A Letter To The American People

'-',),_; 07 H94L

Keep Your Card in This Pocket

Books will be issued only on presentation of proper
library cards.

Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained
for two weeks. Borrowers finding books marked, de
faced or mutilated are expected to report same at
library desk; otherwise the last borrower will be held
responsible for all imperfections discovered.

The card holder is responsible for all books drawn
on this card.

Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus cost of
notices.

Lost cards and change of residence must be re
ported promptly.

Public Library

Kansas City, Mo.
Keep Your Card in This Pocket

BKRKOWliTZ ENVELOPE CO., K. 0., MO.

KANSAS CITY.MO PUBLIC LIBRARY

Oil 1 ?'**

r .

mi

'' '

FEB 5'

. _._ !.,_

A Letter to the American People

A LETTER TO THE

AMERICAN PEOPLE

BY LAWRENCE HUNT

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK

, 1941, BY LAWKENCE HUNT

All rights reserved. This book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission of the publisher.

I ',

u -

Designed by Robert Josephy

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF A

To My Wife

CONTENTS

Our Pontius Pilates 4

Some Popular Narcotics 24

The "Crime of Versailles" 36

Wasted Years 43

Hitler's Blitzkrieg in America 57

Britain and America:

Old Grudges and New Lies 74

Britain and America:

Alike and Unlike 96

Britain and America:

They Will Do the Job 120

A Letter to the American People

My Fellow Countrymen:

I shall use plain, blunt words to say plain, blunt
tilings.

Many of you will never get this letter. Some of
you will not like it. None of you will agree with
all I say. But I hope that those of you who do read
these words will think about them a bit.

We hear and read every day the pompous words
of politicians, the glib words of pseudo intellec
tuals, and the smart words of newspaper column
ists about this war and our part in it. You and I
don't talk as they do, and in our hearts we don't
believe the things some of them tell us. Now It is
up to us to talk to make our wishes known and
to act as a sufficient number of Americans (not
all, by a long shot) have always acted when con
scious of their duty and their danger. I think that
there are still "a sufficient number" of us to do the
job that must be done.

This letter, as letters go, is rather long, and so
for convenience' sake I shall jot down a few head
ings.

OUR PONTIUS PILATES

Pontius Pilate still lives. Even now he exercises
greater influence on our national thinking about
foreign affairs than any other person living or
dead. He strides the length and breadth of Amer
ica, dinning his immortal philosophy of neutrality
into our minds and hearts. You can hear him
on the platform, over the radio, in the pulpit, at
women's club meetings and labor union rallies.
You can read his words in current books, in
magazines and newspapers. A year ago he was
saying "Wash your hands of this mess. I did once,
and saved myself a lot of work and worry. That
was none of my business. This is none of yours.
So wash your hands of it now."

Today his words have changed, but his tune
remains the same. "You may have forgotten it/*
he says, <c but I adopted the 'short of war' policy
when I was Governor. I put in a good word for
Him, don't forget. Did all I felt was perfectly safe
to do."

For the last twenty years we Americans have
been fooling ourselves, as Pilate tried to do in
another practical situation, when we've talked

4

about America's foreign policy. We still are. It's
not surprising. We have been deluged with a con
stant stream of propaganda about the "Crime of
Versailles/* "We won the war and what did we
get?", "British imperialism/' the pathetic spectacle
of a gullible America caught in the wily intrigues
of Old World diplomacy, "pulling England's chest
nuts out of the fire," the "Merchants of Death,"
and the "Wall Street Bankers/*

Today there's a new but equally polluted stream
of propaganda luridly warning us against propa
ganda. The upshot of it all is that the thinking of
many honest people has become confused, their
nerves jangled, and their emotions jaded. And as
a nation we have managed so far to escape from
reality and the tough responsibilities of being a
first-rate power. I don't mean that we have lost
the puritanical vice of preaching to others, but
we have failed to exercise the puritanical virtue
of doing our share and more, if need be of the
hard work our very greatness requires of us.

Who are these Pontius Pilate propagandists
these persons who are trying to take from us our
moral manhood so that we shall feel a cold indif
ference toward right and wrong and who are giv
ing consciously or unconsciously daily aid and
comfort to Comrades Hitler and Stalin? Let's note
a few of them briefly very briefly but mark them
well. Then well go on to examine the slogans and

5

catch phrases, the half truths and lies with which
they try to confuse our minds and deaden our
hearts.

Well of course there are the political pimps
soliciting the "foreign 7 * vote. Like Hitler they as
sume that America is not a real nation with tra
ditions, character, and courage but a glorified,
polyglot boardinghouse in which discordant racial
groups live restlessly side by side.

There are also the Gerald Nyes and the Burt
Wheelers and the Hamilton Fishes who, just as
Pilate was "willing to content the people" in his
day (drugged as they were by the scribes and
pharisees), are eager to please those people today
who have been deluded and misinformed by their
enemies inside as well as outside America. That
type of politician is part of the steep price we pay
for the democracy we cherish. Our faith in de
mocracy is so genuine and so deep that we permit
these Catilines to abuse our patience and even to
advocate policies which would destroy that faith.
But the demagogic politician is the least of our
worrieshe has an abnormal instinct for self-pres
ervation and when he can no longer fool the peo
ple he will quickly follow them. I hardly need
mention to you the Hugh Johnsons and Father
Coughlins who have told you again and again
that Britain and her allies on the one hand and
Germany and her allies on the other are "all alike/*

6

They resemble those unfortunate women who will
do anything to hold attention. They grow worse
with age. We can dismiss Mr. Charles Lindbergh
as a remarkably able air pilot who with some
effort, obvious sincerity, and much encouragement
in certain quarters has achieved unquestioned
rank as a leading American Nazi and richly de
serves another medal from Hitler for pure devo
tion and hard work in his cause.

Hitler's most effective though unwitting allies
in this country are among the so-called "intellec
tuals" the propagandist historians, pseudo econo
mists, and irresponsible journalists. Harry Elmer
Barnes seems to be a pathological case whose pro-
German and anti-British obsessions have appar
ently become too extreme for the Scripps-Howard
press to feature. The glib Stuart Chase, the shal
low John T. Flynn, the whining Oswald Villard
remind us of those writers, familiar to every gen
eration, whose words are "full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing/*

These men hardly deserve mentioneven in a
letter. One or two of them will achieve a minor
footnote in some Ph.D. thesis of the future. But
it is well to keep them in our mental files now
that we must struggle to survive as a free and
God-fearing people in our English-speaking civi
lization.

There was a time when outstanding men went
7

into the academic profession with, all the moral,
mental, and physical attributes and appurtenances
of manhood. Some still do. In the ranks of scholars
and teachers are several of our greatest citizens.
Men like James B. Conant and Samuel Eliot Mori-
son of Harvard, Charles Seymour of Yale, Walter
P. Hall of Princeton, Allan Nevins and James T.
Shotwell of Columbia, Theodore Clarke Smith of
Williams, Frank P. Graham of North Carolina,
Harry Woodburn Chase of New York University
you know them and many, many more. And yet,
these gentlemen adorn the most undisciplined and
ethically irresponsible of all the prof essions a pro*
fession which has become increasingly the habitat
and refuge of a neutral sex, far removed from the
earthy passions, the normal emotions, the spiritual
values and moral driving force of ordinary men
and women. The great majority of the academic
profession are just as scrupulous and honorable as
die great majority in the other professions, but the
distinguishing trait in their relationships toward
their shysters and humbugs is a peculiar timidity
and a refusal to deal with them as rigorously as
lawyers and doctors do with their erring brethren.
They courageously admit this in private.

"Academic freedom" is as vital to the body
politic as lungs to the human body. All the more
need and care therefore that it should be kept
healthy and clean by those who enjoy it and that

8

it should not become a .glittering slogan to pro
tect the incompetent and the mentally dishonest.
The academic shyster should be outlawed by his
colleagues as quickly and as ruthlessly as the cor
rupt judge is removed from the bench or the un
scrupulous lawyer is disbarred. The government
must not do itfar better to suffer the present
evils. Hitlerism is no cure for the ills of democ
racy. But the academic profession alone can and
should do its own housecleaning.

You have probably noticed with mingled amuse
ment and disgust those intellectuals who are soph-
omoric in their sensitivity to criticism from the
outside world. They loudly, bitterly and often
properly denounce statesmen, judges, big business
men. But If some of their own group are in turn
similarly attacked they yell bloody murder and
wave the flag of academic freedom. In other
words, they simply can't "take it." In their own
peculiar way they are just as intolerant as the
shortsighted type of businessman who is a liberal
while sipping his liqueur but not when dealing
with his employees. The business-hating intellec
tual and the red-baiting businessman are funda
mentally Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

I think this sensitivity of certain intellectuals is
partly caused by another sophomoric mental state
a belief that they are mentally superior to those
of us, for example, who earn our living as business-

9

men or lawyers. They are obviously more articu
late, they know more words, and quite probably
they got "better marks" in school or college than
those engaged in more vulgar pursuits. And they
cling, at times rather frantically, to their adoles
cent belief in themselves and a comforting scorn
toward the rest of us. It's a strange priesthood
they've created and its creed seems to be criticism
with impunity toward all, immunity from criticism
by any.

Most members of the academic profession don't
really believe in such a priesthood but, like their
fellow citizens in business and in some labor
unions, they have been too slow and too timid
in dealing with the unscrupulous element in their
ranks. I think, moreover, that our academic friends
will probably admit, in private, that the greatest
weakness of their great profession is that its mem
bers are rarely compelled to make decisions which
have definite and almost immediate consequences.
The businessman and lawyer must make those
decisions constantly in order to carry on. Naturally
many wrong decisions are made, but partly as a
result of making them a reasonable degree of tol
erance is shown toward those who make them and
suspicion and contempt are felt for the intellectual
perfectionist who does not make decisions but
bewails the wrong ones. The man who deals in
decisions rather than in criticism tries to see the

10

"end figure/* Tliat sometimes requires both men
tal and moral courage. Too many of our intellec
tuals lack the gumption to grasp a whole situation;
they nervously and confusedly deal with a small
part.

Their attitude toward the present war and
America's relation to it is a tragic example of their
great weakness. Like all decent, freedom-loving
people, our college presidents and professors
loathed Nazism. They were acutely aware of some
of its vilest aspects. But, when the time finally
came, with the outbreak of the war, for a hard
decision by their own country, they were either
mute or tried to find an escape in nervously talk
ing about certain aspects of the situation. Some
of them may have been fooled or bulldozed by the
propaganda of certain other intellectuals. What
ever the reason, the so-called "leaders of American
thought" failed as leaders. After the Germans in
vaded Holland and Belgium, a few important
academic persons falteringly spoke the faith that
was in them along with and behind many less
articulate people. Archibald MacLeish with win
ning sincerity and melancholy charm admitted in
effect that he and his fellow intellectuals had been
damn fools in playing the cynic rather than the
man during the last twenty years.

But, I repeat, our academic and intellectual
leaders fell down. That happened in another coun-

11

try. A truly great intellectual, a German named
Thomas Mann, told the tragic truth when in 1937
he wrote his immortal letter to the dean of the
philosophical faculty of the University of Bonn:
"The German universities share a heavy responsi
bility for all the present distresses which they
called down upon their heads when they tragically
misunderstood their historic hour and allowed
their soil to nourish the ruthless forces which have
devastated Germany morally, politically, and eco
nomically/*

Because our academic friends are not constantly
required to make decisions because life does not
Jerk them up every day they are in danger of
forgetting that they belong to the most influential
of the professions and that they can exercise more
power over the ultimate destinies of men than
those of us engaged in the so-called ''active life."
Their sense of responsibility should be in proper
proportion to their influence and power. When
they are irresponsible, the damage done is very
great and persists for a long time. The reason is,
of course, that they are dealing with the minds
and spirits of men. For example, if a historian
makes in a book a false or .unfair statement of his
toric facts, not only his students but also the news
paper editor and the columnist and the radio
commentator, too rushed by their daily work to
verify or correct the statement, are likely to pick

12

^^tftip and pass it along to the "man in the street/*
whose opinions and decisions are accordingly in
fluenced. Such irresponsibility imperils the influ
ence of the honest intellectual and, in these times,
is a menace to the public.

