Honolulu prior to World War Two.
President Roosevelt called for the arming of merchant ships in his Navy Day address on this day in 1941.
Five months ago tonight I
proclaimed to the American people the existence of a state of unlimited
emergency.
Since then much has happened. Our
Army and Navy are temporarily in Iceland in the defense of the Western
Hemisphere.
Hitler has attacked shipping in
areas close to the Americas in the North and South Atlantic.
Many American-owned merchant ships
have been sunk on the high seas. One American destroyer was attacked on
September 4. Another destroyer was attacked and hit on October 17. Eleven brave
and loyal men of our Navy were killed by the Nazis.
We have wished to avoid shooting.
But the shooting has started. And history has recorded who fired the first
shot. In the long run, however, all that will matter is who fired the last
shot.
America has been attacked.
The U. S. S. Kearny is not just a Navy ship. She belongs to
every man, woman, and child in this Nation.
Illinois, Alabama, California,
North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arkansas, New
York, Virginia -- those are the home States of the honored dead and wounded of
the Kearny. Hitler's torpedo was directed at every American, whether he lives
on our seacoasts or in the innermost part of the Nation, far from the seas and
far from the guns and tanks of the marching hordes of would-be conquerors of
the world.
The purpose of Hitler's attack was
to frighten the American people off the high seas -- to force us to make a
trembling retreat. This is not the first time he has misjudged the American
spirit. That spirit is now aroused.
If our national policy were to be
dominated by the fear of shooting, then all of our ships and those of our
sister republics would have to be tied up in home harbors. Our Navy would have
to remain respectfully -- abjectly -- behind any line which Hitler might decree
on any ocean as his own dictated version of his own war zone.
Naturally, we reject that absurd
and insulting suggestion. We reject it because of our own self-interest,
because of our own self-respect, because, most of all, of our own good faith.
Freedom of the seas is now, as it has always been, a fundamental policy of your
Government and mine.
Hitler has often protested that his
plans for conquest do not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. But his submarines
and raiders prove otherwise. So does the entire design of his new world order.
For example, I have in my
possession a secret map made in Germany by Hitler's government -- by the
planners of the new world order. It is a map of South America and a part of
Central America, as Hitler proposes to reorganize it. Today in this area there
are 14 separate countries. The geographical experts of Berlin, however, have
ruthlessly obliterated all existing boundary lines; and have divided South
America into five vassal states, bringing the whole continent under their
domination. And they have also so arranged it that the territory of one of
these new puppet states includes the Republic of Panama and our great life line
- the Panama Canal.
That is his plan. It will never go
into effect.
This map makes clear the Nazi
design not only against South America but against the United States itself.
Your Government was in its possession
another document made in Germany by Hitler's government. It is a detailed plan,
which, for obvious reasons, the Nazis did not wish and do not wish to publicize
just yet, but which they are ready to impose a little later on a dominated
world -- if Hitler wins. It is a plan to abolish all existing religions -
Protestant, Catholic, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike. The
property of all churches will be seized by the Reich and its puppets. The cross
and all other symbols of religion are to be forbidden. The clergy are to be
forever silenced under penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so
many fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God above Hitler.
In the place of the churches of our
civilization, there is to be set up an international Nazi church -- a church
which will be served by orators sent out by the Nazi government. In the place
of the Bible, the words of Mein Kampf will be imposed and enforced as Holy
Writ. And in place of the cross of Christ will be put two symbols -- the
swastika and the naked sword.
A god of blood and iron will take
the place of the God of love and mercy. Let us well ponder that statement which
I have made tonight.
These grim truths which I have told
you of the present and future plans of Hitlerism will, of course, be hotly
denied tonight and tomorrow in the controlled press and radio of the Axis
Powers. And some Americans - not many - will continue to insist that Hitler's
plans need not worry us and that we should not concern ourselves with anything
that goes on beyond rifle shot of our own shores.
The protestations of these American
citizens -- few in number -- will, as usual, be paraded with applause through
the Axis press and radio during the next few days in an effort to convince the
world that the majority of Americans are opposed to their duly chosen
Government and in reality are only waiting to jump on Hitler's band wagon when
it comes this way.
The motive of such Americans is not
the point at issue. The fact is that Nazi propaganda continues in desperation
to seize upon such isolated statements as proof of American disunity.
The Nazis have made up their own
list of modern American heroes. It is, fortunately, a short list. I am glad
that it does not contain my name.
All of us Americans, of all
opinions, are faced with the choice between the kind of world we want to live
in and the kind of world which Hitler and his hordes would impose upon us.
None of us wants to burrow under
the ground and live in total darkness like a comfortable mole.
The forward march of Hitler and of
Hitlerism can be stopped - and it will be stopped.
Very simply and very bluntly, we
are pledged to pull our own oar in the destruction of Hitlerism.
And when we have helped to end the
curse of Hitlerism, we shall help to establish a new peace which will give to
decent people everywhere a better chance to live and prosper in security and in
freedom and in faith.
Each day that passes we are
producing and providing more and more arms for the men who are fighting on
actual battle fronts. That is our primary task.
