FULL EFFORT NEEDED

Southland Times, Issue 24986, 24 February 1943, Page 5

FULL EFFORT NEEDED

NO JOSHUA TO WIN WAR . (Rec. 10 p.m.) . WASHINGTON, February 22. The great successes on the Russian front have led thousands of Americans to throw their hats in the air and proclaim that victory is just around the corner. Others among us still believe in the age of miracles, forgetting that there is no Joshua in our midst. We cannot count on the great walls crumbling and falling when the trumpets blow and the peoples shout,” said Mr Roosevelt In a radio address to the Democratic Party’s nationwide dinner on the anniversary of Washington’s birthday. The Vice-President, Mr Henry Wallace, said: “Men in a position to know believe that if the people of America and England equalled the unified allout effort now displayed by the magnificent Russians, Germany could be defeated in 1943, but this will not happen if we allow the policy dictated by those who believe that Russia is going to win the war for us without our further help.

We can knock out Hitler and the Japanese in the second round of this fight but we shall have to harness every spiritual and material resource. _ “American boys in North Africa are fighting mad and will not be satisfied until they chase the Nazis from Africa, Italy and Berlin.” CYNICS ANSWERED Mr Roosevelt recalled that sceptics and cynics in Washington’s day sneered at the principles of the Declaration of Independence as many Americans today sneered at the determination to attain freedom from want and from fear on the ground that these ideals could not be realized.

“They say it is ordained that we must always have poverty and war,” Mr Roosevelt said. “They are like people who would scrap the Ten Commandments because some people are in the habit of breaking one or njore of them. Americans in Washington’s day faced defeat on many occasions. We have faced and still face reverses and misfortunes.

“Most Americans seek to live up to the precepts of home charity, but some cf us have forgotten them. There are Americans whose words and writings are trumpeted by our enemies to persuade the disintegrating people of Italy and Germany and their captives that America is disunited and will be guilty of faithlessness in this war, thus enabling the Axis Powers to control the earth.”

Mr Roosevelt quoted the Beatitudes from the fif f h chapter of Matthew and declared:

“These truths are an eternal heritage of our civilization giving heart and comfort to all men and women everywhere fighting for freedom today through the darkness that has descended on our nation and on our world. Those truths are a guiding light to all. We shall follow the light as our forefathers did to the fulfilment of our hopes for victory, freedom and peace.”