Yes I'm thinking of several people in the so-
called academic world of those intellectuals, in
different to moral values, who have misled many
^honest, well-meaning citizens with their propa-
JJ ganda against the democracies and who today still
* whimper and whine for a peace without honor
^ and without freedom. Harry Elmer Barnes is an
jT example. Somewhat typical is a Dartmouth pro
fessor named Stilwell, who, a few days after Hit
ler's Huns had invaded Holland and Belgium and
slaughtered thirty thousand citizens of Rotterdam
f\"as a lesson," was reported in the New York press
^ as having told a crowd of susceptible adolescents
that Hitler had "sharp Yankee insight" and that
Hitler's peace would be no worse than the Ver
sailles treaty because "it couldn't be."
Q I mean, among others, Charles A. Beard. No
one, to my knowledge, has questioned his patriot-
ism. He has many devoted admirers, especially
among the younger intellectuals. I have no doubt
that he personally disapproves of the Nazis, their
tortures of free-thinking people, their concentra
tion camps, and their objectives. (The same was
true of some professors in the German universities
13

mentioned by Thomas Mann.) As you know, lie
has a big reputation as a historian, and the public
naturally expects him, as a historian, to present
the facts of history with scrupulous care.

In his recent book A Foreign Policy for Amer
ica, Mr. Beard is guilty of grave irresponsibility.
In that book he is no longer the respectable his
torian but an unscrupulous propagandist. Twisting
of facts, nondisclosure of vital evidence, down
right * misstatements" are used with all the skill
of the Nazi propagandists and doubtless to their
satisfaction to keep us neutral.

His book is a plea for an isolationist foreign
policy based on what he alleges to be American
history. Beard purports to argue against "entan
glements in the age-long coalitions of Europe and
Asia" of which, he assumes, the present war is
just another example. He evidently thinks isola
tionism will smell sweeter if called by a different
name "continentalism." He asserts that the main
tradition of our government has been a strict and
exclusive concentration on domestic problems and
tries to prove it very largely by ignoring or dis
torting or abusing the foreign policies of our great
est Secretaries of State, including Henry Clay,
Daniel Webster, John Hay, Elihu Root, and Cor-
dell Hull, of Thomas Jefferson in the case of the
Monroe Doctrine, and of Presidents McKinley,
Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Franklin

14

D. Roosevelt. And he concludes his book by urg
ing us to be nice and polite toward all nations,
good or bad, and to refrain from making any com
ments on the "manners and morals of other coun
tries^ including, of course, Hitler's Germany.

Like a Nazi propagandist, Beard realizes the
necessity and seems to relish the task of "smear
ing" the great statesmen and historians of the past
whose influence he wishes to destroy. As many
of you know, Admiral Mahan of the United States
Navy was the author of one of the most distin
guished books in modern times The Influence of
Sea Power upon History. Beard bravely hurls in
sults at the great man's ghost "veritable igno
ramus," "propagandist/' "distorter of history," "full
blown imperialist/' his book "found a hearty re
sponse in power-hungry minds" such as Theodore
Roosevelt (Have you never noticed how intellec
tuals like Beard condemn "name calling" by their
opponents?)

A few of you may have read the cool analysis
of Beard's book by the judicious Professor Allan
Nevins which appeared in the New York Times
on May 26, 1940. Professor Nevins points out that
Beard has won his place among historians "by
applying a smart, hard materialism to the inter
pretation of history, and thus often arriving at a
clever simulacrum of Truth rather than Truth it
self." Professor Nevins says that "two character-

15

Istics of the book are especially notable. The first
Is this frigid indifference to moral considera
tions The other remarkable characteristic of

the book is the way in which it wrests history to
support special pleading."

As a clever propagandist, Beard knows how to
quote a part of a historic statement out of its con
text so as to create a false impression on the
reader's mind. Thus he quotes a few words from
a famous letter from Jefferson to Monroe so that
the uninformed reader would be led to believe
that Jefferson was an isolationist. He does not
quote the chief part of the letter, in which Jeffer
son urged that the United States unite its forces
with Britain's to protect this hemisphere against
continental Europe which was then in the iron
grip of autocracy. (Ill mention that later on.) Al
lan Nevins also referred caustically to several
"misstatements" by Beard. But Beard's unscrupu
lous propaganda will probably deceive many citi
zens who have never read Mr, Nevins's forthright
exposure of it. That is why irresponsible intellec
tuals who purport to be honest scholars do terrific
harm and, in these days, are a public menace.
There is no need for me to say more about Beard
at this point But mark him well. He is (uncon
sciously, no doubt) Hitler's cleverest academic ally
in America.

The smart pseudo intellectuals spend so much
16

time and effort at playing God that they forget
or cannot grasp the simple forthright values by
which most of us plain people live. They set them
selves up and try to sell us their wares as being
"realistic" or "objective" or "impartial" You and I
know, if we take the trouble to look closely at
these humbugs, that they nervously "go to pieces'*
when met with a hard but simple truth and a
tough but obvious fact. They squirm and squeal
their way into an unreal blueprint world in which
there are no embarrassing standards of good and
evil, no stern decisions to be made, no choice to
be taken, for instance, between the King James
Bible and Mein Kampf, no heartfelt sacrifices and
no sweating toil, and where they can comfortably
and cleverly talk and talk until doom's day while
we listen, applaud, and pay them. Every age has
had such jabberers, those nervous and naive per
sons who chatter feverishly on the sidelines of
human life. In ordinary times we can afford to put
up with them and toss them pennies if for no other
reason than that some amuse us with their antics.
But these are not amusing times. Work must be
done, tears must flow, and blood must be shed
before we can again laugh as free men in a free
world. And so I ask you not to waste your precious
moments now on these mentally gaudy, morally
impotent people and, above all, do not let them
fool you with self-deceiving words which must

17

make the Nazi-Communist propagandists gasp

with envy.

Some well-meaning preachers give their sup
port, quite unconsciously, to the theory of propa
gandists like Beard that Uncle Sam is all stomach
and no soul. They valiantly thunder that it's a sin
to steal a pin, but they sanctimoniously squeak
to us brothers and sisters about "peace" while the
Nazis try to reduce our civilization to a shambles
and the surviving men, women, and children into
slaves. To be fair, our clergy has made, by and
large, since the outbreak of the war a much man
lier showing than the academic crowd, most of
whom have been, until lately, strangely mute as
so-called 'leaders of American thought/' And yet,
the pulpits have their share too big a share of
men utterly incapable of righteous anger and of
wielding, in God's name, the sword of Gideon.
When next you go to church, I suggest that you
be attentive enough to examine the leader of your
flock. Is he a real man to lead you to do good
even though it hurts or just a tame mouse to make
you feel good, whatever the future cost? Is he in
the mighty tradition of Saint Augustine, John
Knox, Henry Ward Beecher, and the late Cardinal
Mundelein? Or does he chant with "Father"
Divine "Peaceif s wonderful?" My guess is that
God is tired of hearing Pontius Pilate in so many
pulpits.

18

I may not find the time in this letter to discuss
the sanctimonious slogans of certain pacifist and
isolationist preachers. They don't do nearly as
much harm as our intellectual milksops who dis
guise themselves in so-called "scholarship.** This
is partly because many of us have become good-
naturedly accustomed to mealy-mouthed sermons.
But be on your guard against the hazy messenger
of the Word. And remember that the Lord likes a
man in His house the same as anywhere else.

Behind the lines of the well-known propagan
dists, such as Beard, often of equal professional
rank, are some pathetic and hard-toiling people
the academic munition workers who supply them
with firecrackers to dazzle and deafen the public.
You know them. They earnestly strive, by putting
one footnote after another, to win a feeble aca
demic fame while their glib colleagues reap the
profits. Like their more opulent faculty associates,
they are immersed in the obscure and are victims
of hysteria or amnesia (depending on their tem
peraments ) when confronted by the crude, tough
facts of this world such as Mein Kampf, the Nazi-
Soviet alliance, the machine-gun slaughter of civil
ians, and the torture of the concentration camps.
We must not be too harsh with them or make
them scapegoats for their academic brothers. Nor
should we begrudge them too much their anemic
ecstasies when they discover for their blatant col-

19

leagues a glittering but irrelevant bit of historical
gossip* They "must live somehow/*

However, they deserve at least casual attention
from us and from truly learned and honest-minded
scholars because it is vital that our thinking be
not bombed and deranged by the obscure, the
trivial, and the insincere data of so-called "re
search men'* and their mouthpieces. Even those
who are sincere often miss the whole spirit of an
age in the frantic search for a footnote. And those
who are not honest are simply working the Nazi
technique of propaganda. I mention these isola
tionist "scholars'* because we must clear a lot of
smelly rubbish out of our minds and force our
selves again and again and again to face manfully
the great, sometimes harsh and sometimes beauti
ful facts of the world in which we and our chil
dren live. We must not duck down blind alleys to
escape the main, straight, and often hard road
to national and personal freedom and self-respect.

Tm sure most of you will understand when I
use words like "freedom** and "self-respect.** For
nearly twenty years they were scornfully discarded
by our pseudo intellectuals and are shunned or
soiled today by those propagandists who evidently
think of America as a luxurious pigsty completely
shut off from the outside world. You remember
the "disillusioned** novelists and poets after the
last war who clothed their mental and moral im-

20

potence in the language of the brothel and titil
lated the adolescent and the jaded with their find
ings from the garbage cans and slop jars of human
life. Well, that nasty and sordid materialism which
denies the philosophy of Plato and the life of
Christ and our everyday experience for that mat
terthat materialism is one of the most subtle
appeals of the isolationist and pro-Nazi propagan
dists. Please bear that constantly in mind when
we come, as we soon shall, to the slogans and
falsehoods of the hog-pen isolationists. We can
understand the allure of a dazzling and selfish
"materialism/' and in tranquil times many of us
can temporarily afford and most of us certainly
do succumb to it. But not now. We must act like
men and "put away childish things."

It's too bad that we are compelled to speak so
plainly about our "intellectuals'* and especially our
academic friends, most of whom are really decent,
hard-working fellows; but they have become too
self-sanctified, too removed from the healthy mo
ralities of life and the basic ethics of thought, too
oblivious of the standards in which we plain peo
ple believe. Many of them carelessly and selfishly
forget that their words are often given weight
because their audience is mindful of the institu
tions they represent institutions of learning, of
great prestige, with many warm loyalties and with
noble traditions of public service. Yes they should

21

have a drubbing an awakening a moral and in
tellectual strengthening of their training and out
look and a vigorous cleansing o their ranks. The
best of them know it. All they need and it's a
good deal is the courage to do it.

Now then, before we "get down to cases" with
the iinscrapulous propaganda of the Beard type of
isolationist, I want to warn you against one other
general type of person who spreads, quite uncon
sciously as a rule but all the more successfully, the
things Hitler wants us to think. I mean the man
whom John Bunyan named "Mr. Facing-both-
ways" the sleek "good fellow" who "can't be both
ered" and lazily appeals to an utterly perverted
sense of justice with the phrase "on the other
hand." In the normal course of life you and I use
that phrase as a brake on hasty Judgments, as a
sort of formula to be fair in our opinions of our
neighbor's deeds, as a balance in a waxm argu
ment But, mind you, always in reference to the
differences which exist within a civilized group.
(If you think the Nazis are civilized, then don't
read this letter. )

Yes, in everyday life we should say, again and
again, "on the other hand." It's so easy to harm
people and so hard to help them. But if we're
decent (a word that our smart pseudo intellectuals
scorn and fear), we don't speak that way about
the murderer or kidnaper or traitor. We say "shoot

22

y em" That is what we must say about the nastiest
lawbreakers of all the Nazis. And yet, it* s so easy
for some of us to use any refuge any escape from
the truth. Easy at the time. Not later the French
men and women who were betrayed by their
Other Handers could tell you about that, if they
were free. Can we Americans still face a grim,
hard truth with fight and kughter and "Rebel
yells" and "Battle Hymns"? Or shall we dumbly
and blindly slog along after the Beards and
Coughlins, Mr. Facing-both-ways and the Other
Handers, down the road of national and personal
ruin? I'm sure we won't. There are enough of us
a "sufficient number" of us who just won't do
it Well fight.

