AMERICA DETERMINED

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21243, 14 October 1940, Page 8

AMERICA DETERMINED

REPLY TO THREATS ROOSEVELT’S BLUNTNESS (United Press Asn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) NEW YORK, Oct. 12 “ The Americans will not be scared or threatened into ways the dictators want us to follow, and no combination of dictator countries in Europe and Asia will stop the help we are giving to almost the last free people fighting to hold them at bay,” said President Roosevelt in a Columbus Day speech at Dayton, Ohio. “ 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 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 the people of Holland and Belgium. It can no longer be disputed that the forces of evil which are bent on the conquest of the world will destroy whomsoever they can destroy. “ We have learned the lessons of recent years. We know now that if we seek to appease them by withholding aid from those that stand in their way, we shall only hasten the day of their attack upon us. The people of the United States and the people of all the Americas reject the doctrine of appeasement. They recognise it for what it is—a major weapon of aggressor nations. Freedom, Liberty, Humanity “ I speak bluntly. I speak out of the love the American people have for freedom, liberty, decency and humanity. That is why we arm. The men and women of Britain show how a free people can defend what they know to be the right. Their heroic defence will be recorded for all time, and will be a perpetual proof that when put to the test they can show the stuff of which they are made. “ When we speak of defending the Western Hemisphere, we are speaking not only of territory in North, Central and South America or im-mediately-adjacent islands, but include the right to the peaceful use I of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 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, oldlashioned, neighbourly friendship. Thus bound together, we will be able to withstand any attack from east or west. Together we will be able to ward, off any infiltration of alien political and economic ideas which would destroy our freedom. “ Through the acquisition of naval bases, we have increased the immediate effectiveness of our great Navy. These bases were acquired not for the protection of the United States alone, but for the protection of the whole Western Hemisphere.” No Lies Over Radio “ American radio stations will play their part in the new unity which has been built so solidly between the f American nations in the past eight ! years,” said Mr Roosevelt. “ They must be effective instru- i ments for the honest exchange and j communication of ideas, and they j must never be used as stations in j other lands are used—to send out | the same day one false story to one \ country and a different false story to another.” In an impromptu address to 25,000 people at the railroad station at Akron, Ohio, Mr Roosevelt said: “ I am confident we will be able to avoid .being drawn into a war on account of an attack on somebody else in the Americas, but I also believe that the best way to avoid an attack is to be ready to meet one.” He called for greater speed in rearmament.