supplies to Britain.

All additional measures necessary to deliver the goods will be taken. Any and all further methods or combination of methods, which can or should be utilized, are being devised by our military and naval technicians, who, with me, will work out and put into effect such new and additional safeguards as may be needed.

The delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative. This can be done; it must be done; it will be done.

To the other American nations-20 republics and the Dominion of Canada-I say this: The United States does not merely propose these purposes, but is actively engaged today in carrying them out.

I say to them further: You may disregard those few citizens of the United States who contend that we are disunited and cannot act. There are some timid ones among us who say that we must preserve peace at any price-lest we lose our liberties forever. To them I say: Never in the history of the world has a nation lost its democracy by a successful struggle to defend its democracy. We must not be defeated by the fear of the very danger which we are preparing to resist. Our freedom has shown its ability to survive war, but it would never survive surrender. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

There is, of course, a small group of sincere, patriotic men and women whose real passion for peace has shut their eyes to the ugly realities of international banditry and to the need to resist it at all costs. I am sure they are embarrassed by the sinister support they are receiving from the enemies of democracy in our midst the Bundists and Fascists and Communists and every group devoted to bigotry and racial and religious intolerance. It is no mere coincidence that all the arguments put forward by these enemies of democracy-all their attempts to confuse and divide our people and to destroy public confidence in our Government-all their defeatist forebodings that Britain and democracy are already beaten-all their selfish promises that we can "do business" with Hitler-all of these are but echoes of the words that have been poured out from the Axis bureaus of propaganda. Those same words have been used before in other countries-to scare them, to divide them, to soften them up. Invariably, those same words have formed the advance guard of physical attack.

Your Government has the right to expect of all citizens that they take loyal part in the common work of our common defensetake loyal part from this moment forward.

I have recently set up the machinery for civilian defense. It will rapidly organize, locality by locality. It will depend on the

organized effort of men and women everywhere. All will have responsibilities to fulfil.

Defense today means more than merely fighting. It means morale, civilian as well as military; it means using every available resource; it means enlarging every useful plant. It means the use of a greater American common sense in discarding rumor and distorted statement. It means recognizing, for what they are, racketeers and fifth columnists, who are the incendiary bombs of the moment.

All of us know that we have made very great social progress in recent years. We propose to maintain that progress and strengthen it. When the Nation is threatened from without, however, as it is today, the actual production and transportation of the machinery of defense must not be interrupted by disputes between capital and capital, labor and labor, or capital and labor. The future of all free enterprise-of capital and labor alike—is at stake.

This is no time for capital to make, or be allowed to retain, excess profits. Articles of defense must have undisputed right-of-way in every industrial plant in the country.

A nation-wide machinery for conciliation and mediation of industrial disputes has been set up. That machinery must be used promptly-and without stoppage of work. Collective bargaining will be retained, but the American people expect that impartial recommendations of our Government services will be followed both by capital and by labor.

The overwhelming majority of our citizens expect their Government to see that the tools of defense are built; and for the very purpose of preserving the democratic safeguards of both labor and management, this Government is determined to use all of its power to express the will of its people and to prevent interference with the production of materials essential to our Nation's security. Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom-between pagan brutality and the Chrisitian ideal. We choose human freedom-which is the Christian ideal.

No one of us can waver for a moment in his courage or his faith. We will not accept a Hitler-dominated world. And we will not accept a world, like the post-war world of the 1920's, in which the seeds of Hitlerism can again be planted and allowed to grow.

We will accept only a world consecrated to freedom of speech and expression-freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-freedom from want-and freedom from terrorism.

Is such a world impossible of attainment?

Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitu

tion of the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation, and every other milestone in human progress-all were ideals which seemed impossible of attainment, yet they were attained.

As a military force, we were weak when we established our independence, but we successfully stood off tyrants, powerful in their day, who are now lost in the dust of history.

Odds meant nothing to us then. Shall we now, with all our potential strength, hesitate to take every single measure necessary to maintain our American liberties?

Our people and our Government will not hesitate to meet that challenge.

As the President of a united and determined people, I say solemnly: We reassert the ancient American doctrine of freedom of the seas. We reassert the solidarity of the 21 American republics and the Dominion of Canada in the preservation of the independence of the hemisphere.