23

SOME POPULAR NARCOTICS

One of the favorite sports of professors and
writers who have consciously or unconsciously
misled and misinformed the American public in
recent years has been to deride the motives which
caused and the purposes which inspired America's
entry into the last World War. They have created
bogies and scarecrows, naming them the "Wall
Street Bankers" and the "Merchants of Death'* and
depicting them as beguiling and forcing the Amer
ican people against their will to take part in the
war.

That just isn't so, and you and I know it.

These and other slogans and falsehoods spread
at first by our own professors and writers and later
repeated incessantly by Hitler are simply popular
narcotics with which we have deadened the pangs
of conscience caused by our great betrayal of the
best hopes of mankind when we quit the peace.
Yes narcotics to banish the hot twinges of shame
when we stop to think how loudly we have talked
and how little we have done to make law and
reason supreme in the affairs of men. Today they
help some people to forget the menace of Hitler,

24

the demands of ordinary human decency, the
stem need of sacrifice if we are to be saved.

The average American doesn't give a damn
what the "Wall Street Bankers" say or think or do
except when, as in the Nineteen Twenties, some
of them sold us gilt-edged flypaper on which we
were permanently stuck. You may be sure of this
not one shred of evidence has been produced to
prove that Wilson's policy was at any time deter
mined by our financial stake in the Allied cause.
We do know that many bankers and businessmen
were appeasement and profit minded then as some
of them are now. Have you noted how our
twitching and twittering "intellectuals" who have
screamed at the late Neville Chamberlain as a
"business" appeaser now advocate with their fal
setto fury that we might possibly, maybe, perhaps
slap Hitler lightly on the wrist but at all costs
"stay at peace'?

It's perfectly true that some businessmen have
been like the "camp followers" mentioned by
Caesar and notorious in every war for picking up
scraps of booty left by the victor. We have them
today the whisky speculators, the labor baiters,
the Gestapo-minded men with soft hands and
hard eyes, who would "make a deal" with Hider
if they could get away with it That same sort
gloated and grew fat on the profits made during

25

our neutrality from 1914 to 1917. They didn't
want us in the war then. They don't now.

But most businessmen were patriots in 1917, as
they are today, and had enough vision, let* s say
horse sense, to realize that business can be secure
only in a society governed by laws and not by
gangsters. So it may be that some of yon who are
businessmen actually did favor in 1917 the con
tinuance of a system which, with all its defects
and grievances, was still subject to a reign of law
and the reasoned improvements of democracy
rather than subject to Prussian militarism. You
believed, as most of us did tot a variety of rea
sons, that we should enter the war against the
Kaiser's Germany. Most of you lost some big
profits which you might have enjoyed tempo
rarilyif we had remained at peace. So today
there's "blood money" for youtemporarilyif we
stay out. My guess is that as "hard-headed" men
and as citizens just as decent and democratic as
any of us you will prefer the high cost of sup
pressing international crime to the inevitable bank
ruptcy of succumbing to it

As for the "Merchants of Death" who "led us"
into the last war. Well, we know today what a
cheap political scarecrow that is. Both our knowl
edge and common sense refuse to elevate the mu
nitions manufacturers into gods of human destiny.
They make their unpleasant goods and sell them

26

because there are people (including us) who want
them and will buy them. Occasionally some over-
zealous salesman may have encouraged a Central
American revolution, but to picture these practical
gentlemen as playing a decisive role in the des
tinies of the world is plain silly. At the present
moment, please note, we are grumbling because
they are not working fast enough to suit our fancy
and our need.

Nor did we fight to 'pull England's chestnuts
out of the fire/* We never have. The propagandists
who say we have done so cannot prove a single
instance in our entire history as a nation to sup
port their falsehood. And yet by using the Nazi-
Communist technique of repeating a falsehood
again and again they have deceived some honest,
well-meaning folk and have soothed those frantic
people who cannot bear to face the simple but
sometimes hard truths of life. Have you observed
how these same propagandists scream with rage
because England is at moments reluctant to do
the hard jobs of civilization which they urge us
to shirk? Why doesn't England save Ethiopia or
China or Austria or Czechoslovakia or Finland? I
wonder how many of these propagandists urge
us today to take our place beside Britain in the
battle line of freedom.

Another popular narcotic which our propa
gandist historians and pseudo intellectuals have

27

successfully peddled to many of us is so-called
"Allied propaganda." They peddle this propa
ganda against propaganda on the assumption that
Americans are a simple, childlike, almost moronic
people who need nurses and guards to keep them
out of mischief. It is insidious stuff, which, taken
in too large doses, is likely to cause moral impo
tence and intellectual sterility. We are reminded
of the old Quaker's remark to his wife, "All the
world's mad except thee and me, and even thee
art a little mad." We know why we fought, we
can remember the big obvious facts which finally
roused us to action and which our isolationist and
pro-Nazi propagandists now try so frantically to
obscure; we can search our hearts, our minds, and
the written record, and we can honestly say that
so-called "Allied propaganda" did not hasten by
a day our entry into the last war.

America entered the last war for many reasons.
Let's recall them briefly. It'll help keep our think
ing straight

The most immediate and compelling reason was
simply that Germany, after repeated warnings and
protests, continued to sink ships without warning,
with a loss of American lives. If Germany had not
sunk our ships and if American lives had not been
lost in those actions, we probably would not have
entered the war. The evidence is overwhelming
on this point and it's on the record for all of us

28

to see. If s true that the British blockade was at
times aimoyingalthough when we got in we were
much tougher than our English cousins had been.
(More about that later on.) But the killing of an
American child counted more heavily with us than
the seizure of a bale of cotton. The British, irri
tated us, but we knew perfectly well that we
would do the same had done it more sternly dur
ing our Civil War. The Kaiser's government roused
our righteous anger. Even so we were patient.
Too patient, said some of our greatest statesmen
like old T.R. We can almost hear him now as he
bitingly attacked Wilson's "notes, notes, notes" of
protest against the German submarine warfare on
our ships and our lives.

Well the Kaiser then, like Hider now, was mis
taken about the American people. He counted, as
Hitler does, on our isolationists and pacifists and
those hand-wringing persons who whimper and
do nothing. He thought we wouldn't fight and that
if we did we wouldn't amount to much. Von Bern-
storff, German ambassador in Washington, warned
his government not to continue the U-boat war
fare on us. To no avail. Finally the American
people, the President, and our representatives in
Congress made up their minds on that issue. If
you have the time, I suggest that you again read
Woodrow Wilson's superb War Message of April
2, 1917 ? and the speeches of those members of

29

the House and Senate who voted for our entry
into the war. You will remember with renewed
pride why we fought. We clearly saw a tough fact
and bravely met it

With all our faults, we Americans nave a great
faith in certain ideals a faith that has moved
mountains and has contributed mightily to our
greatness as a nation. When Woodrow Wilson
struck the moral note, the heart of America re
sponded. Most Americans did believe that we
were fighting "to make the world safe for democ
racy/' Whether we succeeded or failed is irrele
vant at this point. We did fight for something
worth fighting for, and we need feel no regret
or shame for that motive and purpose. Have you
forgotten what Woodrow Wilson told us then and
what I think he is telling us now?

It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful
people into war, into the most terrible and disas
trous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to l)e
in the balance.

But the right is more precious than peace, and
we shall fight for the things which we have always
carried nearest our hearts for democracy, for the
right of those who submit to authority to have a
voice in their own Governments, for the rights and
liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion
of right by such a concert of free peovlg as shall

30

bring peace and safety to all nations and make the
world itself at last free.

I am not ashamed of those words and those pur
posesthey are the very substance o the Ameri
can spirit which Hitler and his clever allies in this
country are now trying to kill. I am ashamed that,
for a time, we repudiated those words, that we
did not carry through, that we quit on the job,
that we have listened for many years to the whines
and screams of those who would drown out the
still small voice of conscience and of warning.
Well today is another day. This time we won't
fail. We'll do the job we once set out to do. You
see, I am placing my bets and advise you to do
the same on the moral traditions and the common
sense of the American people.

Somewhat allied to the foregoing were our
Anglo-Saxon heritage and traditions. English peo
ple and American people believe in their hearts
that individual freedom is one of those few things
worth fighting for and, if need be, worth dying
for. It's true that most of us Americans of British
ancestry do not feel it necessary to boast loudly of
our heritage. We have gladly shared our Anglo-
Saxon traditions of equal justice and ordered lib
erty with many fine peoples who came from other
lands eager to enjoy our spiritual inheritance and
our economic opportunities. Those traditions,

31

though often foolishly ignored or wickedly vio
lated, are part of the fabric of our nation and our
very lives. Magna Carta, the common law, the Bill
of Rights, the King James Bible, the hymns of the
Wesleys and Cardinal Newman, Shakespeare and
Dickens, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth and Bobby Burns
they are the staples of our spiritual and mental
Hfe. They meant much to us in 1917. They mean
more they mean everything to us today because
the danger to them is so much more terrible.

Time and isolationist propaganda may have
dimmed some other reasons for our entry into the
war, such as German militarism, Germany's sup
port of Austria in July, 1914, the invasion of neu
tral Belgium, the introduction of poison gas, the
dynamiting of our bridges and munition plants,
the deportation and enslavement of Belgian civil
ians, the destruction of Louvain, and other brutal
facts we could not ignore and should not forget.

But "We won the war." Sure we did. Almost
single-handed. Almost. Let's try to be honest with
ourselves so that we may be fair to others. Let* s
remember what England and France and our
other associates contributed to the winning of that
war.

For instance, they fought the war for three
years while we remained neutral and waxed rich
at their expense. England, with a population one-
third of ours, lost in dead alone nearly one million

32

men; France, with a population less than one-
third of ours, almost a million and a half; Canada,
with a population less than New York State, about
100,000. As it was, we lost about 126,000. Remem
ber that in citing these facts I'm simply suggesting
that we be honest and fair.

We never knew the horror of an air raid, the
terror and degradation of an invading army de
stroying our towns and cities and enslaving a large
part of our civilian population to be hewers of
wood and drawers of water in the enemy country.
Fuel-less Sundays, Liberty Loan "drives," and one
lump of sugar instead of two were among our
major efforts. Yes, they helped helped a lot,
"turned the tide" and all that sort of thing. But
as a nation we were spared the agony our com
rades-in-arms endured.

And let's not forget that our fellow democracies
supplied us with most of our artillery and nearly
all our fighting planes; that of the five thousand
antisubmarine craft operating in the submarine-
infested waters we had only 160, or three per cent;
that sixty per cent of our troops were transported
by Britain and more than half our overseas army
was convoyed by the British fleet Yes yes our
war effort was good enough and just in time. My
point is that when we stop to think and make a
real attempt to be fair about the relative measure
of our war efforts and personal sacrifices the prop-

33

aganda we have been fed for several years seems
a bit indecent.

But they called America "Uncle Shylock"! Who
did? Well, strangely enough, there have been some
irresponsible politicians and journalists in England
and France just as there are in this country. They
aren't much help, often a damn nuisance, in solv
ing a hard problem between friendsespecially if
one is a creditor and the other a debtor.

