Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1941 THE VOICE OF AMERICA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 29 October 1941, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1941 THE VOICE OF AMERICA

■ : "WE have wished to avoid shooting, ' • j but the shooting lias started and his- 1 • j tory has recorded who fired tHe first ■ j shot. In the long run, however, all 1 • ] that will matter is who fired the last 1 • ; shot.” These words from President 1 1 Roosevelt's latest forthright declara- ( j tion sum up the American attitude j‘ 'towards participation in the war. I ! j Together with the rest of the speech' 1 'they form a logical development ofj' 'American policy following the fast- 1 ' . moving events since the President ! proclaimed a state of unlimited, 1 , j emergency five months ago and his ! warning of America’s determination j ] to shoot on sight which was issued I 1 , 1 more recently. Subsequent to that j j time, as Mr Roosevelt points out ; 1 j with crystal clearness, America has j 1 been attacked, the freedom of the j seas has been threatened and Hitler ' ! has tried to force the American peo- j ' j pie to beat a trembling retreat. That j ' they have refused to do and their i J spirit, says the President, is now | 1 i aroused. I If America, through its President, " j speaks in such firm but measured; tones, many people will ask, as they ! have already asked, why the United i Stales docs not openly declare war ] on the Axis. The position is not so I simple as that, nor does such a course I form part of the American plan. Pre- . sident Roosevelt has no wish to risk [ ~ being branded as an aggressor; nor | has he the Dictator’s power to plunge ; 1 | his country into war by a one-man j declaration. Power in the United : States to declare war rests with Con- ! j gress as the body representing the ! j American people. In this big and I J cosmopolitan nation there are many ; i ! sections of opinion which it is the 1 j task of the President to marshal, | unite and direct towards a common j j ; end. All along he lias tried to lead ! : ; the people, to educate them to the : seriousness of the danger in which ! they stand and to ensure that, when ! . the United States does decide to con- j | front Hitler full face, it is the voice of j | America which has spoken. The j | | American Navy, he says, believes in | | the slogan, ‘‘Damn the torpedoes. Full i speed ahead!” The aim now is to j make the millions of ordinary Ame- ; rican citizens adopt the same slogan.; i It has taken a long time for the j world to realise that the grand aim :. | of Eli tier and his planners of the j | Geo-physical school stops at nothing , ] short of world conquest. At pre- j 1 i sent the Nazis are engaged in march- J j ing round the Continents in the Old j < | World. If they should succeed in : ‘ J this then, next on the list, would be j 'the Continents of the New World, ii l The President revealed what a secret j - ; j Nazi map of South and part of Cen-; ( I tral America showed about this de- j . I sign. All existing boundaries on it j 1 | have been obliterated by the German | 1 j map-maker who has substituted a j[ | j Nazi-controlled South America of five j ] vassal States, in one of which the' i ~ 'Panama Canal is included. This map I : ! makes it clear, too, that Hitler’s am- j! I bition extends from South America toj ■ | the United wStates. ! The President told of another re- j j | vealing German document which the j United Stales Government had in its!' possession. In it is set forth a plan ! ! to scrap all existing religions when', j Hitler becomes world dictator, to!, j i seize their property, abolish their j; i symbolism and silence their preachI ] ers. “Hard-headed” is a favourite j ? [epithet of Mr Roosevelt and these' ! hard-headed facts about overweens ! ing Nazi ambition should appeal to j 8 j Americans, on the score of self-in- i, j j terest if for no other reason. A ser- I jj j vice has been rendered the whole j | | democratic cause by bringing them to , : light, for it has been difficult to get I | sceptical people to believe during j ! : the past two years that it is the world ? that Hitler covets. Too often has $ this kind of information been dis- ■ 8 missed as stories invented by scareI mongers. f Coming back to the fundamental , i issue, President Roosevelt postulates ; it as a choice between two ways of ! : life: the kind of world we want to I live in and the kind of world Hitler | and his hordes would impose upon us. For us that is a choice we can- j not escape. The alternatives arej-

exactly the same for the Americans and all oilier freedom-loving peoples ».n earth. This conception of a dim threat to freedom has sometime, seemed ton dislanf and too abstract lo strike in on the mind of the ordinary ■person. President Roosevelt ha. employed leadership of the highest quality if lie has brought Americans i to the point where they realise that Hitler must be stopped or democracy ]