Friday, July 29, 2022
Wednesday, July 29, 1942. More Axis Victories.
The Japanese took the Kokoda airfield. The Germans took Proletarsk and crossed the Manych.
The RAF bombed Saarbrucken causing severe damage to the ironworka and engineering plant there.
Saturday, July 29, 1922. Late July Summer.
It's certainly a well done illustration, but I've always found clowns creepy.
An article appeared in that issue on Elanor Franklin, certainly an early one.
The Literary Digest featured a Rockwell.
The Country Gentleman featured an illustration that likely couldn't grace the cover of a magazine today.
Colliers simply went with the always popular female portrait.
The German Mark hit a new low.
Oil was discovered at Smackover, Arkansas, that had a population of 100. That population would reach 25,000 within a few months.
The government reported that the Catholic population of the United States had reached 23,000,000.
People were out doing Saturday things.
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Tuesday, July 28, 1942. Not one step back.
Stalin issued his "not one step back" order in the face of advancing Axis forces near Stalingrad. The order, which was actually quite lengthy and detailed, read in part:
Moscow, Nr. 227, July 28, 1942
The enemy throws new forces to the front without regard to heavy losses and penetrates deep into the Soviet Union, seizing new regions, destroying our cities and villages, and violating, plundering and killing the Soviet population. Combat goes on in region Voronezh, near Don, in the south, and at the gates of the Northern Caucasus. The German invaders penetrate toward Stalingrad, to Volga and want at any cost to trap Kuban and the Northern Caucasus, with their oil and grain. The enemy already has captured Voroshilovgrad, Starobelsk, Rossosh, Kupyansk, Valuyki, Novocherkassk, Rostov on Don, half Voronezh. Part of the troops of the Southern front, following the panic-mongers, have left Rostov and Novocherkassk without severe resistance and without orders from Moscow, covering their banners with shame.
The population of our country, who love and respect the Red Army, start to be discouraged in her and lose faith in the Red Army, and many curse the Red Army for leaving our people under the yoke of the German oppressors, and itself running east.
Some stupid people at the front calm themselves with talk that we can retreat further to the east, as we have a lot of territory, a lot of ground, a lot of population and that there will always be much bread for us. They want to justify the infamous behaviour at the front. But such talk is a falsehood, helpful only to our enemies.
Each commander, Red Army soldier and political commissar should understand that our means are not limitless. The territory of the Soviet state is not a desert, but people - workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR which the enemy has captured and aims to capture is bread and other products for the army, metal and fuel for industry, factories, plants supplying the army with arms and ammunition, railways. After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic republics, Donetzk, and other areas we have much less territory, much fewer people, bread, metal, plants and factories. We have lost more than 70 million people, more than 800 million pounds of bread annually and more than 10 million tons of metal annually. Now we do not have predominance over the Germans in human reserves, in reserves of bread. To retreat further - means to waste ourselves and to waste at the same time our Motherland.
Therefore it is necessary to eliminate talk that we have the capability endlessly to retreat, that we have a lot of territory, that our country is great and rich, that there is a large population, and that bread always will be abundant. Such talk is false and parasitic, it weakens us and benefits the enemy, if we do not stop retreating we will be without bread, without fuel, without metal, without raw material, without factories and plants, without railways.
This leads to the conclusion, it is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan.
The order went on to require unit commanders to form penal battalions and blocking detachments to block, detain, and shoot the non-compliant.
Jewish youth organizations formed the first Jewish combat organizations in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Yugoslav Partisans and Croatian forces started to fight each other at the Bosnian town of Kupres, giving an example of the odd wars within the war feature of the World War Two in the East.
Arthur "Bomber" Harris made a radio broadcast to the Germans, warning them they were about to face around the clock bombing and the only solution to preventing this was to overthrow the Nazis and make peace.
Spike Jones and his City Slickers released their song Der Fuehrer's Face.
Disney would use the song as the basis for a cartoon the following year.
Friday, July 28, 1922. A triple recognition.
The United States established diplomatic relations with all three Baltic States and appointed Evan E. Young as the ambassador to all three countries.
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
And the Trigger Law is Stayed.
Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lawsuit filed over Wyoming's abo...: Lex Anteinternet: Lawsuit filed over Wyoming's abortion restriction ... : Lex Anteinternet: The Governor Certifies the Trigger Law on Ab...
And Judge Owens of the Ninth Judicial District enjoined the State from enforcing the new law in an interlocutory (i.e., temporary) order.
I have the odd experience here of actually knowing, to some degree, the lawyers who argued for the State and at least one of the Plaintiffs.
The arguments apparently did feature the topic of what is healthcare, with it being noted by the Judge that the new statute is silent as to that, but a predecessor statute was not, and therefore an ambiguity arose in her view.
Some peculiar arguments were apparently made to the Court, I'd note, but the extent to which they figured in the Court's decision is unclear. One party argued that the fact a party seeking an abortion might have to travel was apparently argued to raise constitutional issues, but it frankly isn't clear how that would be true. A Jewish plaintiff argued that the statute infringed on her religious rights as Judaism, she said, permits abortion (I'm not sure if that's actually universally true) and, according to her, in some instances requires it. On that latter point, I didn't hear it developed as an argument, but at least generally, I highly doubt that's true.
My guess is that from here the issue will be certified to the Wyoming Supreme Court, as there's really no reason for it to linger in the district court. The Wyoming Supreme Court will accordingly have to determine the issues raised, and that will necessarily take months.
My guess is, FWIW, that the decision at the high court will not be a unanimous one. I'll predict at least one vote holding the law is unconstitutional due to the Wyoming constitutional provision noted. I suspect that at least two votes will be there to uphold it. How the rest of the five-person panel comes out I'm not sure of.
