The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1945 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25177, 14 April 1945, Page 6

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1945 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

' The death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the : United State?, is a tragedy for the world. He has spent himself in the ; service of mankind. No man in the twentieth century has a greater record of service both to his nation and to the whole human family. When Mr Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 both his own country and all others were labouring in the trough of a fearful depression. It was he who saw the vision of a new order into which men could be led from the sufferings of unemployment and poverty. He had the courage and the determination to attack these gigantic problems in the United States, and, although he did not completely solve them, no single man could have done more to restore prosperity in his great country. During the years prior to the outbreak of the present struggle he reinvigorated the economy of his country, gave it a new hope, and made himself the moral leader of mankind. But his attention was not devoted exclusively to domestic matters. Out of his great experience during the last war, out of his profound reading and his acquaintance with men and things, he discerned the trend of events and sought to impress upon the American people their duty to take an effective part in the affairs of the whole world in order to preserve the peace. What Mr Roosevelt accomplished cannot be given its true value without considering the special difficulties which his office as President imposed upon him. He was first called upon to lead the nation at a time of distress unparalleled since the Civil Wail He had to blaze new trails and attempt constructive solutions of problems which for magnitude and complexity made those of earlier statesmen seem mere trifles. He had to hurt some people, to meet enmity, to overcome set habits of thought and action, and to get things done quickly under a political | constitution designed to restrict executive power and subject all legislation to a cooling-off process. Later, when aggression threatened to tramp eventually over the whole democratic world, he had to march for two years and more just a few steps ahead of the intuitional will of 130,000,000 people, preparing for eventualities, helping the cause of the hard-pressed Allies and judging with infallible instinct what he could persuade his countrymen to do next. Through that difficult period of uncertainty, in the course of which he had to fight an election, and in the subsequent years of war, which included another, he could not take for granted, like Mr Churchill, a stable political truce at home, or, like M. Stalin, the close unity of a nation fighting on its own soil. He was debarred from that daily contact with Parliament which has always upheld the hands' of British war leaders. Yet he overcame all these things, and the feats of a nation united against the foe proved his success. No testimony to the President's great achievements would be complete without reference to his goodneighbour policy in both the Americas He determined to stamp out any suggestion of imperialism by the United States in Central and South America, and to fashion to the greatest possible extent political unity among the American republics. The proof of his outstanding success in this field is the joint policy pursued by all the republics, save one for a while, against the Axis countries. This, of course, was not the only concern of the President. Mr Roosevelt was well aware of the imperialistic ambitions of Germany, Italy and Japan. The war, whose imminence he had seen, broke out in Europe in 1939, and he devoted all his endeavours to preventing its spreading and to helping the democracies with the wealth of his nation. His introduction of the principles of lend-lease in 1940 would alone entitle him to the rank of one of the world's greatest men. No one knew better than he how to feel the pulse of the people ; how to deliver the right speech at the right time ; how to rebuff the isolationists. Thus, when Japan struck her blow at Pearl Harbour, Mr Roosevelt became the unquestioned leader of his people in war as he had been in peace.

From the day that the United States was at war he laboured with Mr Churchill to cement the unity of the United Nations, and to prepare for the peace which was to come. He has never spared himself. He has journeyed to distant places when his years and his work might well have excused him such exertions. He is one of the chief architects of the world security organisation first framed at Dumbarton Oaks. It is a lamentable thing that he should not have been spared to lead his countrymen in this great endeavour to spare the world the ravages of another conflict. His name will ever remain an inspiration to men of goodwill. They will not remember him alone for his achievements as a statesman and as a strategist. It is a matter of move than passing interest that Mr Roosevelt was a survival and a modern vindication of two things that most people believe to have passed. Like the typical British legislator of a century and more ago, he was a man of aristocratic descent and independent means and liberal education, who took to politics out of a sense of public duty.- In the second place, his basic political faith was one that is supposed to be outmoded, a middle-of-the-road liberalism distinct from socialism on one hand and conservatism on the other. No American will ever forget his patient endeavours to improve the lot of the common man, whose aspirations and difficulties he understood so well. The President has died in the midst of labours which no single man could have been expected to discharge for so long. But if the manner of his life is remembered, as it will be, and if his philosophies are cherished and followed, then the name of Roosevelt will be a beacon for free men showing them the way to peace.

THE NEW PRESIDENT

Mr Truman will have the sympathy and prayers of all on his assumption of probably the most onerous position in the world today. So much is expected of the United States in seeking peace and ensuring it and in furthering the welfare of mankind, and so much influence is wielded by the President in his own country and in the world beyond, that from this day on he will be under the closest scrutiny. Mr Truman is fortunate in having to support him a nation firmly resolved to bring to a successful close the high mission upon which, with its Allies, it is now engaged. He has the advantage that the very simplicity of his nature may give him the plain man's approach to world problems. In his public life, first as a comparatively humble official in Kansas and later in the Senate, he has the record of acquiring the assistance of able men of scrupulous honesty both in purpose and deed. But inevitably he must suffer, as any other would also suffer, by comparison with his illustrious predecessor. In a nation which makes almost a fetish of mandates from the people and jealous of the prerogatives of its leaders, he has only the general mandate conferred upon the Democrat Party. He lacks that directly conferred four times on Mr Roosevelt. The people had become accustomed <to Mr Roosevelt's use of his wide powers as President and the greater ones vested in him as Com-mander-in-Chief. Mr Truman has the same authority, but possession of authority and effective use of it are different "things. 1 Most of .Mr Truman's energies since 1940 have been devoted to preparing the United States for war and stimulating the maximum effort once war became a fact. He -is credited with possessing a wide knowledge of this and wars, especially the Civil War. This will stand him in good stead. His preoccupation with the war has prevented him from taking an active part in the formulation of United States policy in foreign affairs. It is the development of this policy, with the end of one phase of the war at hand, that causes attention to be focussed on his country. Through arduous years, Mr Roosevelt brought the United States out of isolationism into realisation that peace was indivisible and that America must take a large part in reshaping the world. He was not without opponents, who will now train their guns upon Mr Truman. The world is aware of the attitude and the methods of the pressure groups. At present it can only hope that Mr Truman will continue the policy of Mr Roosevelt in foreign affairs and have the strength to overcome those who would restrict American interest to the American continent. While mourning the passing of a great leader, the nations must also look to the future. In that future Mr Truman is one of the chief determining factors.