But it is not correct to use that word. The United States does not
consider it a sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to
our nation, when the nation is fighting for its existence and its
future life.
It is not a sacrifice for any man, old or young, to be in the Army
or the Navy of the United States. Rather it is a privilege.
It is not a sacrifice for the industrialist or the wage earner, the
farmer or the shopkeeper, the trainman or the doctor, to pay more
taxes, to buy more bonds, to forego extra profits, to work longer
or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Rather it is a
privilege.
It is not a sacrifice to do without many things to which we are
accustomed if the national defense calls for doing without.
A review this morning leads me to the conclusion that at present we
shall not have to curtail the normal use of articles of food. There
is enough food today for all of us and enough left over to send to
those who are fighting on the same side with us.
But there will be a clear and definite shortage of metals for many
kinds of civilian use, for the very good reason that in our
increased program we shall need for war purposes more than half of
that portion of the principal metals which during the past year
have gone into articles for civilian use. Yes, we shall have to
give up many things entirely.
And I am sure that the people in every part of the nation are
prepared in their individual living to win this war. I am sure that
they will cheerfully help to pay a large part of its financial cost
while it goes on. I am sure they will cheerfully give up those
material things that they are asked to give up.
And I am sure that they will retain all those great spiritual
things without which we cannot win through.
I repeat that the United States can accept no result save victory,
final and complete. Not only must the shame of Japanese treachery
be wiped out, but the sources of international brutality, wherever
they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken.
In my message to the Congress yesterday I said that we "will make
very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger
us." In order to achieve that certainty, we must begin the great
task that is before us by abandoning once and for all the illusion
that we can ever again isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity.
In these past few years--and, most violently, in the past three
days--we have learned a terrible lesson.
It is our obligation to our dead--it is our sacred obligation to
their children and to our children--that we must never forget what
we have learned.
And what we have learned is this:
There is no such thing as security for any nation--or any
individual--in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism.
There is no such thing as impregnable defense against powerful
aggressors who sneak up in the dark and strike without warning.
We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from
severe attack--that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles
on any map any more.
We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat
of deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was
a thoroughly dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that
modern warfare as conducted in the Nazi manner is a dirty business.
We don't like it--we didn't want to get in it--but we are in it and
we're going to fight it with everything we've got.
I do not think any American has any doubt of our ability to
administer proper punishment to the perpetrators of these crimes.
Your government knows that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan
that if Japan did not attack the United States, Japan would not
share in dividing the spoils with Germany when peace came. She was
promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive the
complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area--
and that means not only the Ear East, but also all of the Islands
in the Pacific, and also a stranglehold on the west coast of North,
Central and South America.
We know also that Germany and Japan are conducting their military
and naval operations in accordance with a joint plan. That plan
considers all peoples and nations which are not helping the Axis
powers as common enemies of each and every one of the Axis powers.
That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. And that is why
the American people must realize that it can be matched only with
similar grand strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese
successes against the United States in the Pacific are helpful to
German operations in Libya; that any German success against the
Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her operations
against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers
or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America
and the Canal.
On the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that
guerrilla warfare against the Germans in, let us say Serbia or
Norway, helps us; that a successful Russian offensive against the
Germans helps us; and that British successes on land or sea in any
part of the world strengthen our hands.
Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal
declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United
States at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at
war with Britain or Russia. And Germany puts all the other
Republics of the Americas into the same category of enemies. The
people of our sister Republics of this Hemisphere can be honored by
that fact.
The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of
battle. When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined
that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as
against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers--we are
builders.
We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for
vengeance, but for a world in which this nation, and all that this
nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to
eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we
accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was
dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.
So we are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace
that follows.
And in the difficult hours of this day--through dark days that may
be yet to come--we will know that the vast majority of the members
of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with
us. All of them are praying for us. But, in representing our cause,
we represent theirs as well--our hope and their hope for liberty
under God.
February 23, 1942.
My Fellow Americans:
Washington's Birthday is a most appropriate occasion for us to talk
with each other about things as they are today and things as we
know they shall be in the future.
For eight years, General Washington and his Continental Army were
faced continually with formidable odds and recurring defeats.
