you—to you in your daily life.
Whether you are in the armed services; whether you are a steel worker or a stevedore; a machinist or a housewife; a farmer or a banker; a storekeeper or a manufacturer—to all of you it will mean sacrifice in behalf of your country and your liberties. Yes, you will feel the impact of this gigantic effort in your daily lives. You will feel it in a way that will cause, to you, many inconveniences.
You will have to be content with lower profits, lower profits from business because obviously your taxes will be higher.
You will have to work longer at your bench, or your plow, or your machine, or your desk.
Let me make it clear that the Nation is calling for the sacrifice of some privileges, not for the sacrifice of fundamental rights. And most of us will do it willingly. That kind of sacrifice is for the common national protection and welfare; for our defense against the most ruthless brutality in all history; for the ultimate victory of a way of life now so violently menaced.
A halfhearted effort on our part will lead to failure. This is no part-time job. The concepts of "business as usual," of "normalcy," must be forgotten until the task is finished. Yes, it's an all-out effort—and nothing short of an all-out effort will win.
Therefore, we are dedicated, from here on, to a constantly increasing tempo of production—a production greater than we now know or have ever known before—a production that does not stop and should not pause.
Tonight, I am appealing to the heart and to the mind of every man and every woman within our borders who loves liberty. I ask you to consider the needs of our Nation and this hour, to put aside all personal differences until the victory is won.
The light of democracy must be kept burning. To the perpetuation of this light, each of us must do his own share. The single effort of one individual may seem very small. But there are 130 million individuals over here. And there are many more millions in Britain and elsewhere bravely shielding the great flame of democracy from the blackout of barbarism. It is not enough for us merely to trim the wick, or polish the glass. The time has come when we must provide the fuel in ever-increasing amounts to keep that flame alight.
There will be no divisions of party or section or race or nationality or religion. There is not one among us who does not have a stake in the outcome of the effort in which we are now engaged.
A few weeks ago I spoke of four freedoms—freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, freedom from want, freedom from fear. They are the ultimate stake. They may not be immediately attainable throughout the world but humanity does move toward those glorious ideals through democratic processes. And if we fail—if democracy is superseded by slavery—then those four freedoms, or even the mention of them, will become forbidden things. Centuries will pass before they can be revived.
By winning now, we strengthen the meaning of those freedoms, we increase the stature of mankind, we establish the dignity of human life.
I have often thought that there is a vast difference between the word "loyalty" and the word "obedience." Obedience can be obtained and enforced in a dictatorship by the use of threat or extortion or blackmail or it can be obtained by a failure on the part of government to tell the truth to its citizens.
Loyalty is different. It springs from the mind that is given the facts, that retains ancient ideals and proceeds without coercion to give support to its own government.
That is true in England and in Greece and in China and in the United States, today. And in many other countries millions of men and women are praying for the return of a day when they can give that kind of loyalty.
Loyalty cannot be bought. Dollars alone will not win this war. Let us not delude ourselves as to that.
Today, nearly a million and a half American citizens are hard at work in our armed forces. The spirit—the determination of these men of our Army and Navy are worthy of the highest traditions of our country. No better men ever served under Washington or John Paul Jones or Grant or Lee or Pershing. That is a boast, I admit, but it is not an idle one.
Upon the national will to sacrifice and to work depends the output of our industry and our agriculture.
Upon that will depends the survival of the vital bridge across the ocean—the bridge of ships that carry the arms and the food for those who are fighting the good fight.
Upon that will depends our ability to aid other Nations which may determine to offer resistance.
Upon that will may depend practical assistance to people now living in Nations that have been overrun, should they find the opportunity to strike back in an effort to regain their liberties and may that day come soon!
This will of the American people will not be frustrated, either by threats from powerful enemies abroad or by small, selfish groups or individuals at home.
The determination of America must not and will not be obstructed by war profiteering.
It must not be obstructed by unnecessary strikes of workers, by shortsighted management, or by the third danger—deliberate sabotage.
For, unless we win there will be no freedom for either management or labor.
Wise labor leaders and wise business managers will realize how necessary it is to their own existence to make common sacrifice for this great common cause.
There is no longer the slightest question or doubt that the American people recognize the extreme seriousness of the present situation. That is why they have demanded, and got, a policy of unqualified, immediate, all-out aid for Britain, for Greece, for China, and for all the Governments in exile whose homelands are temporarily occupied by the aggressors.
And from now on that aid will be increased—and yet again increased—until total victory has been won.
The British are stronger than ever in the magnificent morale that has enabled them to endure all the dark days and the shattered nights of the past ten months. They have the full support and help of Canada, of the other Dominions, of the rest of their Empire, and the full aid and support of non-British people throughout the world who still think in terms of the great freedoms.
The British people are braced for invasion whenever such attempt may come—tomorrow—next week—next month.
In this historic crisis, Britain is blessed with a brilliant and great leader in Winston Churchill. But, knowing him, no one knows better than Mr. Churchill himself that it is not alone his stirring words and valiant deeds that give the British their superb morale. The essence of that morale is in the masses of plain people who are completely clear in their minds about the one essential fact—that they would rather die as free men than live as slaves.