As a sensible person you will agree with me
("sensible" people nearly always agree with one)
that the whole war debt problem was clumsily
handled on both sides. Just to be fair, remember
this they didn't "hire the money" we let them
buy goods on credit (to keep them fighting while
we got ready) and then, remember, we made it
practically impossible for them to pay us back-
thanks to our tariffs which shut out their goods.
A wise banker, as distinct from a pawnbroker,
does not keep his borrowers too poor to pay him.
You're probably in too much of a hurry to rake
over the' ashes of this old problem but please
keep in mind one or two of the big facts IVe men
tioned. If you have any free time on your hands,
you might read the speeches of our Senators when
Congress authorized these loans they gladly called
them gifts then. But times change and memories
are short. We know, however, that when gang
sters are roaming the streets we shouldn't haggle

84

over the price of a gun which our neighbor can
use to good effect.

All right, you say, but what did we get out of
the last war? Well we kept the war from coming
here by fighting it over there. That was something.
We won a breathing spell of twenty years for de
mocracyothers and our own. That's nothing to
cry about We prevented the German fleet from
dominating the Atlantic. Not a bad result. We
won the greatest chance in modern history to work
for a secure and lasting peace a chance which
we ourselves proposed a chance for a peace we
might have enjoyed today. We killed it You know
how. Some Americans were a little tired, much
frightened by their national maturity, and greatly
confused by the clever isolationist propaganda of
the time. So for twenty years we tried isolationism
and here we are today.

35

THE "CRIME OF VERSAILLES"

Long before Hitler made the "Crime of Ver
sailles" his favorite bedtime story to the German
people many of our "intellectuals'* were talking
and writing about it in the feverish manner of a
town gossip. Pseudo historians, irresponsible jour
nalists, and tired liberals who couldn't digest some
of the rougher facts of life all did their bit. There
was also some honest, intelligent, and justified
criticism of it.

Not many of you have read even a small frac
tion of the Treaty of Versailles, and, in fact, very
few of the loudest critics of the treaty have ever
read it I dont mean that our Pontius Pilate prop
agandists would behave any differently if they
had read it because those people shun the sober
truth like a pestilence. I mean they usually don't
know what they're talking about but find it easy
and congenial to repeat hearsay on hearsay and
too many of us lazily accept a good part of their
tittle-tattle. We must admit, however, that as a
treaty it had imperfections, having been drawn
by imperfect men representing imperfect peoples,

36

most of whom for four years had endured a wax
that was not exactly perfect.

There's this and that and a thousand and one
other things to be said about the "Crime of Ver
sailles." I merely want to suggest a few things to
remember.

Alsace-Lorraine was restored to France. Any ob
jections? The house hears none.

Germany lost some colonies in Africa. YouVe
heard a great "hue and cry" about these "lost
colonies" as if they were Germany's breadbasket
Actually, in 1913, they accounted for less than
one-half of 1 per cent of her foreign trade. They
lack most of her essential needs in raw materials.
As for "living space" well there was no mad rush
by Germans to live in them. We know that there
were more Germans living in the city of Paris in
1913 than in all Germany's African colonies. And
don't forget that the Nazis want these colonies as
closed preserves sources of military supplies
rather than open to world trade under the man
date system set up by the Versailles Treaty. This
"crybaby" demand of German propaganda is re
volting to those of us who take the trouble to see
what lies behind it, but it has a strong appeal to
shallow sentimentalists in this country.

What, you ask, is behind all this "crybaby" talk?
That's simple. Have you read Mein Kampf and
Hitler's and Goebbel's latest speeches? Hitler has

37

told us that it would be "insane folly" for the Nazis
to fight merely to restore Germany's 1914 bound
aries. The "crybaby" propaganda is merely a smoke
screen to befuddle us.

Then there were the reparations. Much too
much. Trivial, though, according to the stand
ards the Germans set when they are in the saddle.
At any rate, machinery was set up whereby the
payments could be scaled down to a reasonable
figure and that was shortly done. As we shall soon
see, Germany's "burden" after the war was not
the cost of the reparations but of the war itself
a great big fact which the Nazis and their allies
in this country never, never mention. Meanwhile,
you might scratch your heads and recall why and
for what the reparations were asked. I'll leave that
for you to figure out.

Crocodile tears have been shed over the 'war
guilt clause." The Beard type of propagandist and
some queer footnote minds in our colleges have
tried to smudge a pretty definite record. Through
all the fog and smoke of controversy some things
are clear. England and France did not invade neu
tral Belgium. Germany did. The war was not
fought on German soil. We know what the Prus
sian militarists wanted. We remember that Aus
tria-Hungary started the fight in July, 1914, and
that Germany backed her up. If you're interested
enough to go into it, you might read the minutes

38

of the Austro-Hungarian Cabinet meeting of July
7, 1914 they'll clear your head of the "sob sister
stories" peddled by Hitler, the Beards, and our
pseudo intellectuals*

"But but -the Germans are a proud people."
Since when has such pride become a cardinal and
cleansing virtue? And incidentally, Just what sort
of things do they take pride in? While we're about
it, let's make an honest, clear-cut distinction in
our minds between the German liberal in the con
centration camps and Hiramler's Gestapo, between
our pleasant, peaceful "music-loving" neighbor o
German ancestry and the great sodden mass of
Germans in Germany who will support Hitler until
we thrash them. You can't beat a panzer division
with a lollipop.

Mind you, the Treaty of Versailles was imper
fect. France made some mistakes. Britain made
some. America made some. I think the Polish set
tlement creating the "corridor" the least defensi
ble part of the treaty was the brain child of the
American delegation. Some heartbreaking deci
sions had to be made and were made. There were
errors of judgment and defects of vision. It is hon
orable and wise and morally healthy that we should
see such errors and defects and, more important,
do our full share in correcting them. Sound criti
cism is essential to progress in a democracy. (This
letter is no "paean of praise,") But our enemies

39

inside and outside of America have tried to mag
nify and pervert honest criticism into an excuse for
a defense of the basest crimes against democracy
itselfinto a weapon that would destroy the very
freedom of mind which encourages such criticism.
So, when you look back at our mistakes, don't
grow maudlin. We'll make plenty more. Our faith
is, however, that democracy will keep on trying
to win the just, the humane, the right things of
life.

We can say this about what Hitler calls the
"Crime of Versailles" there has been no other ma
jor treaty in modem history, concluded between
nations formerly at war, in which moral values,
high principles, and honest work played so great
and in many instances so decisive a part as in the
Treaty of Versailles. Maybe it would have been
better if America and the Allies had drawn a cold
blooded treaty of terrible revenge with no "non
sense" and fancy ideas about international law and
justice and respect for the opinions of mankind.
Maybe it would have been better. But it just wasn't
that kind of treaty. I suppose the reason is that
free men, however often they may falter and fail,
simply refused then as they refuse now (despite
all Hitler's efforts) to retrace the long, hard road
from the jungle. Somehow, democracy pushes
ahead.

There was one magnificent attempt in the Ver-
40

sallies Treaty for a better world the League of
Nations. Our President, Woodrow Wilson, fought
hard for it. France yielded many demands for her
security because of it. Those awful European na
tions, our recent associates, accepted it. America
turned it down. We wanted to preach, not work y
for a world of peace and ordered liberty. America
stumbled and fell. So we must sacrifice all the
more in this war and really work to keep the peace
we must earn. Woodrow Wilson will yet win his
fight The Unknown Soldier did not die in vain.
Do you remember what the German leaders
said they were going to do to the rest of the world
if they won? If you don't and are really interested^
I suggest that you dig back into the official docu
ments and newspaper files of twenty-five years
ago and also read the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The
isolationist and pro-Nazi propagandists today will
not tell you, nor will the facing-both-ways col
umnists. Most of them know, however, that had
Germany won, the Treaty of Versailles, in compari
son with the German peace terms, would have
seemed like the Sermon on the Mount. You will
recall that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended Rus
sia's part in the last war. A detailed analysis of it
is not possible in this letter, but suffice it to say
that Germany took from Russia more than a third
of her population, 32 per cent of her agricultural
land, more than half her industries, and about 90

41

per cent of her coal mines. When Germany crashed
Rumania in the last war, an even more terrible
treaty was forced down her throat the Peace of
Bucharest

Those treaties were merely mild examples of
Prussian militarism. Put them on a convenient shelf
in your minds for handy reference in the future.
And remember that although German militarism
has now sunk under the Nazis to the lowest de
pravity known to history it was a brutal menace
to democracy when we fought and temporarily
checked it twenty-three years ago.

42

WASTED YEARS

When we pause to look backward and think
quietly about the past, we regret something more
than our big mistakes, heavy losses, sharp de
feats, and thwarted hopes we regret the time
we've wasted. Tm not speaking about those in
sufferably perfect people who never waste a mo
ment I don't mean the time that is part of a well-
earned rest I mean the time when we know we
should have been on the job, working for the
things we want most. So it was with the great
democracies America, Britain, and France from
1919 to 1939. Those were wasted years. Tragically
wasted. Peace based on law and backed with,
power could have been firmly established. But
they threw the chance away by wishing and
dreaming and hoping not working for it. And let
us Americans be manly enough to stop prattling
about how wonderful we are and honestly admit
that our fault was as great as any other's. Greater,
really, because we added insult to injury by boast
ing to high heaven of our virtues.

While we wasted those twenty .years, what did
we do? We duped ourselves with fantastic non-
43

sense about poor Germany's postwar years, and
we did nothing to save the peace for which we
fought except to give and drop in on some very
pretty but utterly futile international tea parties.
Let's take a quick, clear look backward. We can
profit by it now and in the coming years.

During those twenty years Germany, with the
frantic aid of some self-styled 'liberals' in Amer
ica, won the greatest triumph in the history of
propaganda the poisonous effects of which we
can still see and smell. They sold us a vast quan
tity of <c bootleg" goods on foreign affairs, and some
people are showing today the distasteful after
effects of taking too much. Hiderism was such a
vile dose that many people stopped dealing with
certain "intellectual" bootleggers and racketeers
among our professors and writers so that they have
clear heads today. But poisons linger longer in
the mind than in the body a fact which our iso
lationist and pro-Nazi propagandists well know.
I'm talking about the immensely successful lies
regarding postwar Germany. You know all the
sentimental slush about how harshly Germany was
treated and how terribly she suffered and that
such treatment and suffering explain and even ex
cuse her present bestiality under the Nazis. Some
people have stayed roaring drunk on that stuff for
years*

What are the facts?

44

Let's see. Suppose we look briefly into the whin
ing propaganda about Germany's sufferings rai
der the British blockade. It's well to do so espe
cially as we have recently heard the sobs of our
appeasers and American Nazis sobs about the
present blockade sobs, I'm glad to say, which did
not deceive us.

The blockade in the last war was very effective
in defeating Prussian militarism. That fact alone
has naturally caused our pro-Nazi, anti-British
propagandists much anguish. When the United
States entered the war, the blockade was made
even more effective. We were tougher than the
British in enforcing it. Please remember that. And
well be just as tough after we enter this war.
When the Germans decide they'd rather make but
ter than guns, that they'd rather eat than kill,
the war will end. Not till then.

Yes, the blockade was continued after the ac
tual fighting stopped, but its restrictions were re-,
moved about nine months before the Treaty of
Versailles was ratified and peace actually estab
lished. If you took the trouble to dig into history,
you would discover other facts, such as: that the
delay in removing the blockade restrictions was
caused by the German refusal for months to deliver
the ships needed to transport food supplies and
gold to pay for them; that the British were the
first to propose lifting the blockade; and that Ger-

45

many's food shortage was actually worse for a
time after it was lifted. Incidentally, very incident
ally, although the German people suffered, so did
some other peoplepeople whose fields had been
ruined, whose houses had been pillaged and blown
.to bits, and whose towns and cities had been plun
dered by the Prussian invaders people who were
on our side.