Supplies and equipment were lacking. In a sense, every winter was a
Valley Forge. Throughout the thirteen states there existed fifth
columnists--and selfish men, jealous men, fearful men, who
proclaimed that Washington's cause was hopeless, and that he should
ask for a negotiated peace.
Washington's conduct in those hard times has provided the model for
all Americans ever since--a model of moral stamina. He held to his
course, as it had been charted in the Declaration of Independence.
He and the brave men who served with him knew that no man's life or
fortune was secure without freedom and free institutions.
The present great struggle has taught us increasingly that freedom
of person and security of property anywhere in the world depend
upon the security of the rights and obligations of liberty and
justice everywhere in the world.
This war is a new kind of war. It is different from all other wars
of the past, not only in its methods and weapons but also in its
geography. It is warfare in terms of every continent, every island,
every sea, every air lane in the world.
That is the reason why I have asked you to take out and spread
before you a map of the whole earth, and to follow with me in the
references which I shall make to the world-encircling battle lines
of this war. Many questions will, I fear, remain unanswered
tonight; but I know you will realize that I cannot cover everything
in any one short report to the people.
The broad oceans which have been heralded in the past as our
protection from attack have become endless battlefields on which we
are constantly being challenged by our enemies.
We must all understand and face the hard fact that our job now is
to fight at distances which extend all the way around the globe.
We fight at these vast distances because that is where our enemies
are. Until our flow of supplies gives us clear superiority we must
keep on striking our enemies wherever and whenever we can meet
them, even if, for a while, we have to yield ground. Actually,
though, we are taking a heavy toll of the enemy every day that goes
by.
We must fight at these vast distances to protect our supply lines
and our lines of communication with our allies--protect these lines
from the enemies who are bending every ounce of their strength,
striving against time, to cut them. The object of the Nazis and the
Japanese is to separate the United States, Britain, China and
Russia, and to isolate them one from another, so that each will be
surrounded and cut off from sources of supplies and reinforcements.
It is the old familiar Axis policy of "divide and conquer."
There are those who still think, however, in terms of the days of
sailing-ships. They advise us to pull our warships and our planes
and our merchant ships into our own home waters and concentrate
solely on last ditch defense. But let me illustrate what would
happen if we followed such foolish advice.
Look at your map. Look at the vast area of China, with its millions
of fighting men. Look at the vast area of Russia, with its powerful
armies and proven military might. Look at the British Isles,
Australia, New Zealand, the Dutch Indies, India, the Near East and
the Continent of Africa, with their resources of raw materials, and
of peoples determined to resist Axis domination. Look too at North
America, Central America and South America.
It is obvious what would happen if all of these great reservoirs of
power were cut off from each other either by enemy action or by
self-imposed isolation:
First, in such a case, we could no longer send aid of any kind to
China--to the brave people who, for nearly five years, have
withstood Japanese assault, destroyed hundreds of thousands of
Japanese soldiers and vast quantities of Japanese war munitions. It
is essential that we help China in her magnificent defense and in
her inevitable counteroffensive--for that is one important element
in the ultimate defeat of Japan.
Second, if we lost communication with the southwest Pacific, all of
that area, including Australia and New Zealand and the Dutch
Indies, would fall under Japanese domination. Japan in such a case
could release great numbers of ships and men to launch attacks on a
large scale against the coasts of the Western Hemisphere--South
America and Central America, and North America--including Alaska.
At the same time, she could immediately extend her conquests in the
other direction toward India, and through the Indian Ocean to
Africa, to the Near East, and try to join forces with Germany and
Italy.
Third, if we were to stop sending munitions to the British and the
Russians in the Mediterranean, in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea,
we would be helping the Nazis to overrun Turkey, Syria, Iraq,
Persia, Egypt and the Suez Canal, the whole coast of North Africa
itself, and with that inevitably the whole coast of West Africa--
putting Germany within easy striking distance of South America--
fifteen hundred miles away.
Fourth, if by such a fatuous policy we ceased to protect the North
Atlantic supply line to Britain and to Russia, we would help to
cripple the splendid counter-offensive by Russia against the Nazis,
and we would help to deprive Britain of essential food supplies and
munitions.
