President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Address over the Radio on Navy Day Concerning the Attack upon the Destroyer U. S. S. Kearny, October 27, 1941
Essay Preview: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Address over the Radio on Navy Day Concerning the Attack upon the Destroyer U. S. S. Kearny, October 27, 1941
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“The forward march of Hitler and of Hitlerism can be stopped — and it will be stopped.”
Five months ago tonight I proclaimed to the American people the existence of a state of unlimited emergency.
Since then much has happened. Our Army and Navy are temporarily in Iceland in the defense of the Western Hemisphere.
Hitler has attacked shipping in areas close to the Americas in the North and South Atlantic.
Many American-owned merchant ships have been sunk on the high seas. One American destroyer was attacked on September 4. Another destroyer was attacked and hit on October 17. Eleven brave and loyal men of our Navy were killed by the Nazis.
We have wished to avoid shooting. But the shooting has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot. In the long run, however, all that will matter is who fired the last shot.
America has been attacked. The U. S. S. Kearny is not just a Navy ship. She belongs to every man, woman, and child in this Nation.
Illinois, Alabama, California, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arkansas, New York, Virginia — those are the home States of the honored dead and wounded of the Kearny. Hitlers 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 Hitlers attack was to frighten the American people off the high seas — to force us to make a trembling retreat. This is not the first time he has misjudged the American spirit. That spirit is now aroused.
If our national policy were to be dominated by the fear of shooting, then all of our ships and those of our sister republics would have to be tied up in home harbors. Our Navy would have to remain respectfully — abjectly — behind any line which Hitler might decree on any ocean as his own dictated version of his own war zone.
Naturally, we reject that absurd and insulting suggestion. We reject it because of our own self-interest, because of our own self-respect, because, most of all, of our own good faith. Freedom of the seas is now, as it has always been, a fundamental policy of your Government and mine.
Hitler has often protested that his plans for conquest do not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. But his submarines and raiders prove otherwise. So does the entire design of his new world order.
For example, I have in my possession a secret map made in Germany by Hitlers government — by the planners of the new world order. It is a map of South America and a part of Central America, as Hitler proposes to reorganize it. Today in this area there are 14 separate countries. The geographical experts of Berlin, however, have ruthlessly obliterated all existing boundary lines; and have divided South America into five vassal states, bringing the whole continent under their domination. And they have also so arranged it that the territory of one of these new puppet states includes the Republic of Panama and our great life line – the Panama Canal.
That is his plan. It will never go into effect.
This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States itself.
Your Government was in its possession another document made in Germany by Hitlers government. It is a detailed plan, which, for obvious reasons, the Nazis did not wish and do not wish to publicize just yet, but which they are ready to impose a little later on a dominated world — if Hitler wins. It is a plan to abolish all existing religions – Protestant, Catholic, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike. The property of all churches will be seized by the Reich and its puppets. The cross and all other symbols of religion are to be forbidden. The clergy are to be forever silenced under penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so many fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God above Hitler.
In the place of the churches of our civilization, there is to be set up an international Nazi church — a church which will be served by orators sent out by the Nazi government. In the place of the Bible, the words of Mein Kampf will be imposed and enforced as Holy Writ. And in place of the cross of Christ will be put two symbols — the swastika and the naked sword.
A god of blood and iron will take the place of the God of love and mercy. Let us well ponder that statement which I have made tonight.
These grim truths which I have told you of the present and future plans of Hitlerism will, of course, be hotly denied tonight and tomorrow in the controlled press and radio of the Axis Powers. And some Americans – not many – will continue to insist that Hitlers 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 Hitlers band wagon when it comes this way.
The motive of such Americans is not the point at issue. The fact is that Nazi propaganda continues in desperation to seize upon such isolated statements as proof of American disunity.
The Nazis have made up their own list of modern American heroes. It is, fortunately, a short list. I am glad that it does not contain my name.
All of us Americans, of all opinions, are faced with the choice between the kind of world we want to live in and the kind of world which Hitler and his hordes would impose upon us.
None of us wants to burrow under the ground and live in total darkness like a comfortable mole.
The forward march of Hitler and of Hitlerism can be stopped – and it will be stopped.
Very simply and very bluntly, we are pledged to pull our own oar in the destruction of Hitlerism.
And when we have helped to end the curse of Hitlerism, we shall help to establish a new peace which will give to decent people everywhere a better chance to live and prosper in security and in freedom and in faith.
Each day that passes we are producing and providing more and more arms for the men who are fighting on actual battle fronts. That is our primary task.