Now then let's discuss "Germany's postwar
burden" about which some good sense and much
drool and drivel have been said and written. The
one great big fact about that "burden" is simply
this it was relatively light. Yes compared with
the burden carried by the English and French
peoples after the war it was very light And as
regards the so-called financial "servitudes" of the
Versailles Treaty it was a little burden indeed
and in a few years it became no burden at all.
Then why all the hubbub? Partly because the Ger
man whine in defeat is as tremendous as Ger
many's cruelty in victory. Partly because, under
Hitler, it's a method to throw dust in our eyes.
Partly because our Pontius Pilate propagandists
don't want you to know the facts. And partly be
cause the plain hard truth makes our pseudo in
tellectuals almost hysterical so that they quite nat
urally steer clear of it whenever possible.

All right, you say, let's have the facts.

Germany's postwar burden was really the cost of
46

the war itself. It's true that the German govern
ment paid a certain amount in reparations about
one-fourth the cost of her war efforts. The bal
ance sheet shows, however, that what Germany
actually paid out was more than offset by the
amounts paid into Germany by foreign investors,
mostly American and British. So the only burden
on German finances was the nation's war costs*
(It is a tragic irony that the money invested in
Germany to put her "on her feet" was the means
whereby she has enslaved most of Europe and to
day menaces everything we hold dear. We must
remember that.)

And stick this in your mind the tax burden
"per head 9 * after the war was far greater in Eng
land, France, and the United States than in Ger
many. In England in 1923-4, for example, the citi
zen was paying about four times as much in taxes
as the German citizen was paying. The Germans
simply did not try, as Britain and America did,
to meet their bills and put their house in order.
It was so much easier to whine* We must admit
that with the aid of our own ignorant or unscrup
ulous sentimentalists the whines had a sickening
success both here and inside Germany.

The German people deliberately refused to face
the truth that it was the war itself and their his
toric militarism which had cost them dear. They
loved their vast army it was the very soul o the

47

nation. So a fantastic lie and a dramatic fiction
were invented to sustain tteir faith in the army
and their lust for power over other peoples. The
lie was the so-called "dagger thrust in the back"
inflicted by the Socialists (Hitler later added the
Jews). It's clearly on the record that the Socialists
and organized labor backed the German govern
ment to the end and that Ludendorf f and the other
German generals knew their army was beaten. The
fiction was the "Crime of Versailles/' which helped
the Germans forget that the war and their long
lust for militarism had caused their troubles and
hardships.

We can understand why the German people
indulged in thS frightful self-deception. Their po
litical standards and experience were utterly dif
ferent from those of England and the United
States. They never knew the meaning of democ
racy or that slow but steady growth of freedom
under the law which is the chief characteristic of
Anglo-Saxon civilization. Serfdom existed in Ger
many well into the nineteenth century. Self-gov
ernmentthat most difficult and, we think, most
worth-while form of government they did not un
derstand and barely endured for fourteen years
under the Weimar Republic. The old chancellor,
Prince von Biilow, said truly enough, "We are not
a political people/* They simply prefer obedience
to liberty and power to law. What they wanted was

48

most certainly not the grim, plain truth which
would set them free a frightening prospect but
scapegoats and fictions which would soothe their
wounded pride and a leader whom they could
obey in a mad quest for power. Hitler gave them
what they wanted. He's their man and don't forget
it Exceptions magnificent exceptions yes. They
have fled to other lands or are dying under tor
ture in the concentration camps.

Yes we can understand the morbid self-pity of
the German people after the last war and their
failure to come to grips honestly, patiently, and
wholeheartedly with the real causes of their un-
happiness. It is much more difficultto understand,
probably only a pathologist can explain the self-
styled "liberals'* in this country who deliberately
refused to see or hear the plain facts of Germany's
relatively light postwar burden, who blinded them
selves to the historic and living menace of Ger
man militarism, and who gave frenzied aid to the
very^ forces of self-delusion in Germany which
made Hitler possible even after the Weimar Re
public had removed every last one of the so-called
"economic servitudes'* of the Versailles Treaty.
Well Hitler is their man, too.

During those wasted years, 1919-1939, certain
unscrupulous politicians and propagandists worked
hard, day in and day out, to isolate and imperil

49

America. They Ve done it. That sort of person costs
our democracy too much.

But didn't we tell the world that peace was
wonderful and that we liked it very much? Yes.
Exactly that and no more. We certainly did talk
and talk. Criticized, preached, exhorted, de
claimed, prayed, and moaned. And did nothing.
Through it all we felt a lurking shame because we
had quit on the hard job and had timidly thrown
away the superb opportunity our President, Wood-
row Wilson, had given the world. To hide our
shame we put on the shabby robe of self-right
eousness, went to a few international conferences,
slinked into an "unofficial observer's" seat at the
League of Nations meetings and complained be
cause Britain didn't do this, that, and the other
thing to keep us and the rest of the world com
pletely soft and warm and comfortable. You say
there's no use crying over spilled milk. That's
right. And yet and yet because we spilled too
much milk then blood is being spilled now.

Do you remember the Washington Arms Con
ference in 1921? There were some unusually pretty
speeches made at that affair. One worth-while
bit of statesmanship was achieved, thanks to the
efforts of Arthur Meighen, Canada's great Prime
Minister at the time. England and Japan had an
alliance, and Mr. Meighen, acutely aware of its
possible future embarrassment to the English-

50

speaking nations, urged British statesmen to cut
loose from it. That was deftly done by the late
Lord Balf our, and the Nine Power Treaty, a tooth
less statement of good intentions, was substituted
to save Japan's face and to give China a pathetic
hope of future territorial security. There was also
a proposal, unanimously adopted, to save the world
with arithmetic. It was so nice and simple the
big naval powers agreed to maintain their capital
ship strength at the ratio of "five-five-three." France
was bitterly denounced by some of our intellectuals
as being ^militaristic'* because Briand expressed
fear that Germany might again rearm and threaten
the peace and freedom of the world. But the Con
ference ended happily if a bit stuffily with a bumb
ling speech by Warren G. Harding.

Oh, of course, there were some other ^confer
ences" where we piddled and frittered time away
and made sure that whatever we might say or
preach we would never, never show or accept any
sense of * obligation" as a great and manly democ
racy in the family of nations. This piddle and
fritter foreign policy had a kind of Valentine Day
party at the time of the Kellogg-Briand "peace
pact." There were sugar and spice and everything
that's nice. War was bravely, solemnly "re
nounced." No "commitments," no "pledges," no
"obligations," no work. Nothing.

And let us give the tribute of a sigh to that re-
51

spectable and potentially useful organization the
World Court. The fatal wealkness of it was the lack
of a policeman to carry out its decisions. Even with
that weakness it still retained a tinge of moral au
thority which dismayed our isolationists. True,
our presidents, Messrs. Harding, Coolidge, and
Hoover (when you start to criticize old Chamber
lain, remember them) those gentlemen recom
mended it with about as much enthusiasm as an
Episcopalian vicar describes the Presbyterian min
ister* on the next block. But the Congress of the
United States had swerved from Woodrow Wil
son to the isolationist propagandists and rejected
even that symbolic attempt to establish peace
based on law. Just in passing, I want to point out
again that the World Court, worthy as it was, could
not by itself have established and maintained a
reign of law among the nations. The reason is
clear. We need the policeman's club as well as
the judge's robe to keep the peace. You and I
know that. The pseudo intellectual never will.

In the Nineteen Thirties the attitude of many
Americans on foreign affairs expanded rapidly
from piddle and fritter to piddle, fritter, and fuss.
The falsetto cries of our emasculated intellectuals
grew louder and shriller as they urged the other
democracies to do something about China, about
Ethiopia, about Spain, about Austria, about Czech
oslovakia. The hissings of anti-British and pro-

52

Nazi propagandists sickened the air and soiled
the printed page. Hider counted on them. They
served him well. Hitler counted on our isolation
ists. They did not fail him. In France his propa
ganda weakened the people's powers of resistance,
in England it put most of the nation's leaders to
sleep, in America it made the Congress of the
United States scuttle and run.

Munich and "appeasement." Yes Mr. Chamber
lain, with a gun at his head, yielded. Then, like
a certain type of narrow-minded businessman
(honorable in his dealings and blind in his under
standing even of his own best interests) then he
almost persuaded himself that everything would
work out for the best. Then, when his illusions were
torn to shreds, he met the Nazi criminal bravely
but wearily, honestly but inadequately. America
did not do even that. She talked and talked, and
screamed and preached, looked and ran away
under the leadership of the isolationist propagan
dists just as Hitler expected and wanted her to do.

At this point, let's indulge for a moment in a
little speculation not entirely idle speculation be
cause it might help us in the better days to come.
Let's suppose that after Munich the great democ
racies of the world America, the British Com
monwealth of Nations, France, and the smaller
countries of Scandinavia and Holland and Bel
giumand our South American neighbors let's

53

suppose they had gathered together and said: "We
want peace and we'll work for it. We want our
own way of life, neighborly good will, religious
tolerance, personal freedom, democracy which with
all its faults and failures and blunders and sins
can assure us the prizes of the future while keep
ing strong and useful the worthy and hard-won
rewards of our past. We want these things for
ourselves and our children enough to fight and
kill and die for them. We shall stick together
through thick and thin, come what may." I think
if they had said that and meant it the Nazis
would not have moved, there would have been no
war. True, it's a guess. But remember that the
Germans, whether ruled by a kaiser or a fiihrer,
worship definitely superior power and the will to
use it to the limit. Yes, it's a guess. Much worse-
it's a "might-have-been." But it will come to pass.

America could have made those words possible.
There were not a sufficient number of us wise
enough and willing enough at the time to make
our government do it. No American democracy
failed again. Too many of us, blinded and deaf
ened by pro-Nazi and isolationist propaganda,
desperately chanted, "Peace it's wonderful," and
shamefacedly muttered, "Let England do it."

During that year from Munich to the outbreak
of the war, when the free democracies lost their
great chance for peace and even up to now

54

false sentimentalitynot righteous sentiment false
sentimentality (our most dangerous national vice)
threatened the basic manliness of American char
acter. We have been gushingly told again and
again and again that our resources are Abound-
less,* our strength is "boundless/' our courage is
"boundless," our heroism is ""boundless/' our ideal
ism is boundless/' our love of freedom and justice
and democracy is ""boundless/* So is gas.

If bitter criticism of our brother democracies
and sugary praise of ourselves could make a better
world, we would have succeeded long ago. But
a better world is not made that way. SeH-coddling,
running away, wishful thinking did not make us
great and useful. And they will not save us. "Faith
without works is dead/" You and I know that.
Thank God we know it in time to act in the nick
of time.

It seems almost as incredible and certainly as
horrible as a nightmare that during the spring
and summer months of 1939 our Pontius Pilate iso
lationists in Congress., the pulpit, and the class
room kept shouting ""there will be no war/' kept
telling us to "follow the example" of "neutral"
Holland, "neutral" Norway, "neutral" Finland and
so on, kept hysterically shrieking "warmonger" at
those who saw and warned us of the looming Nazi
menace. Look at those Pontius Pilates and mark

55

them well. They bear an unmistakable and unfor
gettable stain.

We are asked to shut our eyes to the most blaz
ing truths, to avert our gaze from the plain facts
of our contemporary life, to stuff our ears and to
harden our hearts so that somehow, in some way,
we can escape from the tough realities of this
world and, as a nation, evade the tasks which na
ture, our moral traditions, and the uncompromising
forces of destiny have set for us to do.

And so the cries of our Pontius Pilates grow
more and more shrill as we pay them less and less
attention. But they can still do us harm. So note
them well. They are in the active service, con
sciously or unconsciously, of Adolf Hitler and his
Huns.

