I say to you solemnly that if Hitler's present military plans are brought to successful fulfilment, we Americans shall be forced to fight in defense of our own homes and our own freedom in a war as costly and as devastating as that which now rages on the Russian front.

Hitler has offered a challenge which we as Americans cannot and will not tolerate.

We will not let Hitler prescribe the waters of the world on which our ships may travel. The American flag is not going to be driven. from the seas either by his submarines, his airplanes, or his threats.

We cannot permit the affirmative defense of our rights to be annulled and diluted by sections of the Neutrality Act which have no realism in the light of unscrupulous ambition of madmen.

We Americans have determined our course.

We intend to maintain the security and the integrity and the honor of our country.

We intend to maintain the policy of protecting the freedom of the seas against domination by any foreign power which has become crazed with a desire to control the world. We shall do so with all our strength and all our heart and all our mind.

Department of State Bulletin, vol. V, p. 307

243

Statement by the Secretary of State Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, October 21, 1941

The progress of events, and particularly of military and naval operations beyond and on the seas, makes it advisable and urgent that the Congress grant full authority to take certain measures which are plainly essential for the defense of the United States. It is imperative now to exercise what Elihu Root in 1914 called "the right of every sovereign state to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself".

Such a condition of affairs now impends. Unless it is promptly dealt with, efforts at self-defense may come too late.

The paramount principle of national policy is the preservation of the safety and security of the Nation. The highest right flowing from that principle is the right of self-defense. That right must now be invoked. The key to that defense under present conditions is to prevent Hitler from gaining control of the seas.

On October 26, 1940, I said:

"Should the would-be conquerors gain control of other continents, they would next concentrate on perfecting their control of the seas, of the air over the seas, and of the world's economy; they might then be able with ships and with planes to strike at the communication lines, the commerce, and the life of this hemisphere; and ultimately we might find ourselves compelled to fight on our own soil, under our own skies, in defense of our independence and our very lives."

In the year which has ensued, Hitler and his satellites have extended their military occupation to most of the Continent of Europe. They are already seeking control of the sea. They have attacked American vessels, contrary to all law, in widely separated areas; particularly they are now trying to sever the sea lanes which link the United States to the remaining free peoples. Hitler under his policy of intimidation and frightfulness has in effect given notice that American lives and American ships, no less than the lives and ships of other nations, will be destroyed if they are found in most of the north Atlantic Ocean. In the presence of threats and acts by an outlaw nation, there arises the right, and there is imposed the duty, of prompt and determined defense. Our ships and men are legitimately sailing the seas. The outlaw who preaches and practices indiscriminate, terroristic attack in pursuit of world-conquest is estopped to invoke any law if lawabiding nations act to defend themselves.

The conviction that the Atlantic approaches to the Western Hemisphere are under attack no longer rests on inference. The attack is continuous; there is reason to believe that it will steadily increase in strength and intensity.

When the Neutrality Act of 1939 was passed, we went far in foregoing the exercise of certain rights by our citizens in time of foreign war. This was for the purpose of avoiding incidents such as those that confronted our Government during the first World War as a result of unrestricted German-submarine warfare. But there was no waiving of our right to take the fullest measures needed for self-defense on land and sea if the tide of conquest should move in our direction.

The tide has so moved. The course of the present war has altered the picture completely. Certain provisions of the existing legislation under the changed circumstances now handicap our necessary work of self-defense and stand squarely in the way of our national safety.

The Congress has recognized the change in circumstances and has passed the Lend-Lease Act. It thereby determined that the efforts of those nations which are actively resisting aggression are important and necessary to the safety of the United States. It approved, as a

necessary measure of defense, the fullest support to nations which are in the front line of resistance to a movement of world-conquest more ruthless in execution and more hideous in effects than any other such movement of all time. An indispensable part of our policy must be resolute self-defense on the high seas, and this calls especially for protection of shipping on open sea lanes.

One of the greatest mistakes that we could possibly make would be to base our policy upon an assumption that we are secure, when, if the assumption should prove erroneous, the fact of having so acted would lay us completely open to hostile invasion.

When American ships are being wantonly and unlawfully attacked with complete disregard of life and property, it is absurd to forego any legitimate measures that may be helpful toward self-defense. It is especially absurd to continue to tie our hands by a provision of law which prohibits arming our merchant vessels for their own defense.

I repeat, the highest duty of this Government is to safeguard the security of our Nation. The basic consideration is that measures and methods of defense shall be made effective when and where needed. They are now needed especially on the high seas and in those areas which must be preserved from invasion if the full tide of the movement of world-conquest is not to beat at our gates.

It would be little short of criminal negligence to proceed on the hope that some happy chance or chances will save us from a fate like that which has befallen so many other countries in the world. We cannot run away from a situation which can only be dealt with by the firm measures of a people determined and prepared to resist. It is worse than futile to read the war news from overseas and conclude that each temporary check to the would-be world-conqueror relieves us of the need to provide fully for our own national defense.

I am convinced that in the interest of our national security the passage of the pending bill to repeal section 6 of the Neutrality Act is both urgent and important. Inasmuch as section 2 is not under consideration I will offer no comment except to say that in my judgment section 2 should be repealed or modified.

Department of State Bulletin, vol. V, p. 341

244

Address Delivered by President Roosevelt at Washington,

October 27, 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 throughout the Atlantic.

Many American-owned merchant ships have been sunk on the high seas. One American destroyer was attacked on September fourth. Another destroyer was attacked and hit on October seventeenth. 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, our own self-respect, and our own good faith. Freedom of the seas is now, as it has always been, the fundamental policy of this Government.

Hitler has often protested that his plans for conquest do not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. 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 ruth

lessly 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.

This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States itself.

Your Government has 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 to publicize just yet, but which they are ready to impose 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. 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 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.

The God of Blood and Iron will take the place of the God of Love and Mercy.

These grim truths which I have told you of the present and future plans of Hitlerism will of course be hotly denied tomorrow in the controlled press and radio of the Axis Powers. And some Americans 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 bandwagon 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.