In the meantime, Judge Owens is going to be accused of partisanship, etc., as every judge who rules on this issue in any fashion ends up being. It's probably fortunate for her that the recent Republican appointed judge is located in Teton County, as this could easily end up costing her the bench in some others when retention time comes up.
Monday, July 27, 1942. North African Stalemate
The First Battle of El Alamein ended with a tactical stalemate but a strategic British victory in that they arrested the Afrika Korps advance.
Thursday, July 27, 1922. Midsummer Number.
Interesting how gold watches were a retirement tradition, but that seems to have passed.
105 men escaped Dundalk Gaol after the 4th Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army blasted a hole in the prison's walls.
On the same day, Oscar Traynor, an IRA officer, was arrested by the Free State. He'd later go on to be Minister of Defense and then Minister of Justice for post World War Two Irish governments.
Adolf Hitler was released from prison.
The Post Insurrection. The investigation goes live. The Tragic Part III.
June 9, 2022
Today promises to be a huge day in the story of the January 6, 2021, insurrection. The Committee investigating it will go live, tonight, with its findings and evidence.
Every major network, except for Fox (which is just pathetic on their part) will run it live. So will C-SPAN. The committee is set to go on the air at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, 6:00 Mountain Standard.
How many Wyomingites, however, will tune in to see it, and to see a story that many simply do not wish to?
June 10, 2022
The first hearing was held, featuring the chairman and the co-chairman, Liz Cheney, delivering powerful opening statements.
It's clear that the committee, over a series of hearings, intends to demonstrate that:
- A conspiracy to steal the election was developed by Trump and his inner circle prior to the November 2020 election.
- Numerous members of his immediate staff and cabinet were not in on it and informed him repeatedly that he'd lost the election and that there was no evidence to the contrary.
- The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers independently developed a plan to seize control of the government for Trump, believing the fable that he'd lost the election.
- At some level, Trump was cognizant of the likelihood that the Oath Keepers and Proud boys would act and egged them on, believing that this would operate to keep him in power.
Last prior edition
The Post Insurrection. The Tragic Part II
Lex Anteinternet: Lawsuit filed over Wyoming's abortion restriction ...
Lex Anteinternet: Lawsuit filed over Wyoming's abortion restriction ...: Lex Anteinternet: The Governor Certifies the Trigger Law on Abortion. : We ran this, this morning: Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, July 21, 202...
From yesterday's post (which also has a lengthy, well-thought-out comment from a reader).
From today's Trib, we now know that the case was filed in the Ninth Judicial District in Teton County and, as predicted, the newly minted judge has a hearing set today to determine whether or not to stay enforcement of the law.
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
Lawsuit filed over Wyoming's abortion restriction law. . . and a cautionary tale.
Lex Anteinternet: The Governor Certifies the Trigger Law on Abortion.: We ran this, this morning: Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, July 21, 2022. The AG reports on Dobbs : Today In Wyoming's History: July 21 : ...
And the lawsuit, as we predicted, was filed.
This is a cautionary tale, if ever there was one.
Back during the Obama Administration, in a fit of right wing upsettedness and paranoia, Wyoming amended its constitution as follows.
Artice 1, Section 38.
Right of health care access
(a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.
(b) Any person may pay, and a health care provider may accept, direct payment for health care without imposition of penalties or fines for doing so.
(c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.
(d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.
You'll recall, of course, when "Obamacare" was new, and before Americans had acclimated themselves so much to it that it could not be repealed, the Republican Party was full of stories about how government panels were going to make your health care decisions for you, like it or not. This inspired early Tea Party type movements to address this, this being one of them.
Of course, the amendment goes largely unused and in spite of quite a bit of debate on masks and quarantines during the height of the pandemic, the amendment has sat dormant until now, when it was predictably noticed.
So now this is on a trip to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Some judge is going to be asked to stay the new law until the Supreme Court can rule on it, a nightmare for whomever is tasked with this, and this isn't going to be pleasant for the Wyoming Supreme Court either. As a hot button issue in really polarized times, no matter what they do will make somebody really angry.
In my view, abortion isn't "health care" per se, and so this amendment ought not to apply. That will really upset people who place it in the health care category, but it really isn't. I hold the same view, fwiw, of cosmetic surgery for "beauty" purposes. Not to compare the two, but by example getting bigger boobs isn't a health care decision. Abortion for avoidance of a natural biologic process isn't either, at least until you get into the topic of the physical life of the mother.
I can't help but note, however, how this right wing constitutional amendment has now swung around as a leftward one. So now the article is being used by the left against the right. And there are other ways the same article could be. If a legislature, for example, determines to address transgender surgery or treatment with pharmaceuticals, which I'd guess some legislators would like to do, can they?
Sunday, July 26, 1942. Gene Autry joins the Army.
Today in World War II History—July 26, 1942: In a live radio broadcast, Gene Autry, cowboy singer/actor, is inducted into the US Army Air Force as a technical sergeant.
Via Sarah Sundin's blog.
I had no idea that Gene Autry had served in the military during World War Two.
I'm not an Autry fan, and indeed when I first read this in the early morning hours, I confused Autry with Roy Rogers. Roy Rogers didn't serve in World War Two. He was a few years younger than Autry, who did.
The other blog which had this correct, I'd note, noted this regarding Rogers:
Rogers and Wayne "are forever tainted with the stigma of opting out[,] unlike so many of their contemporaries from the Hollywood community who put country first before family [and] career," Bruce Hickey wrote. Seventy years later, people still have heated opinions about it. Wayne's lack of service has been written about more extensively than Rogers', but both are perennial topics of speculation, justification, and scorn.