Now that we are cutting loose from the dead
weight of timidity and shame of those wasted
years, 1919-1939, now that we are manfully facing
the truth, now that we are casting out of our
minds and hearts the vile teachings of our morally
impotent intellectuals, now that we again fear
God and are about to do our part, we shall be
once more a truly happy, a truly brave, a truly
free, a truly good people.

56

HITLER'S BLITZKRIEG IN AMERICA

Among Hitler's major triumphs in the war so
far have been those over the mind and spirit of
America. Our neutrality was his greatest hope
his very best chance to win. He and his gangsters
knew it, and they have used the same technique
with us as they have done with others to bore
from within and with the frantic aid of kindred
spirits, of milksop intellectuals and demagogic
politicians to weaken our will to think and to act.
The Nazis coolly calculated that if they could
soften the mind and soul of America, if they could
somehow keep us nervously impotent somehow
keep us neutral they would enslave the world.
Their success up to now has been almost miracu
lous when we stop to look at the record: Hitler's
own words telling us in the plainest way his whole
technique of lies and treachery, his open viola
tion of every pledge made to other nations, his
bold and sickening use of terror and force.

It's true that now in the nick of time that a
patient God has given us we are pulling ourselves
together and are preparing to do our part as a
law-abiding neighbor to rid the world of the Nazi

57

gangsters. But we have just begun. Let's again
briefly study Hitler s past so that we can see what
we're up against, so that we can crash ruthlessly
the enemies within our gates, so that in our hard
march to victory we may avoid the tricks and
traps the Nazis and their allies in this country will
set in our path*

Perhaps the most important thing for you to
remember is simply this at no time, under no cir
cumstances, and no matter what he says can you
take the word believe the promise of Herr Hit
ler. If you do, you may die. In Mein Kampf he
has told you plainly, so that there is no possible
excuse for not understanding, his complete faith
in the power of the lie. He said: "The masses will
fall victims to a big lie more readily than to a
small one, for they themselves only tell small lies,
being ashamed to tell big ones. Untruthfulness on
a large scale does not occur to them, and they do
not believe in the possibility of such amazing im
pudence, such scandalous falsification, on the part
of others. Some part of even the most glaring lie
will always remain behind " He has also de
scribed exactly how he destroys: "Conceal your
real intentions; conciliate your strongest oppo
nents by pretending that you are on their side;
gradually increase the strength of your position
by tactical advances, each one of which is not
vital enough to arouse serious opposition but the

58

sum of which enormously add to your power; and
then, at the given moment, throw down the mask
and launch a mass attack upon your enemies.**
The knaves or fools among our Congressional iso
lationists try to make you forget or simply ignore
those words. That is one reason why Hitler has
counted on them to keep us out of war.

Look once again at his record of broken pledges
so criminally fantastic that the mind of an or
dinary decent man can hardly take it in. But here
it is in a nutshell from February 10, 1933, to
October 6, 1939:

Berlin, February 10, 1933.

The first and best point of the Government's pro
gram is that we won't lie and we won't swindle.

Berlin, May 17, 1933.

The German Government wish to settle all dif
ficult questions with other governments by peace
ful methods. They know that any military action
in Europe, even if completely successful, would,
in view of the sacrifice, bear no relation to the
profit to be obtained. . . .

Germany will tread no other path than that
laid down by the Treaties. The German Govern
ment will discuss all political and economic ques
tions only within the framework of, and through,
the Treaties.

59

The German have no thought of invad

ing any country.

On the radio, May 27, 1933.

We do not want a war merely for the purpose

of "bringing to Germany people who simply do
not want to be, or cannot be, Germans.

On October 14, Germany left the League of
Nations.

Bella, November 10, 1933.
I am not crazy enough to want a war. . . .
When has the German people ever broken its

word?

Berlin, January 13, 1934.

The assertion that the German Reich plans to
coerce the Austrian State is absurd and cannot be
substantiated or proved. . . .

After the Soar question has been settled, the
German Government is ready to accept not only
the letter but the spirit of the Locarno Pact. . . .

Hamburg, August 17, 1934.

The German Government, like the German peo-
ple y are filled with the unconditional wish to make
the greatest possible contribution to the preserva
tion of peace in this world.

On May 16, 1935, Germany announced con
scription.

60

Berlin, May 21, 1935.

The German Government intend not to
any treaty which seems to them incapable of ful
fillment, but will scrupulously observe every treaty
voluntarily concluded, even if it was drawn up
before their assumption of power and office. . .

Germany has concluded a non-aggression pact
with Poland, which is more than a valuable con-
tribution to European peace, and she will adhere
to it unconditionally. . . . We recognize the Polish
State as the home of a great patriotic nation with
the understanding and the cordial friendship of
candid nationalists.

Germany neither intends nor wishes to inter
fere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex
Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss.

On March 7, Germany reoccupied the Rhine-
land and denounced Locarno.

Berlin, March 7, 1936.

We have no territorial demands to make in
Europe.

Munich, March 15, 1936.

The German people do not wish to continue
waging war to readjust frontiers.

Berlin, May 1, 1936.

The lie goes forth again that Germany tomor-
61

row or the day after will fatt upon Austria or
Czechoslovakia.

Berlin, January 80, 1937.

I do not want to leave any doubt as to the
following: We look upon Bolshevism as upon an

intolerable danger to the world For this it is

necessary that we should avoid all close contacts

with the bearers of these poisonous bacilli

Any treaty links between Germany and present-
day Bolshevist Russia would be without any value
whatsoever. . . .

Berlin, February 20, 1938.

Shall I remind you of the Bolshevist Revolu
tion which slaughtered millions upon millions of
people, but whose blood-stained murderers still
occupy high places? . . . With one single country
alone we have detested to enter into relationships.
That state is Soviet Russia.

The Polish State respects the national condi
tions in this country, and Danzig and Germany
respect Polish rights. Thus it has been possible
to find the way to an understanding which, ema
nating from Danzig, in spite of the assertions of
many mischief-makers, has succeeded in remov
ing all friction between Germany and Poland, and
made it possible to work together in true amity.

On March 11, Germany invaded Austria.
62

Berlin, May 1, 1938.
The motto must be, never war again.

Berlin, September 26, 1938.

We have assured all our immediate neighbors
of the integrity of their territory so far as Ger
many is concerned. That is no hollow phrase; it
is our sacred will. . . .

The Sudetenland is the last territorial claim
which I have to make in Europe I have as
sured Mr. Chamberlain, and I emphasize it now,
that when this problem is solved, Germany has
no more territorial problems in Europe.

Saarbrucken, October 9, 1938.

Now as a strong State, we can be ready to pur
sue a policy of understanding with surrounding
states. We want nothing from them. We have no
wishes or demands; we desire peace. . . .

Berchtesgaden, January 1, 1939.

In general we have but one wishthat in the
coming year we may be able to make our contri
bution to this general pacification of the whole
world.

Berlin, January 30, 1939.

Only the warmongers think there will be a
war. I think there will be a long period of peace.

On March 15, Germany seized Czechoslovakia
and on March 21, annexed Memel.

63

April 28, 1939.
Mr. Roosevelt believes that the **tide of events'

is once more bringing the threat of arms, and that
if this of arms continues, a large part of the

world is condemned to a common ruin. As far as
Germany is concerned, I know nothing of this
kind of threat to other nations.

On August 21, Germany signed a pact with Rus
sia and on September 1, invaded Poland.

Berlin, September 1, 1939.

I will not war against women and children. 1
have ordered my air force to restrict itself to at
tacks on military objectives.

The bombing of Polish open towns began on die
first day of the war and on September 3, the Athe-
nm was sunk. You know what has happened since.

Berlin, October 6, 1939,

And I personally take exception at seeing for
eign statesmen stand up and call me guilty of hav
ing broken my word. . . .

You and I know that on the basis of his words
and his works we can never, never make peace
with Hitler and the gangsters and perverts around
him. Some of our Pontius Pilate propagandists
know it in their hearts and for certain horrible
reasons won't tell you. Likewise, some demagogues

64

and shifty politicians in and out of Congress. There
are also, of course, many sugary sentimentalists
who don't know it Hitler counted on all of them
to help him destroy us English-speaJcing peoples.
He was so sure of our moral decadence so sure
we would not fight Several years ago he told a
friend, "There will be no new Wilson arising to stir
up America against us. 9>

Hitler has scored many triumphs in his blitz
krieg against the nerve centers of the American
people. Let's count the casualties which he and
our isolationist propagandists have inflicted on
America. It's not a pleasant task. But it's part of
the job we have to do for ourselves and our chil
dren. We Americans must have clear heads and
clean hearts to fight freedom's greatest battle.

When, in September, 1939, Hitler started the
war for which he and the Germans had so care
fully and sacrificiaUy prepared, what happened
inside America? Well in fear of Hitler and of
having to do anything to check his barbarians, the
Congress of the United States hauled down the
American flag over a great part of the waters of
the world and adopted the* policy of "scuttle and
run." I think that future generations of Ameri
cans will read that page in our history with a hot
flush of shame. To his lasting honor, the greatest
statesman in the American Senate, Carter Glass
of Virginia, denounced this action as taking the

65

United States "to the verge of poltroonisnT and
as dishonoring our World War dead.

When, in the early months of the war, the Ger
mans shot schoolboys in Prague as an example to
other children, when they murdered Catholic
priests and tortured and enslaved the inhabitants
of Poland, when they threatened the same treat
ment to the helpless people of Norway and Swe
den if they permitted an Allied army to aid Fin
land, there were, here and there, nervous whis
pers of regret But, when the British navy delayed
our ships several hours, as it had a right to do
under international law. Hitler's friends among
our Congressmen and intellectuals shrieked with
rage.

Finland? Ah yes~"gallant little Finland .* What
did we do? We wrung our hands. Anything else?
Indeed yes. The Congress of the mightiest single
democracy on earth, after eight weeks of hysterical
indecision, finally approved a bill whereby Fin
land was loaned a little money to buy, if she
wished, coffins to bury her dead but not arms with
which to defend her liberty. So great was the
hysteria of Congress that Finland's name did not
even appear in that magnificent gesture of the
American Republic. But our pro-Nazi and anti-
British isolationists obscenely mocked at England
and France becguse they did not send a large
army to Finland's aid, which, as the Finnish lead-

66

ers said, Norway and Sweden would not permit.

Have you forgotten the sly murniurfngs of some
gutter minds among our isolationists about this
being a "phony war** and a "struggle between
rival imperialisms" and "they're all alike." Many
very decent-minded people were trapped tem
porarily by that talk. But the real culprits who
still repeat some of those phrases mark them well,
I say, for they are working Hitler's will; they are
enemies of the Republic.

When the Nazis took over Denmark and Nor
way, most of us felt disgust and righteous anger.
But certain people sat up and exclaimed, "Thank
heavens, the war is getting really interesting.'"
And others, the anti-British and pro-Nazis, glee
fully pointed out that Germany had again shown
such masterly efficiency and contemptuously asked
why Britain had not seized them first, knowing
full well that she was finally fighting, among other
things, to stop the cold-blooded murder o small
nations. Denmark and Norway, remember, were
among those snug, harmless, decent peoples whose
policy of neutrality our isolationists had begged
us to follow.

That was last April. We were not facing the facts
because, as a nation, we were still stupefied by
the popular narcotics fed us by the Beard-like in
tellectuals, still hypnotized by the anti-British
and pro-Nazi propaganda. Also, the world then,

67

as It seems to us now, was very different. The in
nocent peoples of Holland and Belgium still culti
vated their gardens in the twilight of a peaceful
if precarious neutrality. The flag of Liberty, Equal
ity, and Fraternity still waved proudly and serene
ly over the most civilized nation on the European
Continent War, many innocent Americans thought,
was of course a terrible thing, but as wars go it
would be a comfortable one; we could all settle
down very snug and safe behind lie Maginot
Line and the British leet and wait until the Ger
man army got tired of the war, or the *1dndly w
German people revolted against their hated mas
ters, or Hitler fell downstairs and broke his neck,
or something else happened that would end it all
very nicely. So we lived in a fairyland of wishful
thinking which adults seem to crave as much as
children when reality gets tough.