Those Americans who believed that we could live under the illusion
of isolationism wanted the American eagle to imitate the tactics of
the ostrich. Now, many of those same people, afraid that we may be
sticking our necks out, want our national bird to be turned into a
turtle. But we prefer to retain the eagle as it is--flying high and
striking hard.
I know that I speak for the mass of the American people when I say
that we reject the turtle policy and will continue increasingly the
policy of carrying the war to the enemy in distant lands and
distant waters--as far away as possible from our own home grounds.
There are four main lines of communication now being travelled by
our ships: the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean
and the South Pacific. These routes are not one-way streets, for
the ships that carry our troops and munitions outbound bring back
essential raw materials which we require for our own use.
The maintenance of these vital lines is a very tough job. It is a
job which requires tremendous daring, tremendous resourcefulness,
and, above all, tremendous production of planes and tanks and guns
and also of the ships to carry them. And I speak again for the
American people when I say that we can and will do that job.
The defense of the world-wide lines of communication demands
relatively safe use by us of the sea and of the air along the
various routes; and this, in turn, depends upon control by the
United Nations of many strategic bases along those routes.
Control of the air involves the simultaneous use of two types of
planes--first, the long-range heavy bomber; and, second, the light
bombers, dive bombers, torpedo planes, and short-range pursuit
planes, all of which are essential to the protection of the bases
and of the bombers themselves.
Heavy bombers can fly under their own power from here to the
southwest Pacific, but the smaller planes cannot. Therefore, these
lighter planes have to be packed in crates and sent on board cargo
ships. Look at your map again; and you will see that the route is
long--and at many places perilous--either across the South Atlantic
all the way around South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, or from
California to the East Indies direct. A vessel can make a round
trip by either route in about four months, or only three round
trips in a whole year.
In spite of the length, and in spite of the difficulties of this
transportation, I can tell you that in two and a half months we
already have a large number of bombers and pursuit planes, manned
by American pilots and crews, which are now in daily contact with
the enemy in the Southwest Pacific. And thousands of American
troops are today in that area engaged in operations not only in the
air but on the ground as well.
In this battle area, Japan has had an obvious initial advantage.
For she could fly even her short-range planes to the points of
attack by using many stepping stones open to her--bases in a
multitude of Pacific islands and also bases on the China coast,
Indo-China coast, and in Thailand and Malaya coasts. Japanese troop
transports could go south from Japan and from China through the
narrow China Sea, which can be protected by Japanese planes
throughout its whole length.
I ask you to look at your maps again, particularly at that portion
of the Pacific Ocean lying west of Hawaii. Before this war even
started, the Philippine Islands were already surrounded on three
sides by Japanese power. On the west, the China side, the Japanese
were in possession of the coast of China and the coast of
Indo-China which had been yielded to them by the Vichy French. On
the North are the islands of Japan themselves, reaching down almost
to northern Luzon. On the east are the Mandated Islands--which
Japan had occupied exclusively, and had fortified in absolute
violation of her written word.
The islands that lie between Hawaii and the Philippines--these
islands, hundreds of them, appear only as small dots on most maps.
But they cover a large strategic area. Guam lies in the middle of
them--a lone outpost which we have never fortified.
Under the Washington Treaty of 1921 we had solemnly agreed not to
add to the fortification of the Philippines. We had no safe naval
bases there, so we could not use the islands for extensive naval
operations.
Immediately after this war started, the Japanese forces moved down
on either side of the Philippines to numerous points south of
them--thereby completely encircling the Philippines from north,
south, east and west.
It is that complete encirclement, with control of the air by
Japanese land-based aircraft, which has prevented us from sending
substantial reinforcements of men and material to the gallant
defenders of the Philippines. For forty years it has always been
our strategy--a strategy born of necessity--that in the event of a
full-scale attack on the Islands by Japan, we should fight a
delaying action, attempting to retire slowly into Bataan Peninsula
and Corregidor.
We knew that the war as a whole would have to be fought and won by
a process of attrition against Japan itself. We knew all along
that, with our greater resources, we could ultimately out-build
Japan and ultimately overwhelm her on sea, and on land and in the
air. We knew that, to obtain our objective, many varieties of
operations would be necessary in areas other than the Philippines.