I posted on the entry twice, once in error, and then to correct my error.
I suspect that Autry wasn't inducted as a Technical Sergeant so much as becoming one. He was a private pilot and really wanted to be an Army Air Force pilot, and eventually did so in 1944, then holding the rank of Flight Officer. He flew a C-109, a cargo variant of the B-24, which was not an easy plane to fly, and moreover, was one of those who flew "over the hump" in the CBI.
By the way, Autry did join the Army on a Sunday. As readers of this blog may have noted, a lot of official government business of all types was conducted on Sunday during World War Two. I don't know what the official policy was, but the government was clearly working at least partially seven days a week.
At El Alamein the British launched the counteroffensive Operation Manhood, with the combined British, South African and New Zealand forces taking most of their initial objectives.
The Japanese defending forces at Oivi on the Kokoda track, with the Papuan and Australian forces conducing a delaying action.
The German 6th Army broke through the Red Army's 62nd and 64th armies, reaching the Don just south of Stalingrad.
The Royal Air Force conducted a nighttime raid on Hamburg which resulted in the destruction of 823 homes, and which rendered 14,000 of its residents homeless.
Wednesday, July 26, 1922. Regular courts, regular limits, combating prejudice.
The Provisional Government of Southern Ireland suspended all sessions of the nationalist established Dáil Courts in favor of the courts of the Irish Free State. A pre independence tactic had been co-opting the features of regular civil life in a new nationalist system.
The British rejected an American proposal to search British vessels for alcohol outside the country's three-mile territorial limit.
Greek immigrants to the United States, facing racism and bigotry, established the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (Order of AHEPA) with the mission of promoting unity and assimilation into their new home country’s society. Like immigrants from various Catholic countries, the largely Orthodox Greek immigrants were the targets of nativist hatred.
Monday, July 25, 2022
Tuesday, July 25, 1922. Battle of Kilmallock commences.
The Battle of Kilmallock, one of the largest conventional battles of the Irish Civil War, started. The battle would continue on until August 5 when the evenly matched forces would see the Irish Army prevail.
It was Laddie Boy's birthday.
Salaries and understanding
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Synchronicity, was Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVI. The Lying edition
Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVI. The Lying edition: For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales! Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons...
As it happens, the Tribune's article is on the same topic, singling out the current, appointed, State Superintendent of Education Brian Schroeder and legislature running for Secretary of State Chuck Gray specifically. Schroeder is referenced for his claims about a Federal requirement preventing students from being denied lunch services due to gender issues, which he has claimed is about something else related to that topic, and Gray for making "election integrity", or words to that effect, the centerpiece of his campaign even though there have only been four instances of voter fraud in the state over the past 22 years.
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVII. The Hating the Government Edition
Wyoming takes in more money from the Federal government than it contributes to it.
The Federal Government pays for runways, highways, all sorts of projects and innumerable things people use every day.
I note this as in this election season, it seems there are those who are campaigning on their absolute hatred of the Federal Government.
Most interesting in this context are the candidates who have worked for the Federal Government, in the form of long military careers, who are now campaigning on how messed up it is and how they will fix it.
If they hated the Federal Government so much, or knew it was messed up, why did they serve in the military until they could draw a pension?
Campaigning on a reduced Federal Government is fine. . . if you are honest about it. I see some candidates who are campaigning on "taking" the public domain from the Federal Government, but I don't see any who are campaigning on taking over the highway funding system.
Hmmmm. . . .
Nor do I see any who wish to take over the Bureau of Reclamation.
On the Bureau of Reclamation, a television advertisement is pointing out that Harriet Hageman, who is campaigning on "fighting" the Federal Government in her legal career, represented an interest which, it claims, sent Wyoming water to Colorado. I don't know the details, but that does point out the danger of using your legal career to claim you are a crusader of some point.
Some candidates seem to nearly claim they detest all government. Chances are, however, that everyone relies on something from the government, and nobody really wants anarchy, which is no government.
Indeed, it's almost as if people don't like the government to the extent that it tells they what to do, or seems to keep them from doing something, or that it impacts them financially. To the extent it benefits them. . . they're fine with it. A campaign proposition of a government of people just like me, by the people just like me, for me personally, as it were.
Last prior edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVI. The Lying edition
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVI. The Lying edition
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For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!
Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
I'm more than a little disgusted.
We're less than a month from the primary election, which will likely (maybe, a Hageman victory boost the chance of Grey Bull) decide who Wyoming's Congressman will be, will decide who the Secretary of State will be, and will decide if traditional Wyoming Republicans continue to lose ground to new far right forces in the GOP who regard anyone who doesn't think the way they do as RINO's.
But that's not the point here.
The mail is.
The other day in the mail I received a flyer. . . I've been receiving a lot of them, which when I read it shocked me. Not for the things it revealed, but because it seemed to simply be stating a major lie.
Now, since then I've had time to reconsider it, and I'll back down a bit. Perhaps it didn't contain so much in the nature of knowing falsehoods, but gross exaggerations and characterizations. In doing so, however, it crept up on being brazen enough to have gone beyond hyperbole and into fib territory. So maybe it wasn't outright lying.
I started this post after that.
Following that, I received another one from the same candidate linking the opponent's agenda to one of a despised (locally) national figure of the opposite party, suggesting they were the same.
That's a lie.
