"TRULY UNITED"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1942, Page 4

"TRULY UNITED"

AMERICA AT WAR

MORALE AT HIGH LEVEL

America's reaction to the Japanese aggression is strikingly indicated in letters received by a Wellington business ma^n from prominent United States citizens.

One letter, written from Cincinnati on December 13 contains the following: "Things have been really happening this week, starting with Japan's treacherous attack on Pearl j Harbour. At last we are in it and the sudden shock has done the nation a world of good. Just as in the past war all factionism and private quarrels have ceased in the course of-an hour. It always amazes me to &>ee how the United States goes along with dif-' ferent groups arguing back and forth, and the minute war comes the country becomes truly a United States. The newspapers have, of course, kept you posted as to what we ars doing nationally, arid I am glad to see we have knocked out a few Japanese warships by this time and have paid them in part for the Hawaiian attack. By the time we have finished with them they will know what war really means.

"The recruiting stations of all service branches are literally jammed with long queues in front of the entrances. The public morale is grand, and with it is a sudden admiration for the stand the English Commonwealth has been making for two years. The war has suddenly been brought home to the American people in no uncertain fashion. It has bscome something personal, and that makes a lot of difference.''

Another letter, written from Chicago on December 9. makes this comment: "Aside from the tragedy of the initial attack on the Hawaiian Islands, we believe. that the attack did serve the purpose of arousing and solidly unifying thes3 United States. Our history, I think, bears evidence that when aroused and working ia unity, these States can sccomplish a great deal."