We have pledged material support to the other democracies of the world-and we will fulfil that pledge.

We in the Americas will decide for ourselves whether and when and where our American interests are attacked or our security threatened. We are placing our armed forces in strategic military position. We will not hesitate to use our armed forces to repel attack.

We reassert our abiding faith in the vitality of our constitutional republic as a perpetual home of freedom, of tolerance, and of devotion to the Word of God.

Therefore, with profound consciousness of my responsibilities to my countrymen and to my country's cause, I have tonight issued a proclamation that an unlimited national emergency exists and requires the strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority.

The Nation will expect all individuals and all groups to play their full parts without stint and without selfishness and without doubt that our democracy will triumphantly survive.

I repeat the words of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence-that little band of patriots, fighting long ago against overwhelming odds, but certain, as are we, of ultimate victory: "With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Department of State Bulletin, vol. IV, p. 681

211

Statement by the Secretary of State at a Press Conference,
June 5, 1941

We have received some preliminary reports from Ambassador Leahy. Frankly we are very much concerned about the situation which seems to be growing up. As you know, we have throughout our history been sympathetic to the true aspirations of France. We have fought beside her. Her cause has been our cause. The principles of free, representative government by the people have been the bases of the democratic institutions of both of our countries.

In her present difficult situation we have given concrete evidence of our sympathetic friendship and thought for the well-being of the French people and the French Empire.

We have continued to maintain full and friendly diplomatic relations with the French Government at Vichy and have received its emissaries freely in this country. We have given the fullest and most sympathetic consideration to financial problems connected with the maintenance of French establishments, not only in this hemisphere but in the Far East, both diplomatic and semi-official services.

We have, through Admiral Leahy, the American Ambassador at Vichy, consistently conveyed to the French Government our understanding of the difficulties of their position and our determination to be of every assistance we could in solving their problems for the ultimate benefit of the French people. We have made clear to the French Government that a basic policy of this Government was to aid Great Britain in her defense against those same forces of conquest which had invaded and are subjugating France.

We have aided in the furnishing of foodstuffs for unoccupied France, and children's supplies are now being distributed through the American Red Cross, and we had planned the continuation of these services. We have facilitated the passage of ships from this hemisphere to France's African colonies.

We have collaborated with the other American republics as well as with the French Government in safeguarding the welfare and maintaining the integrity of the French possessions in the Western Hemisphere.

In collaboration with the French Government we have arranged for the maintenance of the economic stability of the French North African territories by providing facilities for increasing trade and the purchase from us of commodities urgently needed by the people of North Africa

with a view to maintaining their previous status as an integral part of the French Empire.

Happily, whenever such action was necessary, Ambassador Leahy has been able to assure the Vichy Government that this Nation had no other interest in any territories of the French Empire than their preservation for the French people.

We have given the most sympathetic consideration to the financial problems arising out of the freezing of French funds.

It has been the determined policy of this Government to continue friendly and helpful cooperation with France in the present difficult situation, in which its action is restricted and limited by the terms of its armistice with Germany and Italy. This policy has been based upon assurances by the French Government that there was no intention on its part to exceed the strict limitations imposed by those terms.

It would seem scarcely believable that the French Government at Vichy should adopt the policy of collaboration with other powers for the purpose of aggression and oppression, despite indications appearing in our preliminary reports. Such action would not only be yielding priceless rights and interests beyond the requirements of a harsh armistice but it would at once place France in substantial political and military subservience and would also make her, in part, the instrument of aggression against many other peoples and nations. This could only be utterly inimical to the just rights of other countries, to say nothing of its ultimate effects on the liberties, the true interests, and the welfare of the people of France.

We are therefore undertaking as speedily as possible to assemble every material fact and circumstance calculated to shed light on this alleged course of the French Government.

Department of State Bulletin, vol. IV, p. 741

212

Message of President Roosevelt to the Congress, June 20, 1941

I am under the necessity of bringing to the attention of the Congress the ruthless sinking by a German submarine on May 21 of an American ship, the Robin Moor, in the South Atlantic Ocean (25°40′ West, 6°10′ North) while the vessel was on the high seas en route to South Africa.

According to the formal depositions of survivors the vessel was sunk within 30 minutes from the time of the first warning given by the Commander of the submarine to an officer of the Robin Moor.