Department of State Bulletin, voi. II, p. 681

172

Press Release Issued by the Department of State on June 19, 1940 The Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, on June 17 instructed the American Chargé at Berlin and the American Ambassador at Rome to send in writing to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Italy, respectively, the following communication in the name of the Government of the United States:

"The Government of the United States is informed that the Government of France has requested of the German Government the terms of an armistice.

"The Government of the United States feels it desirable, in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding, to inform Your Excellency that in accordance with its traditional policy relating to the Western Hemisphere, the United States would not recognize any transfer, and would not acquiesce in any attempt to transfer, any geographic region of the Western Hemisphere from one non-American power to another non-American power.55

"I avail myself [etc.]"

Subsequently the Senate and the House of Representatives adopted a joint resolution (55 Stat. 133) reading as follows:

Whereas our traditional policy has been to consider any attempt on the part of non-American powers to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to the peace and safety not only of this country but of the other American republics; and Whereas the American republics agreed at the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace held in Buenos Aires in 1936 and at the Eighth International Conference of American States held in Lima in 1938 to consult with one another in the event that the peace, security, or territorial integrity of any American republic should be threatened; and Whereas the Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the American Republics at Panama October 3, 1939, resolved "That in case any geographic region of America subject to the jurisdiction of any non-American state should be obliged to change its sovereignty and there should result therefrom a danger to the security of the American Continent, a consultative meeting such as the one now being held will be convoked with the urgency that the case may require": Therefore be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (1) That the United States would not recognize any transfer, and would not acquiesce in any attempt to transfer, any geographic region of this hemisphere from one non-American power to another nonAmerican power; and

(2) That if such transfer or attempt to transfer should appear likely, the United States shall, in addition to other measures, immediately consult with the other American republics to determine upon the steps which should be taken to safeguard their common interests.

Approved, April 10, 1941.

The Governments of France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands have been informed in the same sense.

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Department of State Bulletin, vol. II, p. 683

Address Delivered by the Secretary of State at Harvard University, June 20, 1940

I am deeply conscious of the honor which was conferred on me this morning. I am happy to visit this magnificent campus. From it, throughout our country's national existence, generations of leaders have gone to every corner of the land bearing the torch of truth and of humanity. There is no more fitting site from which to survey the great problems and issues that now confront this Nation.

These are black days for the human race. These are ominous days for us in this country.

There are at work in the world today powerful forces the significance of which no individual and no nation can ignore without falling into a position of the gravest danger and of the utmost jeopardy. These forces are not new in the experience of mankind. They rose on many occasions in the past and, for varying periods and with varying intensity, held sway over human affairs. They spring today from the same source from which they have always sprung in the past-from godless and soulless lust for power which seeks to hold men in physical slavery and spiritual degradation and to displace a system of peaceful and orderly relations among nations by the anarchy of wanton violence and brute force.

Fortunately, these forces have not triumphed in every instance in which they have challenged human freedom and interrupted the advance of civilization. There are times in the lives of individuals and of nations when realization of mortal peril, far from making men recoil in horror and defeat, strengthens and ennobles the soul, gives indomitability to will and to courage, and leads to victory through suffering and sacrifice. History records many heartening instances when in this manner the forces of conquest, violence, and oppression were hurled back, and the onward march of civilized man was resumed.

Never before have these forces flung so powerful a challenge to freedom and civilized progress as they are flinging today. Never before has there been a more desperate need for men and nations who love freedom and cherish the tenets of modern civilization, to gather into an unconquerable defensive force every element of their spiritual

and material resources, every ounce of their moral and physical strength.

We, Americans of today, have behind us a century and a half of national existence, to which we point, with justifiable pride, as a successful experiment in democracy and human freedom. That experiment began when a resplendent generation of Americans resolved to stake on its success their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. With unshakable faith in their cause and an unswerving determination to make it prevail, they risked their all for the creation of a nation in which each citizen would have-as his inalienable rights-liberty under law, equality of opportunity, freedom of thought and of conscience. Those Americans believed unreservedly that in a nation founded upon these great principles, the people could enjoy indi- . vidually a far greater measure of well-being and happiness than is possible under any other form of political and social organization, and could achieve collectively a degree of internal strength and unity of purpose necessary to insure for the Nation itself the inalienable right to manage its own affairs solely by the will of its own people.