Anyone who reads this blog, and it's not as if it's a lot of people, knows that the author is Catholic. Catholics, at least sincere Catholics, take lying pretty seriously. All Christians abhor lies, at least in principle, but the nature of lying is actually something that Catholic theologians have discussed in detail beyond that which some others have. St. Thomas Aquinas regarded all lies, and by that I mean all, as sinful, varying only in the degree to which they were sinful. That position is pretty close to the generally accepted Catholic thinking on lies in general (St. Thomas' opinion is not binding on all Catholics; it's not dogma.), but there are those who hold otherwise on some exceptional grounds, such as a lie to preserve the non detection of the innocent, for example, under some circumstances.
Most average lies are probably venial in nature, but some serious ones are mortal, and some of the stuff I'm seeing out there, if done with proper contemplation of what the speaker is saying, would appear to be in that territory. I don't know the state of anyone's soul, so I'm not declaring them to be in a state of mortal sin, but I am saying that what Robert Bolt set out in his play on St. Thomas More is playing out in a different sort of way in this election. There's a lot of liberty being taken with the truth in some quarters.
And in some of these quarters things are so extreme at this point they really cross into the knowingly misleading. I'm willing to cut some slack for the misled, but not for those who, I know, know better. And self-delusion, which might at best be what is going on with at least one other candidate for state office, isn't really a defense to mistruths either.
If a person wants votes so badly that they send out flyers that depart from the truth in some fashion, that ought to give a person serious pause. Lying is a sin that becomes habitual with people who commit it, and if a person is willing to commit it to obtain office, they're likely to keep it up in office.
There is no room in my house for anyone who practices deceit; no liar will stand his ground where I can see him.
Psalm 101:7
If we support a liar, do we endorse the lies and become liars ourselves?
At some point, surely, unless we make our reasons for doing so clear in the face of the lies.
A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.
Dryden in Lawrence of Arabia.
There are really serious things going on in the world.
Serious.
Some serious things need to be done about them.
Which makes it all the more the shame that 1) television; and then 2) the Internet and finally 3) Twitter on the Internet has seemingly reduced the national legislature to a circus.
Now, there's a lot more than that causing that, and with the release of a recent New York Times article on a related topic, we'll explore it more fully shortly.
Some future generation stands likely to accuse the current ones, and it is more than one, of fiddling while Rome burned. Part of that is the repeated "hey, look at this" distraction.
For weeks, a state politician in national office went on the news to point out the price of gasoline and blame it on the President. Any economist knows that the current inflationary cycle can only be blamed partially on policies of this administration, but to hear the politician speak on it, you'd think the President was personally causing a rise in the price of gasoline
Now that they're falling, he's not giving the President credit.
Not that the President would deserve credit for that. That's independent of what him as well, but to run around blaming the President for gasoline prices and then say nothing as they fall is disengenuine.
This gets to another topic.
I'm not a co-religious with this candidate, but I am with one who ran around supporting the Arizona election fraud fantasy.
Catholics have an obligation to confess their serious sins, but for those who can rectify them, they must.
He hasn't been pointing out that Arizona's election passed muster, which was always known in the first place.
Of course, some people have deluded themselves into believing the lies. Convincing yourself that a lie is the truth as it serves your purpose, however, doesn't really get you off the hook.
RICH I’m lamenting. I’ve lost my innocence.
CROMWELL You lost that some time ago. If you’ve only just noticed, it can’t have been very important to you.
Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
In the end, in a democracy (which is what we are, once again, save the silly "oh no, we're a republic line that) gets the candidates we deserve.
If we elect liars, there's no reason to believe that they'll quit lying once they're in office. If they lied to get there, why would they?
Last Prior Thread:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXV. Griner and Russian Law, Senseless Destruction, No. 10 Cat to get new Roommate, Russia threats on Alaska, Where's the followup?
Saturday, July 23, 2022
Best Posts of the week of July 17, 2022.
Poster Saturday: "Don't miss your great opportunity"
World War Two Navy WAVES recruiting poster that looks more like a college recruiting poster, or perhaps a travel poster.
This poster is really emblematic of the era in several ways. The two young women have a very clean, 1940s appearance, with the large city behind them likewise having one. Very much how the nation saw itself at the time.
Thursday, July 23, 1942. Changing Case Blue.
Hitler ordered Case Blue extended. He was, at that time, pleased with German success at Rostov, which was taken on this day by the Germans, reinforced by a Slovak Division, but frustrated by the overall slow progress of the offensive. The new directive, number 45, changed the objectives for most of the Axis forces in the offensive.
Today in World War II History—July 23, 1942: On Kokoda Trail on New Guinea, Japanese take Awala and force Australians back toward Wairopi.
She also reports:
In Switzerland, Salvadoran consul-general Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos and Hungarian Jewish businessman George Mandel-Mantello, Castellanos’s secretary, begin forging thousands of false Salvadoran papers to send to Jews in Europe; 90% of certificate holders will survive the Holocaust
Washington, D.C., July 23, 1942
The conflict now raging throughout the earth is not a war of nation against nation. It is not a local or regional war or even a series of such wars. On the side of our enemies, led and driven by the most ambitious, depraved, and cruel leaders in history, it is an attempt to conquer and enslave this country and every country. On our side, the side of the United Nations, it is, for each of us, a life-and-death struggle for the preservation of our freedom, our homes, our very existence. We are united in our determination to destroy the worldwide forces of ruthless conquest and brutal enslavement. Their defeat will restore freedom or the opportunity for freedom alike to all countries and all people.
I
From Berlin and Tokyo the assault on human freedom has spread in ever-widening circles. In some cases the victim nations were lulled into inaction by promises or by protestations of peaceful intention. In other cases they were so intimidated that no preparation for resistance was made. In all cases the invaders, before armed attack, set into motion every conceivable device of deceit, subversion, treachery, and corruption within the borders of the intended victim.