Well last May you know what happened. Hol
land conquered with almost incredible cruelty.
Belgium crushed. Suddenly there was no Maginot
Line. Paris, the "City of Light,'* in the hands of
the barbarians. America became alarmed.

Let it never be forgotten how magnificently
this Ttiome of the brave'* rose to the occasion. We
talked more than ever; we wept; we wrung our
hands. When France made her dying appeal to
us, what did we do? We warmheartedly assured
her, in effect, that we would redouble our efforts

68

to sell to her for cash down and at a nice profit,
just as fast and as soon as we could, the war
supplies she might want. Strange as it may seem,
that was not quite enough to help her carry on.
(Incidentally, did you know that at Yorktown in
1781 there were more French soldiers and sailors
than Americans?) Oh yes, Congress hastily ap
propriated billions and billions of dollars for de
fensefor a "two-ocean navy" which, if the Axis
powers destroyed England, they would of course
give us six or seven years to build.

And yet there were signs of a moral awakening
among most Americans. Dunkerque helped. "A
colossal military disaster." True. But also an an
swer to the prayers of liberty-loving men and
women throughout the world. In that night of de
feat and disaster a tiny star of faith and hope was
born. England could "take it" as she had always
done. Most of us began once again to feel like
Americans. Free men still knew how to fight for
freedom. Our truly liberal spirits in the colleges,
the professions, among labor leaders and in busi
ness, who had been drowsing, put aside their il
lusions and wishful thinking and spoke out clear
and bold. We began slowly and confusedly, it's
true but surely to throw off the poisonous prop
aganda we had been fed by our whining pseudo
intellectuals, the Pontius Pilate politicians, the
Fascist and Communist isolationists, the hysterical

69

pacifists, and all those "passive barbarians" in
our midst who give a fawning acquiescence to
ruthless power. Many of you knew as a matter
of plain decency and hard sense that we must
help the rest of our neighbors in the English-
speaking world.

Yes it was only a beginning. The recovery of
all that is manliest in the American character and
tradition was slow fearfully slow. Our enemies
outside and inside America redoubled their efforts
to stop it A few knaves in our midst were, as is
always the case, aided and abetted by a larger
number of fools. We were still jabbering and did
very little. True, we sold to the British some old,
second-hand army rifles for cash down. Then there
was the destroyer-naval-base deal. That was good.
But the effects of isolationist and anti-British prop
aganda were still so vicious that it was evidently
thought wise to make it appear as a horse trade
in which we got the better of the one other great
democracy left in the world while she was fight
ing for Kf e. However, that aspect of the trade did
not rest well on the consciences of many Ameri
cans.

The presidential campaign checked somewhat
our slow progress toward honest thought and real
work. But lefs skip it

During last summer and fall, self-deception still
held a dominant if diminishing influence in our

70

thinking. You know what I mean. All the
and puff to the effect that "we really are in the
war" and *%e can help Britain more by staying
out** and "we're doing all we canwhat more can
we do.'* We knew damn well that was bunk. But
it isn't easy to throw off twenty years of lying prop
agandaespecially when it has been vastly in
creased and efficiently directed by the Nazi ma
chine.

Pontius Pilate knew, however, that he was in
danger. He saw that Uncle Sam was waking up
and looking at him with a quizzical and rather cold
eye. So he beat a strategic retreat and joined lustily
in our last great attempt at national self-decep
tion "Short of War/' Aid to our friends and kins
men of the English-speaking world? Yes-yes, of
course. But not too much. And for cash down. And
at no risk to ourselves. We might want to make a
deal with Hitler some day. Take it easy. Maybe
Britain will lose anyway. Maybe Britain will win
anyway. Go slow slow slow. Today that is Hit-
le/s last great hope that America will go slow.

"Short of war/* Many fine Americans who de
test Nazism used that phrase in a defensive spirit.
The Nazi and isolationist propaganda had been so
successful over such a long period that they feared
the Jibes and jeers of the Pontius Pilates in our
midst Quite a few honestly thought that it would
at least be wise to do something, though relatively

71

trivial, while hoping and waiting to do more.
There were other citizens who simply and eagerly
fooled themselves with one of the most ancient and
everlasting follies of mankind the belief that a
maximum of good can be achieved by a minimum
of effort the "eat your cake and have it, too** phi
losophy which always appeals to the adolescent
mind.

"Short of war/* But we began to realize last
summer and know now that if Britain doesn't win
we shall be in a last ditch fight for life and utterly
alone. Britain, in fighting for her life, is also fight
ing the battle of world freedom and world democ
racy. And yet the Pontius Pilates cry, "Sell if you
can, lend if you must, fight never/* America is in
the gravest danger since the first English settlers
landed at Jamestown and Plymouth. But, we are
told, we must not fight until we're alone we must
not fight while all the rest of the English-speaking
peoples are fighting and can be our allies. Only
if and when they are beaten down then then well
fight like like what? Rats in a corner? Then-
pray tell what will be our "war aims'? "Whom
the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
Our enemies know that and they urge, preach,
scream, and whisper with an infinite variety of
words the deathly doctrine of the "cornered rat"
And the supreme tragedy is that good men aid
them knowing not what they do.

72

"Short of war/* Men once said other things in
times that tried their souls in times not quite so
desperate as today. Men once said, "Give me lib
erty or give me death." Men once said: "Fondly do
we hopefervently do we pray that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if
God wills that it continue until . . . every drop of
blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by an
other, drawn with the sword, as was said three
thousand years ago, so still it must be said: The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous al
together."* Men once said: There is, therefore,
but one response possible from us: Force, force
to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, the
righteous and triumphant Force which shall make
Right the law of the world, and cast every selfish
dominion down in the dust"

"Short of war"? No. Not much longer. We are
decent men and women. Hitlers blitzkriegs and
threats and propaganda are terrific, but the char
acter of the American people is more.

73

BRITAIN AND AMERICA:

OLD GRUDGES AND NEW LIES

I suppose most of you have seen from time to
time some pathetic people who suffer from an
acute sense of inferiority. I don't mean the true
humility of mind and spirit one of the supreme
and lesser known human virtues. You know what
I mean the fellow who lacks steady values and
fears himself and therefore frantically seeks some
kind of self-assurance by displaying a groveling
servility or a malicious envy toward something he
would like to be but cannot. That kind of man,
we know, is abnormal. He is usually a nuisance
but at times a menace. Hitler is of course the per
fect example. And today, here in America, he
is served consciously or unconsciously by two other
unpleasant types the Anglophile and the Anglo-
phobe.

The Anglophile is a nuisance and the Anglo-
phobe a mesace. We can dispose of the nuisance
in a few words. I have seen with my own eyes
American citizens quiver like jelly with ecstasy
and some embarrassment on meeting a really, truly,
honest-to-goodness English lord. Their tongues

74

cleaved to the roof of their mouths as they gur
gled and stuttered in the noble presence. We know
the silly spectacle that some American women hav&
made of themselves in fishing for an invitation to
present their daughters * c at court.'* We know, too,
that craven kind of person who when in England
seeks to cuny favor with the English by scorning
and ridiculing his native land and his fellow Amer
icans. Well, I can assure you if you don't know
it already that our English friends have Just as
much contempt for that abnormal sort of Amer
ican as we have. Like us they despise the syco
phant who never yet, no matter how long and
hard he crawls, has won an honest and wise man's
friendship and respect. Like us they have been de
lighted both in literature and in life to pour scorn
on those who would wiggle upward. Do you re
member Malvolio in Twelfth Night or Uriali Heep
in David Copperfield? Eternally repeating types*
The trouble is that these would-be Englishmen,,
these la-dee-da Anglophiles, whom the English
don't want as a gift, are likely to irritate a few of
us unduly, to distract our attention from the great
problems we must meet and to obscure the mag
nificent qualities of our friends and kinsmen in
the rest of the English-speaking world. Let's dis
miss them from our thoughts as we would shun
their company. They simply don't count in the big
ger scheme of things.

75

The Anglophobe Is vicious. He hates England
more than he loves America. Racial origin is by
no means the usual cause of his abnormality. I
have noticed Americans whose ancestors were
freedom-loving British men and women who came
to our shores two or three centuries ago Ameri
cans who were almost crazed with Anglophobia.
Have you never observed the Boston snob (the
kind Emerson would have loathed) who fears that
despite his educational background he just can't
measure up to the cultured English gentleman and
therefore relieves his feeling of inferiority by criti
cizing England with a pathological hatred? The
bitterness of an imitation toward the original can
be a cruel and dirty thing.

In peaceful times we could dismiss these men
tally deformed people with a shrug, regretting that
they were afflicted with an ugly obsession Just as
if they had a harelip. But today we must fight
with everything that is in us to keep the Nazi
Gestapo out of our lives and the lives of our chil
drento keep our civilization clean and free. We
should be on guard constantly on guard against
these unclean Anglophobes who try to infect us
with their own and Hitler's poisons. They pose, of
course, as 100 per cent Americans but we must
spot them for what they are enemies of the United
States, enemies of our English-speaking civiliza
tion, enemies of freedom-loving men and women

76

everywhere whose last great hope rests in the
triumph of that civilization. Some of these Anglo-
phobes are so crazed with their hate that they are
ineffective. But there are others who are slippery
and cunning and who do useful work for their
Nazi masters in the form of mental sabotage.

You think this language pretty strong? My fel
low countrymen, this war, more than any other in
all history, is a struggle for the human mind and
the human soul. Hitler has told you that again
and again and again. If he and his allies outside
and inside America can soften and capture our
minds and souls, then our bodies will be ready for
the Gestapo's whip.

Yes, lefs beware the Anglophobe. Every snarl
and whisper of hate against Britain are blows
struck at us and our children. They are blows
struck in the service of Hitler and his Huns.

How do these Anglophobes work? What are
the poisons they try to spread? Why are they a real
menace? They dig up stale grudges and invent new
lies about our friends and neighbors in our Eng
lish-speaking world, and with these grudges and
lies they trap the decent but uninformed and pan
der to the mentally unstable people among us.
Not many of you have had the time and the energy
to dig into the truth which these unscrupulous men
conceal or to expose the malicious lies which with
out the slightest moral restraint they pour out night

77

and day, knowing full well, as Hitler has said,
that some of them wiU stick.

It's pretty hard work to earn a living, to raise a
family and to do the duties of an average good
citizen. So we have depended on our "intellec
tuals* to give us the facts and to interpret them
as truthfully as they can. Well, some of our "in
tellectuals'" have fought, unwittingly, Hitler's bat
tle and many others simply aren't worth the pow
der to blow them to Hell they're too busy scream
ing at each other and making a pretty penny in
the process to speak with the accents of real men
to tell you courageously, soberly, simply what you
should know. Perhaps they couldn't tell you if
they tried. So many of our self-styled "thinkers**
have a lust for self-deception.

I am going to tell you a few things about our
fellow democracies in our English-speaking world
things which many of you once knew and may
have forgotten or which have not been called to
your attention. They are facts all of us should know
as we move up to take our place in the battle line
of men and women who will still fight and know
how to fight for freedom. Som of these facts
may give pain to a few of you especially if they
step on the toes of old prejudices or ruffle the
complacency of entrenched ignorance. But in writ
ing this letter I assume that most of us are now
ready, willing, and able to face the truth. It's a

78

good time to brush up our knowledge and clean
up our thinking.