Now nothing that has occurred in the past two months has caused us
to revise this basic strategy of necessity--except that the defense
put up by General MacArthur has magnificently exceeded the previous
estimates of endurance, and he and his men are gaining eternal
glory therefore.
MacArthur's army of Filipinos and Americans, and the forces of the
United Nations in China, in Burma and the Netherlands East Indies,
are all together fulfilling the same essential task. They are
making Japan pay an increasingly terrible price for her ambitious
attempts to seize control of the whole Asiatic world. Every
Japanese transport sunk off Java is one less transport that they
can use to carry reinforcements to their army opposing General
MacArthur in Luzon.
It has been said that Japanese gains in the Philippines were made
possible only by the success of their surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor. I tell you that this is not so.
Even if the attack had not been made your map will show that it
would have been a hopeless operation for us to send the Fleet to
the Philippines through thousands of miles of ocean, while all
those island bases were under the sole control of the Japanese.
The consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor--serious as they
were--have been wildly exaggerated in other ways. And these
exaggerations come originally from Axis propagandists; but they
have been repeated, I regret to say, by Americans in and out of
public life.
You and I have the utmost contempt for Americans who, since Pearl
Harbor, have whispered or announced "off the record" that there was
no longer any Pacific Fleet--that the Fleet was all sunk or
destroyed on December 7th--that more than a thousand of our planes
were destroyed on the ground. They have suggested slyly that the
government has withheld the truth about casualties--that eleven or
twelve thousand men were killed at Pearl Harbor instead of the
figures as officially announced. They have even served the enemy
propagandists by spreading the incredible story that ship-loads of
bodies of our honored American dead were about to arrive in New
York harbor to be put into a common grave.
Almost every Axis broadcast--Berlin, Rome, Tokyo--directly quotes
Americans who, by speech or in the press, make damnable
misstatements such as these.
The American people realize that in many cases details of military
operations cannot be disclosed until we are absolutely certain that
the announcement will not give to the enemy military information
which he does not already possess.
Your government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear
the worst, without flinching or losing heart. You must, in turn,
have complete confidence that your government is keeping nothing
from you except information that will help the enemy in his attempt
to destroy us. In a democracy there is always a solemn pact of
truth between government and the people, but there must also always
be a full use of discretion, and that word "discretion" applies to
the critics of government as well.
This is war. The American people want to know, and will be told,
the general trend of how the war is going. But they do not wish to
help the enemy any more than our fighting forces do, and they will
pay little attention to the rumor-mongers and the poison peddlers
in our midst.
To pass from the realm of rumor and poison to the field of facts:
the number of our officers and men killed in the attack on Pearl
Harbor on December seventh was 2,340, and the number wounded was
940. Of all of the combatant ships based on Pearl Harbor--
battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, aircraft carriers,
destroyers and submarines--only three are permanently put out of
commission.
Very many of the ships of the Pacific Fleet were not even in Pearl
Harbor. Some of those that were there were hit very slightly, and
others that were damaged have either rejoined the fleet by now or
are still undergoing repairs. And when those repairs are completed,
the ships will be more efficient fighting machines than they were
before.
The report that we lost more than a thousand planes at Pearl Harbor
is as baseless as the other weird rumors. The Japanese do not know
just how many planes they destroyed that day, and I am not going to
tell them. But I can say that to date--and including Pearl Harbor--
we have destroyed considerably more Japanese planes than they have
destroyed of ours.
We have most certainly suffered losses--from Hitler's U-Boats in
the Atlantic as well as from the Japanese in the Pacific--and we
shall suffer more of them before the turn of the tide. But,
speaking for the United States of America, let me say once and for
all to the people of the world: We Americans have been compelled to
yield ground, but we will regain it. We and the other United
Nations are committed to the destruction of the militarism of Japan
and Germany. We are daily increasing our strength. Soon, we and not
our enemies, will have the offensive; we, not they, will win the
final battles; and we, not they, will make the final peace.
Conquered nations in Europe know what the yoke of the Nazis is
like. And the people of Korea and of Manchuria know in their flesh
the harsh despotism of Japan. All of the people of Asia know that
if there is to be an honorable and decent future for any of them or
any of us, that future depends on victory by the United Nations
over the forces of Axis enslavement.