As country after country, in Europe and in Asia, was attacked in this way, it became clear that no nation anywhere was immune, that for none was safety to be found in mere desire for peace, in avoidance of provocation, in neutrality, or in distance from the centers of assault. Nation after nation learned-too late-that safety against such an attack lay only in more effective force; in superior will; in concerted action of all free nations directed toward resisting and defeating the common enemies; in applying the law of self-defense and self-preservation rather than in relying upon professions of neutrality, which, in the face of a world-wide movement to subjugate all nations and all peoples, are as absurd and as suicidal as are such professions on the part of a citizen of a peaceful community attacked by a band of confessed outlaws.
Today twenty-eight United Nations are fighting against the would-be conquerors and enslavers of the human race. We know what is at stake. By the barbarian invaders of today nothing is spared-neither life, nor morals, nor honor, nor virtue, nor pledges, nor the customs, the national institutions, even the religion of any people. Their aim is to sweep away every vestige of individual and national rights; to substitute, the world over, their unspeakable tyranny for the ways of life developed each for itself by the various nations; to make all mankind subservient to their will; to convert the two billions of the earth's inhabitants into abject victims and tools of their insatiable lust for power and dominion.
We have seen their work in the countries they have invaded-murder of defenseless men, women, and children; rape, torture, and pillage; mass terrorization; the black system of hostages; the starvation and deprivations that beggar description; the most thorough-going bondage the world has ever seen.
This is the so-called "New Order" of Hitler and the Japanese war lords-an order as old as slavery-new only in the calculated thoroughness of its cruelty; in the depth of the degradation to which it subjects its victims; in the degree to which it has revived the worst practices of the darkest ages in history.
From time immemorial attempts at conquest and enslavement have checked and harried the great onward march of men and women toward greater freedom and higher levels of civilized existence. The methods employed have been the same as those which we witness today. Ruthless, ambitious men would succeed in corrupting, coercing, or deceiving into blind obedience enough servile followers to attack or terrify peaceful and law-abiding peoples, too often unprepared to resist. In a few instances whole civilizations collapsed under the impact, and darkness descended on large portions of the world. More often, the attacks were-at great cost-defeated, and mankind resumed its onward march. Yet throughout the ages two lessons have remained unlearned.
The first is that man's innate striving for freedom cannot be extinguished. Since the world began too many men have fought, suffered, and died for freedom-and not in vain-for doubt to remain on that score. And yet, over and over again would-be conquerors and enslavers of mankind have sought to translate their mad dreams of barbarous domination into reality.
The second lesson is that liberty is truly won only when it is guarded by the same watchfulness, the same courage, the same willingness to fight for it which first secured it. Repeatedly throughout history, free men-having won the fight, having acquired precious rights and privileges which freedom brings-have dropped their guard, relaxed their vigilance, taken their freedom for granted. They have busied themselves with many things and have not noticed the beginnings of new tyrannies, the rise of new threats to liberty. They have become so abhorrent of force and cruelty that they have believed the bully and the gangster could be reformed by reason and justice or be defeated by passive resistance. And so they have been surprised and unprepared when the attacks have come again.
It is perhaps too much to expect that tyrants will ever learn that man's longing for liberty cannot be destroyed. Dreams of conquest have their roots in diseased mentality. And that malady may well be ineradicable.
But it is not too much to expect that free men may learn-and never forget-that lack of vigilance is the greatest danger to liberty; that enjoyment of liberty is the fruit of willingness to fight, suffer, and die for it; that the right to freedom cannot be divorced from the duty of defending it.
This latest assault on human freedom is, in a profound sense, a searching test for nations and for individuals. There is no surer way for men and for nations to show themselves unworthy of liberty than, by supine submission and refusal to fight, to render more difficult the task of those who are fighting for the preservation of human freedom-unless it be to align themselves, freely and voluntarily, with the destroyers of liberty. There is no surer way for men and for nations to show themselves worthy of liberty than to fight for its preservation, in any way that is open to them, against those who would destroy it for all.
In the plans of the new tyrants of the East and of the West, there is no freedom or hope for anyone. If there be some people who believe that they can expect from Hitler or the Japanese war lords greater measure of freedom or of opportunity for freedom than they now possess, they need only look at the firing squads in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, at the concentration camps in Germany and Austria. They need only see the degradation of the forced laborers torn from every occupied country. They can learn the fraudulent quality of that brand of "freedom" from the Chinese in Nanking, from the Filipinos in Manila, from the inhabitants of the East Indies.
There is no chance for liberty for any people anywhere save through the victory of the free peoples. Never did a plainer duty to fight against its foes devolve upon all peoples who prize liberty and all who aspire to it. Never was there such an opportunity for every people, as have the people of the Philippines, to demonstrate its fitness both for the rights and the responsibilities of freedom-and, through proof given of its fitness, to create an overwhelming sentiment in every country of the world in support of its striving for liberty.
II
We, Americans, are fighting today because we have been attacked. We are fighting, as I have said, to preserve our very existence. We and the other free peoples are forced into a desperate fight because we did not learn the lessons of which I have spoken. We are forced to fight because we ignored the simple but fundamental fact that the price of peace and of the preservation of right and freedom among nations is the acceptance of international responsibilities.
