WILL NOT BE SCARED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21784, 14 October 1940, Page 7

WILL NOT BE SCARED

U.S. DECISION IS MADE Time For Appeasement Past Blunt Speech By President United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received October 13, 7.30 p.m.) MONTREAL, October 12. President Roosevelt, in a speech on Columbus Day at Dayton, said: “American radio stations will play their part in the new unity which has been built so solidly between the American nations in the last eight years. They must be effective instruments for an honest exchange of communication ideas. They must never be used as stations in other lands are —to send out the same day one false story to one country and a different false story to another.

“The Americas will not be scared or threatened into the ways the dictators want us to follow. No combination of dictator countries in Europe or Asia will stop the help we give to almost the last free people fighting to hold them at bay. Our course is clear and our decision is made. We will continue to pile up our defence and our armaments. We will continue to help those who resist aggression and who now hold the aggressors far from our shores. Let no American in any part of the Americas accept assurances that we are immune. History records that not long ago those same assurances were given to the people of Holland Belgium. It can no longer be disputed that the forces of evil which are bent on the conquest of the world will destroy whoever they can destroy. We have learned the lessons of recent years. We know that if w r e seek to appease them by withholding aid from those who stand in their way we W’ill only hasten the day of their attack upon us.

“The people of the United States and all the Americas reject the doctrine of appeasement. They recognise it for what it is—the major weapon of aggressor nations. I speak bluntly. I speak of the love American people have for freedom, liberty, decency and humanity. That is why we arm. The men and women of Britain show how free people defend what they know to be right. Their heroic defence will be recorded for all time and will be perpetual proof that when put to the test they can show the stuff of which they are made. Best Way to Avoid Attack A message from Akron (Ohio) states that President Roosevelt, in an impromptu address to 25,000 persons at a railroad station said: “I am confident that we will be able to avoid being drawn into the war by attack from somebody else in the Americas, but I also believe the best way to avoid attack is to be ready to meet one.” He called for greater speed in rearmament. President Roosevelt continued: “When we speak of defending the Western Hemisphere we are speaking not only of the territory of North, Central and South America or the Islands immediately adjacent, but we include the right of the peaceful use of the Atlantic and Pacific. That has been our traditional policy. On this side of the ocean there Is no desire and no effort by any race or nation to control any other. The only encirclement sought is the encircling bond of good old-fashioned neighbourly friendship. Thus bound together we are able to withstand any attack from the east or west. Together we are able to ward off any infiltration of alien political or economic ideas which would destroy our freedom. Through the acquisition of naval bases we increased the immediate effectiveness of our great navy. These bases were acquired not for the protection of the United States alone but the protection of the whole of the Western Hemisphere.”