If a just and durable peace is to be attained, or even if all of us
are merely to save our own skins, there is one thought for us here
at home to keep uppermost--the fulfillment of our special task of
production.
Germany, Italy and Japan are very close to their maximum output of
planes, guns, tanks and ships. The United Nations are not--
especially the United States of America.
Our first job then is to build up production--uninterrupted
production--so that the United Nations can maintain control of the
seas and attain control of the air--not merely a slight
superiority, but an overwhelming superiority.
On January 6th of this year, I set certain definite goals of
production for airplanes, tanks, guns and ships. The Axis
propagandists called them fantastic. Tonight, nearly two months
later, and after a careful survey of progress by Donald Nelson and
others charged with responsibility for our production, I can tell
you that those goals will be attained.
In every part of the country, experts in production and the men and
women at work in the plants are giving loyal service. With few
exceptions, labor, capital and farming realize that this is no time
either to make undue profits or to gain special advantages, one
over the other.
We are calling for new plants and additions--additions to old
plants. We are calling for plant conversion to war needs. We are
seeking more men and more women to run them. We are working longer
hours. We are coming to realize that one extra plane or extra tank
or extra gun or extra ship completed tomorrow may, in a few months,
turn the tide on some distant battlefield; it may make the
difference between life and death for some of our own fighting men.
We know now that if we lose this war it will be generations or even
centuries before our conception of democracy can live again. And we
can lose this war only if use slow up our effort or if we waste our
ammunition sniping at each other.
Here are three high purposes for every American:
1. We shall not stop work for a single day. If any dispute arises
we shall keep on working while the dispute is solved by mediation,
or conciliation or arbitration--until the war is won.
2. We shall not demand special gains or special privileges or
special advantages for any one group or occupation.
3. We shall give up conveniences and modify the routine of our
lives if our country asks us to do so. We will do it cheerfully,
remembering that the common enemy seeks to destroy every home and
every freedom in every part of our land.
This generation of Americans has come to realize, with a present
and personal realization, that there is something larger and more
important than the life of any individual or of any individual
group--something for which a man will sacrifice, and gladly
sacrifice, not only his pleasures, not only his goods, not only his
associations with those he loves, but his life itself. In time of
crisis when the future is in the balance, we come to understand,
with full recognition and devotion, what this nation is and what we
owe to it.
The Axis propagandists have tried in various evil ways to destroy
our determination and our morale. Failing in that, they are now
trying to destroy our confidence in our own allies. They say that
the British are finished--that the Russians and the Chinese are
about to quit. Patriotic and sensible Americans will reject these
absurdities. And instead of listening to any of this crude
propaganda, they will recall some of the things that Nazis and
Japanese have said and are still saying about us.
Ever since this nation became the arsenal of democracy--ever since
enactment of Lend-Lease--there has been one persistent theme
through all Axis propaganda.
This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that
Americans have considerable industrial power--but that Americans
are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work
and fight.
From Berlin, Rome and Tokyo we have been described as a nation of
weaklings--"playboys"--who would hire British soldiers, or Russian
soldiers, or Chinese soldiers to do our fighting for us.
Let them repeat that now!
Let them tell that to General MacArthur and his men.
Let them tell that to the sailors who today are hitting hard in the
far waters of the Pacific.
Let them tell that to the boys in the Flying Fortresses.
Let them tell that to the Marines!
The United Nations constitute an association of independent peoples
of equal dignity and equal importance. The United Nations are
dedicated to a common cause. We share equally and with equal zeal
the anguish and the awful sacrifices of war. In the partnership of
our common enterprise, we must share in a unified plan in which all
of us must play our several parts, each of us being equally
indispensable and dependent one on the other.
We have unified command and cooperation and comradeship.
We Americans will contribute unified production and unified
acceptance of sacrifice and of effort. That means a national unity
that can know no limitations of race or creed or selfish politics.
The American people expect that much from themselves. And the
American people will find ways and means of expressing their
determination to their enemies, including the Japanese Admiral who
has said that he will dictate the terms of peace here in the White
House.