A century and a half of active and, at times, tumultuous history have vindicated this faith.. The Nation which that generation of Americans founded lives today and has grown great and powerful beyond the fondest dreams of its founders. This has come about because, through the stresses and strains of internal adjustment and external conflict, succeeding generations of Americans have never faltered in their devotion to that faith and have rededicated themselves to it, freely and reverently; because in each generation there was sufficient resoluteness of spirit, tenacity of purpose, moral and physical courage, and capacity for unselfish sacrifice to accept individual and collective responsibility for the preservation of the principles upon which this Nation was founded and upon which it has built its way of life.

Our American history has not been achieved in isolation from the rest of mankind; there is no more dangerous folly than to think that its achievements can be preserved in isolation. It has been a part of a vast movement-in the Old World, as well as the New-which has opened new vistas in the destiny of man; which has carried human progress to new and exalted heights; which has, through scientific attainment, lessened the tyranny over man of the blind forces of nature; which, as never before, has expanded for the human race as a whole the opportunity for freedom of mind and of spirit. To this great stream of new ideas, new attainments, new cultural values, we have made our contribution; and we ourselves, in turn, have been nourished by it.

The massed forces of lust for tyrannical power are directed today against the very bases of the way of life which has come to be the cherished ideal of a preponderant majority of mankind—against the moral, spiritual, social, political, and economic foundations of modern civilization. Nation after nation has been crushed into surrender, overrun and enslaved by the exercise of brute force combined with fraud and guile. And as the dismal darkness descends upon more and more of the earth's surface, as its menacing shadow falls blacker and blacker athwart our continent, the very instinct of self-preservation bids us beware.

We have the power to meet that menace successfully, if we, at this time, face the task which is before us in the same spirit in which former generations of Americans met the crises that confronted them in their times. We need material means of defense. These means we are determined to create, and we are creating them. But more than that is needed.

Men will defend to the utmost only things in which they have complete faith. Those who took part in the struggle by which freedom was won for this Nation would have found its hardships unbearable if they had not been imbued with transcendent faith in the things for which they fought. The task of preserving and defending freedom requires at times as stern and determined a struggle as the task of achieving freedom, and as firm a faith.

No more vital test has ever confronted the American people than that which confronts it today. There are difficult and dangerous times ahead. Our national independence and our cherished institutions are not immune from the challenge of the lust for power that already stalks so much of the earth's surface. Unprecedented effort and heavy sacrifices will be required of us as the price of preserving, for ourselves and for our posterity, the kind of America that has been fostered and preserved for us by the vigilance, courage, and sacrifice. of those who preceded us. We shall succeed if we retain unimpaired the most precious heritage which they bequeathed us-an unshakable faith in the everlasting worth of freedom and honor, of truth and justice, of intellectual and spiritual integrity; and an immutable determination to give our all, if need be, for the preservation of our way of life.

Without that faith and that determination, no material means of defense will suffice. With them, we need fear no enemy outside or within our borders.

In times of grave crises, there are always some who fall a prey to doubt and unreasoning fear; some who seek refuge in cynicism and

narrow self-interest; some who wrap themselves in the treacherous cloak of complacency. All these are dangers that lie within us. All these impair the faith and weaken the determination without which freedom cannot prevail.

Each and every one of us must search his mind and his heart for these signs of fatal weakness. The stern realities of the crisis which is upon us call, as never before, for vision and for loyalty. They call for all the strength of hand, of mind, and of spirit that we can muster. They call for self-reliance, for self-restraint, for self-imposed and freely accepted discipline. They call for the kind of national unity that can be achieved only by free men, invincible in their resolve that human freedom must not perish. They call for unselfish service today if we are to win through to a secure and bright tomorrow.

A responsibility seldom equalled in gravity and danger rests upon each and every one of us. Neglect or delay in assuming it, willingly and fully, would place in mortal danger our way of life and the sacred cause of human freedom. Were we to fail in that responsibility, we would fail ourselves; we would fail the generations that went before us; we would fail the generations that are to come after us; we would fail mankind; we would fail God.

I am supremely confident that we shall not fail. I am certain that in the minds and hearts of our people still-still-lie welling springs— inexhaustible and indestructible-of faith in the things we cherish, of courage and determination to defend them, of sacrificial devotion, of unbreakable unity of purpose. I am certain that, however great the hardships and the trials which loom ahead, our America will endure and the cause of human freedom will triumph.

174

711.94/1581

Memorandum by the Secretary of State Regarding a Conversation With The British Ambassador (Lothian) and the Australian Minister (Casey)

[Extracts]

[WASHINGTON,] June 28, 1940.

I said that this country has been progressively bringing economic pressure to bear on Japan since last summer, now a year, and I enumerated the different steps and methods, which are familiar to all, and added that our fleet is now somewhere in the Pacific near Hawaii. I said that we have and are doing everything possible short of a serious