These plain people—civilians as well as soldiers and sailors and
airmen—women and girls as well as men and boys—they are fighting in the front line of civilization at this moment, and they are holding that line with a fortitude that will forever be the pride and the inspiration of all free men on every continent, on every isle of the sea.
The British people and their Grecian allies need ships. From America, they will get ships.
They need planes. From America, they will get planes.
From America they need food. From America, they will get food.
They need tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds. From America, they will get tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds.
China likewise expresses the magnificent will of millions of plain people to resist the dismemberment of their historic Nation. China, through the Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, asks our help. America has said that China shall have our help.
And so our country is going to be what our people have proclaimed it must be—the arsenal of democracy.
Our country is going to play its full part.
And when—no, I didn't say if, I said when—dictatorships disintegrate—and pray God that will be sooner than any of us now dares to hope—then our country must continue to play its great part in the period of world reconstruction for the good of humanity.
We believe that the rallying cry of the dictators, their boasting about a master-race, will prove to be pure stuff and nonsense. There never has been, there isn't now, and there never will be, any race of people on the earth fit to serve as masters over their fellow men.
The world has no use for any Nation which, because of size or because of military might, asserts the right to goosestep to world power over the bodies of other Nations or other races. We believe that any nationality, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood.
We believe that the men and women of such Nations, no matter what size, can, through the processes of peace, serve themselves and serve the world by protecting the common man's security; improve the standards of healthful living; provide markets for manufacture and for agriculture. Through that kind of peaceful service every Nation can increase its happiness, banish the terrors of war, and abandon man's inhumanity to man.
Never, in all our history, have Americans faced a job so well worth while. May it be said of us in the days to come that our children and our children's children rise up and call us blessed.
Source
FDR, Declaration of War Against Japan, 8 December 1941
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of
Representatives:
Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the
United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and
air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation
of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking
toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in
the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and
his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent
American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to
continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint
of war or of armed attack.
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it
obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago.
During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to
deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for
continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to
American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many
American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported
torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout
the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The
people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well
understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all
measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember
the character of the onslaught against us.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion,
the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute
victory.
I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people
when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will
make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our
territory and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of
our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly
attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed
between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
Source
August 6,
1945
STATEMENT
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Sixteen
hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important
Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had
more than two thousand times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam” which
is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.
The
Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many
fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary
increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In
their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful
forms are in development.
It is an
atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force
from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought
war to the Far East.
Before
1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically
possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of
doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to
find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they
hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that
the Germans got the V-1’s and the V-2’s late and in limited quantities and even
more grateful that they did not get the atomic bomb at all.
The battle
of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the
air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we
have won the other battles.
Beginning
in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in war was pooled
between the United States and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our
victories have come from that arrangement. Under that general policy the
research on the atomic bomb was begun. With American and British scientists
working together we entered the race of discovery against the Germans.
The United
States had available the large number of scientists of distinction in the many
needed areas of knowledge. It had the tremendous industrial and financial
resources necessary for the project and they could be devoted to it without
undue impairment of other vital war work. In the United States the laboratory
work and the production plants, on which a substantial start had already been
made, would be out of reach of enemy bombing, while at that time Britain was
exposed to constant air attack and was still threatened with the possibility of
invasion. For these reasons Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt
agreed that it was wise to carry on the project here. We now have two great
plants and many lesser works devoted to the production of atomic power.
Employment during peak construction numbered 125,000 and over 65,000
individuals are even now engaged in operating the plants. Many have worked
there for two and a half years. Few know what they have been producing. They
see great quantities of material going in and they see nothing coming out of
those plants, for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly
small. We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in
history—and won.
But the
greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost,
but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex
pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a
workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to
design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never
done before so that the brain child of many minds came forth in physical shape
and performed as it was supposed to do. Both science and industry worked under
the direction of the United States Army, which achieved a unique success in
managing so diverse a problem in the advancement of knowledge in an amazingly
short time. It is doubtful if such another combination could be got together in
the world. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science
in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure.
We are now
prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise
the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their
factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall
completely destroy Japan’s power to make
war.
It was to
spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26
was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they
do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the
like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will
follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen
and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.
The
Secretary of War, who has kept in personal touch with all phases of the
project, will immediately make public a statement giving further details.
His
statement will give facts concerning the sites at Oak Ridge near Knoxville,
Tennessee, and at Richland near Pasco, Washington, and an installation near
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although the workers at the sites have been making
materials to be used in producing the greatest destructive forces in history
they have not themselves been in danger beyond that of many other occupations,
for the utmost care has been taken of their safety.
The fact
that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man's understanding of
nature's forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now
comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it cannot be produced
on a basis to compete with them commercially. Before that comes there must be a
long period of intensive research.
It has
never been the habit of the scientists of this country or the policy of this
Government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally,
therefore, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public.
But under
present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical processes of
production or all the military applications, pending further examination of
possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from the danger of
sudden destruction.
I shall recommend
that the Congress of the United States consider promptly the establishment of
an appropriate commission to control the production and use of atomic power
within the United States. I shall give further consideration and make further
recommendations to the Congress as to how atomic power can become a powerful
and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.
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