We of the United Nations are agreed on certain broad principles in
the kind of peace we seek. The Atlantic Charter applies not only to
the parts of the world that border the Atlantic but to the whole
world; disarmament of aggressors, self-determination of nations and
peoples, and the four freedoms--freedom of speech, freedom of
religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
The British and the Russian people have known the full fury of Nazi
onslaught. There have been times when the fate of London and Moscow
was in serious doubt. But there was never the slightest question
that either the British or the Russians would yield. And today all
the United Nations salute the superb Russian Army as it celebrates
the twenty-fourth anniversary of its first assembly.
Though their homeland was overrun, the Dutch people are still
fighting stubbornly and powerfully overseas.
The great Chinese people have suffered grievous losses; Chungking
has been almost wiped out of existence--yet it remains the capital
of an unbeatable China.
That is the conquering spirit which prevails throughout the United
Nations in this war.
The task that we Americans now face will test us to the uttermost.
Never before have we been called upon for such a prodigious effort.
Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.
"These are the times that try men's souls." Tom Paine wrote those
words on a drumhead, by the light of a campfire. That was when
Washington's little army of ragged, rugged men was retreating
across New Jersey, having tasted nothing but defeat.
And General Washington ordered that these great words written by
Tom Paine be read to the men of every regiment in the Continental
Army, and this was the assurance given to the first American armed
forces:
"The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it
now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like
hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with
us, that the harder the sacrifice, the more glorious the triumph."
So spoke Americans in the year 1776.
So speak Americans today!
April 28, 1942.
My Fellow Americans:
It is nearly five months since we were attacked at Pearl Harbor.
For the two years prior to that attack this country had been
gearing itself up to a high level of production of munitions. And
yet our war efforts had done little to dislocate the normal lives
of most of us.
Since then we have dispatched strong forces of our Army and Navy,
several hundred thousand of them, to bases and battlefronts
thousands of miles from home. We have stepped up our war production
on a scale that is testing our industrial power, our engineering
genius and our economic structure to the utmost. We have had no
illusions about the fact that this is a tough job--and a long one.
American warships are now in combat in the North and South
Atlantic, in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean, in the Indian Ocean,
and in the North and South Pacific. American troops have taken
stations in South America, Greenland, Iceland, the British Isles,
the Near East, the Middle East and the Far East, the continent of
Australia, and many islands of the Pacific. American war planes,
manned by Americans, are flying in actual combat over all the
continents and all the oceans.
On the European front the most important development of the past
year has been without question the crushing counteroffensive on the
part of the great armies of Russia against the powerful German
army. These Russian forces have destroyed and are destroying more
armed power of our enemies--troops, planes, tanks and guns--than
all the other United Nations put together.
In the Mediterranean area, matters remain on the surface much as
they were. But the situation there is receiving very careful
attention.
Recently we received news of a change in government in what we used
to know as the Republic of France--a name dear to the hearts of all
lovers of liberty--a name and an institution which we hope will
soon be restored to full dignity.
Throughout the Nazi occupation of France, we have hoped for the
maintenance of a French government which would strive to regain
independence, to reestablish the principles of "Liberty, Equality
and Fraternity," and to restore the historic culture of France. Our
policy has been consistent from the very beginning. However, we are
now greatly concerned lest those who have recently come to power
may seek to force the brave French people into submission to Nazi
despotism.
The United Nations will take measures, if necessary, to prevent the
use of French territory in any part of the world for military
purposes by the Axis powers. The good people of France will readily
understand that such action is essential for the United Nations to
prevent assistance to the armies or navies or air forces of
Germany, or Italy or Japan. The overwhelming majority of the French
people understand that the fight of the United Nations is
fundamentally their fight, that our victory means the restoration
of a free and independent France--and the saving of France from the
slavery which would be imposed upon her by her external enemies and
by her internal traitors.
We know how the French people really feel. We know that a deep-
seated determination to obstruct every step in the Axis plan
extends from occupied France through Vichy France all the way to
the people of their colonies in every ocean and on every continent.
Our planes are helping in the defense of French colonies today, and
soon American Flying Fortresses will be fighting for the liberation
of the darkened continent of Europe itself.
In all the occupied countries there are men and women, and even
little children who have never stopped fighting, never stopped
resisting, never stopped proving to the Nazis that their so-called
"New Order" will never be enforced upon free peoples.