And it is the Nation's will that
these vital arms and supplies of all kinds shall neither be locked up in
American harbors nor sent to the bottom of the sea. It is the Nation's will
that America shall deliver the goods. In open defiance of that will, our ships
have been sunk and our sailors have been killed.
I say that we do not propose to
take this lying down.
Our determination not to take it
lying down has been expressed in the orders to the American Navy to shoot on
sight. Those orders stand.
Furthermore, the House of
Representatives has already voted to amend part of the Neutrality Act of 1937,
today outmoded by force of violent circumstances. The Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations has also recommended elimination of other hamstringing
provisions in that act. That is the course of honesty and of realism.
Our American merchant ships must be
armed to defend themselves against the rattlesnakes of the sea.
Our American merchant ships must be
free to carry our American goods into the harbors of our friends.
Our American merchant ships must be
protected by our American Navy.
It can never be doubted that the
goods will be delivered by this Nation, whose Navy believes in the traditions
of "Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!"
Yes; our Nation will and must speak
from every assembly line. Yes; from every coal mine -- the all-inclusive whole
of our vast industrial machine. Our factories and our shipyards are constantly
expanding. Our output must be multiplied.
It cannot be hampered by the
selfish obstruction of any small but dangerous minority of industrial managers
who perhaps hold out for extra profits or for "business as usual." It
cannot be hampered by the selfish obstruction of a small but dangerous minority
of labor leaders who are a menace - for labor as a whole knows that that small
minority is a menace -- to the true cause of labor itself, as well as to the
Nation as a whole.
The lines of our essential defense
now cover all the seas; and to meet the extraordinary demands of today and
tomorrow our Navy grows to unprecedented size. Our Navy is ready for action.
Indeed, units of it in the Atlantic patrol are in action. Its officers and men
need no praise from me.
Our new Army is steadily developing
the strength needed to withstand the aggressors. Our soldiers of today are
worthy of the proudest traditions of the United States Army. But traditions
cannot shoot down dive bombers or destroy tanks. That is why we must and shall
provide, for every one of our soldiers, equipment and weapons -- not merely as
good, but better than that of any other army on earth. And we are doing that right
now.
For this -- and all of this -- is
what we mean by total national defense.
The first objective of that defense
is to stop Hitler. He can be stopped and can be compelled to dig in. And that
will be the beginning of the end of his downfall, because dictatorship of the
Hitler type can live only through continuing victories - increasing conquests.
The facts of 1918 are proof that a
mighty German Army and a tired German people can crumble rapidly and go to
pieces when they are faced with successful resistance.
Nobody who admires qualities of
courage and endurance can fail to be stirred by the full-fledged resistance of
the Russian people. The Russians are fighting for their own soil and their own
homes. Russia needs all kinds of help -- planes, tanks, guns, medical supplies,
and other aids -- toward the successful defense against the invaders. From the
United States and from Britain, she is getting great quantities of those
essential supplies. But the needs of her huge army will continue - and our help
and British help will have to continue.
The other day the Secretary of
State of the United States was asked by a Senator to justify our giving aid to
Russia. His reply was: "The answer to that, Senator, depends on how
anxious a person is to stop and destroy the march of Hitler in his conquest of
the world. If he were anxious enough to defeat Hitler, he would not worry about
who was helping to defeat him."
Upon our American production falls
the colossal task of equipping our own armed forces, and helping to supply the
British, the Russians, and the Chinese. In the performance of that task we dare
not fail. And we will not fail.
It has not been easy for us
Americans to adjust ourselves to the shocking realities of a world in which the
principles of common humanity and common decency are being mowed down by the
firing squads of the Gestapo. We have enjoyed many of God's blessings. We have
lived in a broad and abundant land, and by our industry and productivity we
have made it flourish.
There are those who say that our
great good fortune has betrayed us; that we are now no match for the regimented
masses who have been trained in the Spartan ways of ruthless brutality. They
say that we have grown fat, and flabby, and lazy, and that we are doomed.
But those who say that know nothing
of America or of American life.
They do not know that this land is
great because it is a land of endless challenge. Our country was first
populated, and it has been steadily developed, by men and women in whom there
burned the spirit of adventure and restlessness and individual independence
which will not tolerate oppression.
Ours has been a story of vigorous
challenges which have been accepted and overcome, challenges of uncharted seas,
of wild forests and desert plains, of raging floods and withering drought, of
foreign tyrants and domestic strife, of staggering problems, social, economic,
and physical; and we have come out of them the most powerful Nation, and the
freest, in all of history.
Today in the face of this newest
and greatest challenge of them all we Americans have cleared our decks and
taken our battle stations. We stand ready in the defense of our Nation and the
faith of our fathers to do what God has given us the power to see as our full
duty.
The Chicago Tribune on this day in 1941 dismissed the possibility of Japan attacking the United States, even noting that an attack on the Hawaiian Islands was beyond Japanese capabilities.
The German 11th Army broke into the Crimean Peninsula. On the same day, they captured the city of Plavsk.
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