After the last war too many nations, including our own, tolerated, or participated in, attempts to advance their own interests at the expense of any system of collective security and of opportunity for all. Too many of us were blind to the evils which, thus loosed, created growing cancers within and among nations-political suspicions and hatreds; the race of armaments, first stealthy and then the subject of flagrant boasts; economic nationalism and its train of economic depression and misery; and finally the emergence from their dark places of the looters and thugs who found their opportunity in disorder and disaster. The shadow of a new war fell across the world. War began in 1931 when Japan invaded China.
From the time when the first signs of menace to the peace of the world appeared on the horizon, the Government of the United States strove increasingly to promote peace on the solid foundation of law, justice, non-intervention, non-aggression, and international collaboration. With growing insistence we advocated the principles of a broad and constructive world order in political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual relations among nations-principles which must constitute the foundation of any satisfactory future world order. We practiced these principles in our good-neighbor policy, which was applicable to every part of the earth and which we sought to apply not alone in the Western Hemisphere, but in the Pacific area, in Europe, and everywhere else as well.
When hostilities broke out and wars were declared, our Government made every honorable and feasible effort to prevent spread of the conflicts and to safeguard this country against being drawn into war. But danger increased all around us. Peaceful unoffending countries, one after another, were brought under the heel of the invader, both in Europe and in Asia. Hitler and the Japanese war lords, by their acts and their official declarations have made it plain that the purpose of the Japanese is to conquer and dominate virtually one-half of the world with one-half of its population, while Hitler's purpose is, first to conquer continental Europe, and then to seize the British Isles, and through control of the British fleet to dominate the seven seas.
Events have demonstrated beyond question that each of the Axis powers was bent on unlimited conquest. As time went on it became manifest that the United States and the whole Western Hemisphere were ultimate targets. Conclusive proof was given by the international desperadoes themselves through the publication on September 27, 1940 of the Tripartite Pact. By that treaty of alliance Germany, Japan and Italy in effect agreed that, if any country not then at war with one of them placed obstacles in the way of the program of conquest of any of them, the three would unite in political, military, and economic action against that country. This provision was aimed directly at the United States. One of the highest official spokesmen of the Axis powers openly proclaimed that the objective of the three partners was a new world order to be achieved by force.
Finally a realization that these plans and purposes created a state of imminent and acute danger to all remaining peaceful countries, especially to those of the Western Hemisphere, forced us to face the all-important question as to when and where the peaceful nations, including ours, should begin to resist the movements of military aggression in order to make such resistance most effective.
It was in these circumstances that our Government felt the compelling importance of adopting the policy of aid to Great Britain and to other nations which resisted aggression, as set forth in the Lease-Lend Act, submitted to Congress in January 1941. It is scarcely necessary to say that all subsequent utterances and acts of the leaders of Germany, Japan, and Italy have fully confirmed the wisdom and timeliness of the policy of this Government in thus proceeding to defend the country before it should be too late.
In December 1941, acting in concert, moving in harmony with their world-wide objective, all three launched their assault against us, the spearhead of which was at Pearl Harbor, reasoning that to achieve victory they must conquer us, and to conquer us they must strike before we were prepared to resist successfully.
When they made this concerted attack against us, the war lords of Japan and Germany must have believed that at the root of our sincere and strong desire for peace lay a lack of will and of capacity to rise in unity of purpose and to pour all our strength and energy into the battle. They have since begun to learn better at Wake and at Midway; at Bataan and at Corregidor; in the Straits of Macassar and in the Coral Sea; from the sky over Tokyo itself; again at Midway; on and over every ocean of the world traversed by our air fleets and our naval and merchant vessels; on every battlefield of the world increasingly supplied with our war materials. They will have final and conclusive answer from our expanding armies, navies, and air forces, operating side by side with our valiant allies and backed by our nation-wide industrial power and the courage, the determination, and the ingenuity of our people. That answer is being forged in the fighting spirit which now pervades the people of this country, in the will to victory of all the United Nations.
In this vast struggle, we, Americans, stand united with those who, like ourselves, are fighting for the preservation of their freedom; with those who are fighting to regain the freedom of which they have been brutally deprived; with those who are fighting for the opportunity to achieve freedom.
We have always believed-and we believe today-that all peoples, without distinction of race, color, or religion, who are prepared and willing to accept the responsibilities of liberty, are entitled to its enjoyment. We have always sought-and we seek today-to encourage and aid all who aspire to freedom to establish their right to it by preparing themselves to assume its obligations. We have striven to meet squarely our own responsibility in this respect-in Cuba, in the Philippines, and wherever else it has devolved upon us. It has been our purpose in the past-and will remain our purpose in the future-to use the full measure of our influence to support attainment of freedom by all peoples who, by their acts, show themselves worthy of it and ready for it.
We, who have received from the preceding generations the priceless fruits of the centuries-old struggle for liberty, freely accept today the sacrifices which may be needed to pass on to our children an even greater heritage.
Our enemies confront us with armed might in every part of the globe. We cannot win this war by standing at our borders and limiting ourselves to beating off attacks. Air, submarine, and other forms of assault can be effectively defeated only if those attacked seek out and destroy the sources of attack. We shall send all the aid that we can to our gallant allies. And we shall seek out our enemies and attack them at any and every point of the globe at which the destruction of the Axis forces can be accomplished most effectively, most speedily, and most certainly.
We know the magnitude of the task before us. We know that its accomplishment will exact unlimited effort and unfaltering courage. However long the road we shall press on to the final victory.
Temporary reverses must not and will not be the occasion for weakness and discouragement. On the contrary, they are the signal for all true soldiers and patriots to strike back all the harder, with that superb resolution which never yields to force or threat of force.
Fighting as we are in self-defense, in self-preservation, we must make certain the defeat and destruction of the world-invading forces of Hitler and the Japanese war lords. To do this our people and the peoples of every one of the twenty-eight United Nations must make up their minds to sacrifice time and substance and life itself to an extent unprecedented in past history.