In the German and Italian peoples themselves there is a growing
conviction that the cause of Nazism and Fascism is hopeless--that
their political and military leaders have led them along the bitter
road which leads not to world conquest but to final defeat. They
cannot fail to contrast the present frantic speeches of these
leaders with their arrogant boastings of a year ago, and two years
ago.
On the other side of the world, in the Far East, we have passed
through a phase of serious losses.
We have inevitably lost control of a large portion of the
Philippine Islands. But this whole nation pays tribute to the
Filipino and American officers and men who held out so long on
Bataan Peninsula, to those grim and gallant fighters who still hold
Corregidor, where the flag flies, and to the forces that are still
striking effectively at the enemy on Mindanao and other islands.
The Malayan Peninsula and Singapore are in the hands of the enemy;
the Netherlands East Indies are almost entirely occupied, though
resistance there continues. Many other islands are in the
possession of the Japanese. But there is good reason to believe
that their southward advance has been checked. Australia, New
Zealand, and much other territory will be bases for offensive
action--and we are determined that the territory that has been lost
will be regained.
The Japanese are pressing their northward advance against Burma
with considerable power, driving toward India and China. They have
been opposed with great bravery by small British and Chinese forces
aided by American fliers.
The news in Burma tonight is not good. The Japanese may cut the
Burma Road; but I want to say to the gallant people of China that
no matter what advances the Japanese may make, ways will be found
to deliver airplanes and munitions of war to the armies of
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
We remember that the Chinese people were the first to stand up and
fight against the aggressors in this war; and in the future a still
unconquerable China will play its proper role in maintaining peace
and prosperity, not only in Eastern Asia but in the whole world.
For every advance that the Japanese have made since they started
their frenzied career of conquest, they have had to pay a very
heavy toll in warships, in transports, in planes, and in men. They
are feeling the effects of those losses.
It is even reported from Japan that somebody has dropped bombs on
Tokyo, and on other principal centers of Japanese war industries.
If this be true, it is the first time in history that Japan has
suffered such indignities.
Although the treacherous attack on Pearl Harbor was the immediate
cause of our entry into the war, that event found the American
people spiritually prepared for war on a world-wide scale. We went
into this war fighting. We know what we are fighting for. We
realize that the war has become what Hitler originally proclaimed
it to be--a total war.
Not all of us can have the privilege of fighting our enemies in
distant parts of the world.
Not all of us can have the privilege of working in a munitions
factory or a shipyard, or on the farms or in oil fields or mines,
producing the weapons or the raw materials that are needed by our
armed forces.
But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the United
States--every man, woman, and child--is in action, and will be
privileged to remain in action throughout this war. That front is
right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks.
Here at home everyone will have the privilege of making whatever
self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but
to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure
during the war and after the war. This will require, of course, the
abandonment not only of luxuries but of many other creature
comforts.
Every loyal American is aware of his individual responsibility.
Whenever I hear anyone saying "The American people are complacent--
they need to be aroused," I feel like asking him to come to
Washington to read the mail that floods into the White House and
into all departments of this government. The one question that
recurs through all these thousands of letters and messages is "What
more can I do to help my country in winning this war"?
To build the factories, to buy the materials, to pay the labor, to
provide the transportation, to equip and feed and house the
soldiers, sailors and marines, and to do all the thousands of
things necessary in a war--all cost a lot of money, more money than
has ever been spent by any nation at any time in the long history
of the world.
We are now spending, solely for war purposes, the sum of about one
hundred million dollars every day in the week. But, before this
year is over, that almost unbelievable rate of expenditure will be
doubled.
All of this money has to be spent--and spent quickly--if we are to
produce within the time now available the enormous quantities of
weapons of war which we need. But the spending of these tremendous
sums presents grave danger of disaster to our national economy.
When your government continues to spend these unprecedented sums
for munitions month by month and year by year, that money goes into
the pocketbooks and bank accounts of the people of the United
States. At the same time raw materials and many manufactured goods
are necessarily taken away from civilian use, and machinery and
factories are being converted to war production.
You do not have to be a professor of mathematics or economics to
see that if people with plenty of cash start bidding against each
other for scarce goods, the price of those goods goes up.
Yesterday I submitted to the Congress of the United states a seven-
point program of general principles which taken together could be
called the national economic policy for attaining the great
objective of keeping the cost of living down.