LIFE GIVEN FOR COUNTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25177, 14 April 1945, Page 9

LIFE GIVEN FOR COUNTRY

BURDEN OF THE WAR YEARS No national leader has ever been better assured of a place among the great of all time than President Roosevelt. He has been called away suddenly before the consummation of his task as a war leader, but with that consummation clearly in sight. It might almost be said of him that he died, like Wolfe at Quebec, "in the lap of smiling victory, that moment won." Like Wolfe he was a war casualty and gave his life for his country and its ideals. The burden which President Roosevelt carried for twelve years far surpassed that of any earlier American statesman. He was the first President to serve more than two four-year terms. He entered office to fight a war against economic depression affecting 130 million people. This had not ended when the clouds of world conflict loomed up on the horizon and he was called upon to lead his country along a difficult path of honour and duty culminating in three years of warfare on a scale it had never known, continuing meanwhile to play his part in the intricate domestic politics of the nation, which a state of war had by no means suspended. To do all this rea.uired almost the strength of a< superman, and as such history will probably rank Mr Roosevelt.