International desperadoes like individual bandits will not abandon outlawry voluntarily. They will only be stopped by force.
III
With victory achieved our first concern must be for those whose sufferings have been almost beyond human endurance. When the armies of our enemies are beaten, the people of many countries will be starving and without means of producing food; homeless and without means of building shelter; their fields scorched; their cattle slaughtered; their tools gone; their factories and mines destroyed; their roads and transport wrecked. Unknown millions will be far from their homes-prisoners of war, inmates of concentration camps, forced laborers in alien lands, refugees from battle, from cruelty, from starvation. Disease and danger of disease will lurk everywhere. In some countries confusion and chaos will follow the cessation of hostilities. Victory must be followed by swift and effective action to meet these pressing human needs.
At the same time all countries-those which will need relief and those more fortunate-will be faced with the immediate problems of transition from war to peace. War production must be transformed into production for the peacetime needs of man-kind. In some countries the physical ravages of war must be repaired. In others, agriculture must be re-established. In all countries returning soldiers must find places in the work of peace. There will be enormous deficiencies of many kinds of goods. All countries, including ours, will need an immense volume of production. There will, therefore, exist vast opportunities for useful employment. The termination of the war effort will release, for use in peaceful pursuits, stirring enthusiasms, the aspirations and energies of youth, technical experience, and-in many industries-ample plants and abundance of tools. The compelling demands of war are revealing how great a supply of goods can be produced for national defense. The needs of peace should be no less compelling, though some of the means of meeting them must be different. Toward meeting these needs each and every nation should intensively direct its efforts to the creation of an abundance for peacetime life. This can only be achieved by a combination of the efforts of individuals, the efforts of groups, and the efforts of nations. Governments can and must help to focus the energies by encouraging, coordinating, and aiding the efforts of individuals and groups.
During this period of transition the United Nations must continue to act in the spirit of cooperation which now underlies their war effort-to supplement and make more effective the action of countries individually in re-establishing public order, in providing swift relief, in meeting the manifold problems of readjustment.
Beyond these there will lie before all countries the great constructive task of building human freedom and Christian morality on firmer and broader foundations than ever before. This task, too, will of necessity call for both national and international action.
Within each nation liberty under law is an essential requirement of progress. The spirit of liberty, when deeply imbedded in the minds and hearts of the people, is the most powerful remedy for racial animosities, religious intolerance, ignorance, and all the other evils which prevent men from uniting in a brotherhood of truly civilized existence. It inspires men to acquisition of knowledge and understanding. It is the only real foundation of political and social stability.
Liberty is more than a matter of political rights, indispensable as those rights are. In our own country we have learned from bitter experience that to be truly free, men must have, as well, economic freedom and economic security-the assurance for all alike of an opportunity to work as free men in the company of free men; to obtain through work the material and spiritual means of life; to advance through the exercise of ability, initiative, and enterprise; to make provision against the hazards of human existence. We know that this is true of mankind everywhere. We know that in all countries there has been-and there will be increasingly in the future-demand for a forward movement of social justice. Each of us must be resolved that, once the war is won, this demand shall be met as speedily and as fully as possible.
All these advances-in political freedom, in economic betterment, in social justice, in spiritual values-can be achieved by each nation primarily through its own work and effort, mainly through its own wise policies and actions. They can be made only where there is acceptance and cultivation of the concepts and the spirit of human rights and human freedom. It is impossible for any nation or group of nations to prescribe the methods or provide the means by which any other nation can accomplish or maintain its own political and economic independence, be strong, prosper, and attain high spiritual goals. It is possible, however, for all nations to give and to receive help.
That which nations can and must do toward helping one another is to take, by cooperative action, steps for the elimination of impediments and obstructions which prevent the full use by each-for the welfare of its people-of the energy and resources which are at its command. And the nations can and must, again by cooperative action under common agreement, create such facilities as will enable each to increase the effectiveness of its own national efforts.
Such cooperative action is already under way. Twenty-eight United Nations have proclaimed their adherence to a program of principles and purposes by which mankind may advance toward higher standards of national and international conduct. That program is embodied in the Declaration made on August 14, 1941, by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, now known as the Atlantic Charter.
The pledge of the Atlantic Charter is of a system which will give every nation, large or small, a greater assurance of stable peace, greater opportunity for the realization of its aspirations to freedom, and greater facilities for material advancement. But that pledge implies an obligation for each nation to demonstrate its capacity for stable and progressive government, to fulfill scrupulously its established duties to other nations, to settle its international differences and disputes by none but peaceful methods, and to make its full contribution to the maintenance of enduring peace.
IV
For decades all nations have lived in the shadow of threatened coercion or war. This has imposed heavy burdens of armament, which in the cases of many nations has absorbed so large a part of their production effort as to leave the remainder of their resources inadequate for maintaining, let alone improving, the economic, social, and cultural standards of their people. Closely related to this has been a burden less obvious but of immense weight-the inevitable limitation that fear of war imposes on productive activity. Many men, groups of men, and even nations have dared not plan, create, or increase the means of production, fearing lest war come and their efforts thus be rendered in vain.
No nation can make satisfactory progress while its citizens are in the grip of constant fear of external attack or interference. It is plain that some international agency must be created which can-by force, if necessary-keep the peace among nations in the future. There must be international cooperative action to set up the mechanisms which can thus insure peace. This must include eventual adjustment of national armaments in such a manner that the rule of law cannot be successfully challenged and that the burden of armaments may be reduced to a minimum.
