NATION'S GRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25177, 14 April 1945, Page 7

NATION'S GRIEF

SUPERB LEADERSHIP WORLD CITIZEN STAGGEEING SHOCK NO GREATER TRAGEDY XBecd. 8.50 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 13 Visibly shaken, Mr H. A. Wallace, former Vice-President, said: "The American world must and will carry on. We bow today in prayer for that gallant world citizen who so unerringly acted to save democracy." "No greater tragedy could have befallen our country and the world at present," said Mr Cordell Hull, former. Secretary of State. "Mr Roosevelt's high statesmanship and superb leadership are factors without which the United Nations could not have reached the present phase of the war, with victory just in sight." The president of the Congress of Industrial Organisations, Mr Philip Murrav. said: "The world has lost a great leader and a great soldier. Labour has lost its noblest friend." One of Greatest Statesmen "Mr Roosevelt was one of the greatest statesmen the world has ever known," said the Soviet Ambassador, M. Gromyko. "The Soviet people share the great national grief which has befallen the American people. Mr Roosevelt could distinguish true friends as well as real enemies. He knew the value of unity among the great Allied Powers and its importance for victory." Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr W. L. Mackenzie King, said Mr Roosevelt yras so great and true a friend of the Canadian people that it "was as though one of their very own had passed away. His death was a loss to the whole nf mankind. The House immediately adjourned. Latin America received the news with great sorrow. Guatemala. Cuba and Costa Rica declared a period of national mourning and Pan-American Day celebrations in Argentina were cancelled. Phase in History Mr Thomas Dewey, recent Republican candidate for the Presidency, sent a telegram to Mrs Roosevelt, saying: "Please accept deepest sympathy. Your great loss is-shared br every American and mourned by all freedom-loving people in the entire world." Mr La Guardia, Mayor of New York, said: "It is the greatest loss the peaceloving world has suffered in the entire war." "The staggering shock with which the news came to the nation and the world outside the nation best measures the place Mr Roosevelt has made for himself in the history of the American People." said the Herald-Tribune in an editorial. "There was none, whatever party or persuasion, who did not feel m the first instant that a gallant figure had been snatched suddenly from our common life, that one historic page in our Common national adventure had heen suddenly turned down." Messages of condolence have been flooding into the White House from all over the world. One of the . first came from Marshal Stalin, who expressed his own personal feelings and sorrow as *ell as the sympathy of his Government. . .