In the creation of such mechanisms there would be a practical and purposeful application of sovereign powers through measures of international cooperation for purposes of safeguarding the peace. Participation by all nations in such measures would be for each its contribution toward its own future security and safety from outside attack.
Settlement of disputes by peaceful means, and indeed all processes of international cooperation, presuppose respect for law and obligations. It is plain that one of the institutions which must be established and be given vitality is an international court of justice. It is equally clear that, in the process of re-establishing international order, the United Nations must exercise surveillance over aggressor nations until such time as the latter demonstrate their willingness and ability to live at peace with other nations. How long such surveillance will need to continue must depend upon the rapidity with which the peoples of Germany, Japan, Italy, and their satellites give convincing proof that they have repudiated and abandoned the monstrous philosophy of superior race and conquest by force and have embraced loyally the basic principles of peaceful processes. During the formative period of the world organization, interruption by these aggressors must be rendered impossible.
One of the greatest of all obstacles which in the past have impeded human progress and afforded breeding grounds for dictators has been extreme nationalism. All will agree that nationalism and its spirit are essential to the healthy and normal political and economic life of a people, but when policies of nationalism-political, economic, social, and moral-are carried to such extremes as to exclude and prevent necessary policies of international cooperation, they become dangerous and deadly. Nationalism, run riot between the last war and this war, defeated all attempts to carry out indispensable measures of international economic and political action, encouraged and facilitated the rise of dictators, and drove the world straight toward the present war.
During this period narrow and short-sighted nationalism found its most virulent expression in the economic field. It prevented goods and services from flowing in volume at all adequate from nation to nation and thus severely hampered the work of production, distribution and consumption, and greatly retarded efforts for social betterment.
No nation can make satisfactory progress when it is deprived, by its own action or by the action of others, of the immeasurable benefits of international exchange of goods and services. The Atlantic Charter declares the right of all nations to "access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity." This is essential if the legitimate and growing demand for the greatest practicable measure of stable employment is to be met, accompanied by rising standards of living. If the actual and potential losses resulting from limitations on economic activity are to be eliminated, a system must be provided by which this can be assured.
In order to accomplish this, and to establish among the nations a circle of mutual benefit, excessive trade barriers of the many different kinds must be reduced, and practices which impose injuries on others and divert trade from its natural economic course must be avoided. Equally plain is the need for making national currencies once more freely exchangeable for each other at stable rates of exchange; for a system of financial relations so devised that materials can be produced and ways may be found of moving them where there are markets created by human need; for machinery through which capital may-for the development of the world's resources and for the stabilization of economic activity-move on equitable terms from financially stronger to financially weaker countries. There may be need for some special trade arrangement and for international agreements to handle difficult surplus problems and to meet situations in special areas.
These are only some of the things that nations can attempt to do as continuous discussion and experience instruct the judgment. There are bound to be many others. But the new policies should always be guided by cautious and sound judgment lest we make new mistakes in place of old ones and create new conflicts.
Building for the future in the economic sphere thus means that each nation must give substance and reality to programs of social and economic progress by augmenting production and using the greater output for the increase of general welfare; but not permitting it to be diverted or checked by special interests, private or public. It also means that each nation must play its full part in a system of world relations designed to facilitate the production and movement of goods in response to human needs.
With peace among nations reasonably assured, with political stability established, with economic shackles removed, a vast fund of resources will be released in each nation to meet the needs of progress, to make possible for all of its citizens an advancement toward higher living standards, to invigorate the constructive forces of initiative and enterprise. The nations of the world will then be able to go forward in the manner of their own choosing in all avenues of human betterment more completely than they ever have been able to do in the past. They will do so through their own efforts and with complete self-respect. Continuous self-development of nations and individuals in a framework of effective cooperation with others is the sound and logical road to the higher standards of life which we all crave and seek.
No nation will find this easy. Neither victory nor any form of post-war settlement will of itself create a millennium. Rather we shall be offered an opportunity to eliminate vast obstacles and wastes, to make available additional means of advancing national and international standards, to create new facilities whereby the natural resources of the earth and the products of human hands and brains can be more effectively utilized for the promotion of human welfare.
To make full use of this opportunity, we must be resolved not alone to proclaim the blessings and benefits which we all alike desire for humanity but to find the mechanisms by which they may be most fully and most speedily attained and be most effectively safeguarded.
The manifold tasks that lie ahead will not be accomplished overnight. There will be need for plans, developed with careful consideration and carried forward boldly and vigorously. The vision, the resolution, and the skill with which the conditions of peace will be established and developed after the war will be as much a measure of man's capacity for freedom and progress as the fervor and determination which men show in winning the victory.
Without impediment to the fullest prosecution of the war-indeed for its most effective prosecution-the United Nations should from time to time, as they did in adopting the Atlantic Charter, formulate and proclaim their common views regarding fundamental policies which will chart for mankind a wise course based on enduring spiritual values. In support of such policies an informed public opinion must be developed. This is a task of intensive study, hard thinking, broad vision, and leadership-not for governments alone, but for parents, and teachers, and clergymen, and all those, within each nation, who provide spiritual, moral, and intellectual guidance. Never did so great and so compelling a duty in this respect devolve upon those who are in positions of responsibility, public and private.
V
For the immediate present the all-important issue is that of winning the war-winning it as soon as possible and winning it decisively. Into that we must put our utmost effort-now and every day until victory is won.
A bitter armed attack on human freedom has aroused mankind to new heights of courage, determination, and moral strength. It has evoked a spirit of work, sacrifice, and cooperative effort. With that strength and with that spirit we shall win.