Because this is a letter I think it proper at this
point to make a confession. I enjoy reading Amer
ican history more than that of any other nation.
To me it's the most interesting. What sweep it has!
And power and dash and faith and hope. Above
all, what promise a promise to mankinda prom
ise which it is our privilege to make good. I sup
pose being an American has a lot to do with my
preference for reading our history. Not entirely of
course. I have heard many good citizens, and so
must you, who have said that American history
was "pretty dull." I think the explanation usually
is that they were taught by a weary, cut and dried
person who probably spent his days wondering
why he hadn't gone into business and earned a
fortune rather than "taken up teaching." At any
rate, Tin sure that there are many of you who
share my enthusiasm for American history and
who feel as I do, after making every subtraction,
allowance, and concession which Truth and Justice
demand, that we can be proud of it and glad to
carry on the great tasks it points out for us to do.

And because, in the last analysis, you and I can
be proud of our nation's history we can study it
fearlessly and learn from our failures and mistakes,
see clearly wherein we have sinned and blundered,
acknowledge frankly and with grace the help of

79

others, and admit with chastened hearts that in
am imperfect world we have had our share of im
perfection. That study will give you rich and en
during rewards: the quiet assurance that is bred
of true humility and a quickened pride that you,
as an American citizen, can play a part, however
small, in shaping your country ? s destiny. We should
not forget, especially now, that history is made by
many and recorded by few.

When we read the story of our relations with
Britain during the last three hundred and thirty-
four years, we realize that it has been in great
part the story of a family. This land of ours was
first settled by Englishmen. Our people have been
British subjects for a slightly longer time than they
have been American citizens. Nearly all the sign
ers of the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of the United States were of British
ancestry. Our law is based on the English common
law. The King James Bible is the Bible most of
us read. We talk the same language. I mention
these things at this particular point not to em
phasize the bonds that unite us in our English-
speaking civilization but rather to bring out the
reason why certain old grudges, irritations, and
untruths have lingered in the minds of some very
decent people, a few of whom are today the vic
tims of anti-British propaganda. Family differences
are not as easily forgiven and forgotten as those

80

between comparative strangers. Nor are virtues
as warmly appreciated and as long remembered.
So it has been in our English-speaking family.

Then too, we should remember that for sev
eral generations our school histories were written
with the obvious purpose of feeding the vanity of
a young and self-conscious nation. An honest state
ment of facts about our past rektions with Brit
ain and a fair appraisal of their significance were
until recently not only rare but actually attacked
by feeble-minded or unscrupulous people as un
patrioticas if we couldn't look at Uncle Sam,
warts and all, and still love him and be wiling to
die for him. The "cherry tree" myths of history
die hard, especially when there is political or
financial profit in keeping them alive. And we know
that most of us have not read much history since
we closed our school books. So the historical dis
tortions and absurdities many people were taught
in their early years remained like knots in their
minds. In some cases they have been cut out or
worn away by wider reading or observation, but
the Anglophobe has managed in a few instances
to turn those knots into cancerous growths of sus
picion and dislike*

You have seen and endured the parlor intel
lectual who tries to make a conversational impres
sion. When certain examples of Anglo-American
co-operation were mentioned, you have heard him

81

say with that asinine air of wisdom which parlor
Intellectuals have, "Yes, I know I knowbut don*t
forget that it was to England's interests. Always
remember Britain looks after her own interests,
ha! hal n Don't bother to argue with him. Digest
your dinner. Turn to the charming lady on your
right and enjoy the evening.

Of course it was to England's "interest" And
to ours. And to the "interest" of peace and trade
and law and order and the stumbling but forward
march of democracy throughout our English-speak
ing civilization. It's to our "interest" to earn a liv
ing, to pay taxes, to support the fire and street
cleaning departments, the police,, the courts, the
schools, to crush the forces of brutal might and
slavery whenever they threaten us. It's to our ^in
terest" to preserve the blessings of liberty for our
selves and our posterity. It's to Britain's
"interest" and to America's "interest" that we co
operate and compete in a free, peaceful, and law-
abiding world.

I seem to have dealt quite a bit with rather gen
eral considerations, but I think it's a good idea to
blow on our glasses and wipe them before reading
some facts.

Let's be fair even to George the Third. It's true
that he hired German troops to fight us in our
revolution. But, under the circumstances, that was
a natural thing for him to do. After all, he was

82

more of a German than an Englishman. So many
of the British people were on our side that for
lack of volunteers to fight us he simply had to
turn to the land of his ancestors, the land of the
Huns, for the extra troops he needed. (By the
way, please remember that it was the ex-Kaiser
who first and very proudly named his soldiers
Huns.) Moreover, the greatest British statesmen,
like Burke and Pitt, vigorously championed our
cause in Parliament. Horace Walpole expressed
their feelings when in 1777 he wrote to a friend,
"I rejoice that the Americans are to be free, as
they had a right to be, and as I am sure they have
shown they deserve to be. ... I own there are
very able Englishmen left, but they happen to
be on t* other side of the Atlantic.**

Yes, George the Third was in a bad fix, and
he did his German best, but it was not quite good
enough. He lacked the necessary support in Eng
land. Weak and incompetent as our Congress and
politicians were, at least they did not "scuttle and
run" like our present crowd. We had decisive help
from other nations. We had George Washington, a
"country squire,** to lead us. And although a Gallup
poll might well have shown a majority in favor
only of measures "short of war, 3 * there were a
sufficient number of our ancestors who were "war
mongers" and willing to pledge their lives, for
tunes, and sacred honor for our freedom.

83

When our Revolution was won, peace was con
cluded in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. Benjamin
Franklin was the outstanding man of our peace
delegation. England sent two negotiators, who
were not only old friends of Franklin but also
open sympathizers with our Revolution, and one
of them, if I remember correctly, had put part of
his personal fortune at our disposal during our
struggle* Have you forgotten that fact?

The War of 1812 Is not one of the glorious pages
in American history. Because of it and in the
middle of it several New England states almost
seceded from the Union. Britain was in a life and
death struggle with Napoleon and could devote
relatively little effort to the war with us. Even
so ? we were unable to help autocracy as much as
Napoleon had hoped. We were effectively block
aded and rather easily invaded. Our one real
land victory the Battle of New Orleans took place
after the treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent.

Some of you may cherish a grudge because Brit
ish troops burned the White House in that wan
How many of you were told in school or college
that American troops had burned the city of To
ronto the year before? Two wrongs don't make a
right, to be sure, but the first wrong tends to ex
plain although it does not excuse the why and
wherefore of the second. The old doctrine of "you

84

hit me first" seems to be rather irmly imbedded
in human nature.

Of course you remember that we fought the
War of 1812 because England removed people
from our ships. It was a genuine grievance. But
do you also remember were you ever taught
that later on we removed people from English
ships and that England, although it had a genu
ine grievance on those occasions, kept her temper
and the wrongs we committed were satisfactorily
settled by diplomacy in one instance and by ar
bitration in the other? Some of you were not
taught those facts? I wonder why.

The Monroe Doctrine, about which you may
have heard, was proposed by the British Prime
Minister, George Canning, approved by the Au
thor of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas
Jefferson, and announced by the President of the
United States, James Monroe. And incidentally
the British fleet made it stick. The facts about it
may seem too obvious to repeat, but in these days
when we are urged by men without heart and
bowels and liver to flee from the obvious and vi
tal and seek a quivering refuge in the obscure
and trivial, it is well to be sure of our A, B, C's.
Some intellectuals may moan about "oversimplifi
cation/' Let "em moan. It's what they do best.

In 1822 the continent of Europe was in the
iron grip of despotism. Four nations Prussia, Rus-

85

sia, Austria, and France Joined together in what
we would today call an "axis'* but was then more
loftily termed die Holy Alliance. Those nations
didn't like England; they didn't like us; and they
liked South America very, very much, that is, after
a fashion the way the Nazis do today. Despots in
those times were urbane and draped their thoughts
gracefully. The first Article of that Alliance said:
"The high contracting Powers, being convinced
that the system of representative government is as
equally incompatible with the monarchical prin
ciple as the maxim of sovereignty of the people
with the Divine right, engage mutually, in the
most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put
an end to the system of representative govern
ments, in whatever country it may exist in Europe,
and to prevent its being introduced in those coun
tries where it is not yet known."

The British got the idea. So did we. Appeasers
were scarce at the time. What happened was that
the Prime Minister put a flea in the ear of Richard
Rush, our minister to England. The ultimate dan
ger of the Holy Alliance to us was great Rush
wrote at once to President Monroe, who was no
genius but a sensible man not afraid to face ob
vious facts. He wrote a letter, asking advice, to
our greatest living statesman, Thomas Jefferson.

That wise old man was then living in retire
ment. As you know, he had lived through two

86

wars against England. So he wasn't exactly an
Anglophile. And yet twenty-one years before, dur
ing his first term as President, he was so clearly
aware of Napoleon's threat to our safety that he
foresaw the necessity in a pinch to "marry our
selves to the British fleet and nation/ 7 The danger
of the Holy Alliance was even greater. The wise
old man quietly and calmly thought it all over.
Much depended on his advice, perhaps the very
life of the nation he and Washington and Hamil
ton and Franklin and Adams and the others had
created with so much thought and toil, suffering
and sacrifice. It was the gravest question he had
considered since those hot July days in Philadel
phia nearly a half century before.

I wonder what thoughts went through Thomas
Jefferson's mind before he reached for his pen
to answer his friend, the President He might
have written that it was fantastic to fear invasion
because the ocean was so very, very wide that it
took a month to six weeks to cross it. He might
have warned against doing anything which would
irritate Prussia and her allies. He might have sug
gested that we start building a super navy which
in six or seven years would perhaps be big enough
to defend us. He might have sighed and said that,
after all, what was the use of trying to oppose the
wave of despotism which had swept over the
whole European continent, including his beloved

87

France which he had long before seen and helped
achieve liberty, fraternity, and equality. There was
only England left And nine years before, British
troops had burned the White House where he
had once lived. He might even have repeated the
whispers of Fear. "Shut your eyes to the danger-
it's not immediate. Wait until America is cor
nered like a rat. Think of the horrors and agonies
of war: the loss of life, the destruction of all those
liberties you struggled for, the harm to business. 9 '

Yes Thomas Jefferson might have done any of
those things. But he didn't.

On October 23, 1823, the Author of the Decla
ration of Independence picked up his pen and
wrote to Monroe as follows: "The question pre
sented by the letters you have sent me is the
most momentous which has ever been offered to
my contemplation since that of Independence.
That made us a nation, this sets our compass and
points the course which we are to steer through
the ocean of time opening on us. And never could
we embark on it under circumstances more aus
picious One nation, most of all, could disturb

us in this pursuit, she now offers to lead, aid, and
accompany us in it By acceding to her proposi
tion, we detach her from the bands, bring her
mighty weight into the scale of free government,
and emancipate a continent at one stroke, which
might otherwise linger long in doubt and diffi-

culty. Great Britain is the nation which do us
the most of anyone, or all on earth;

with her on our side we need not fear the whole
world. With her then, we should most sedulously
cherish a cordial friendship, and nothing would
tend more to knit our affections than to be fight
ing once more, side by side, in the same cause."

Thanks to this unwritten alliance between the
British and American navies, America was free for
nearly one hundred years from any real menace
of invasion. For a century the British fleet pre
served a reasonably well-ordered world, and we
were thereby able to "mind our own business,**
prosper, grow great, and cultivate some self-right
eous attitudes at little cost or sense of responsibil
ity. So we really didn't become the "greatest
nation on earth" all by our very selves* Our most
famous naval historian. Admiral Mahan, in his
Influence of Sea Power upon History honestly rec
ognized that simple fact when he wrote, "Why do
English innate political conceptions of popular
representative government, of the balance of law
and liberty prevail in North America from the Arc
tic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific? Because the command of the sea
at the decisive era belonged to Great Britain.**

By the way, you can assume as almost certain
that not more than one out of twenty Congress
men have ever read Admiral Mahan's book, and

89

Its a good guess that less than ten per cent of them
have any real knowledge of American history.

It's true, as you know, that the United States
has had several warm disputes, two or three of
them quite serious, with Great Britain during the
last hundred and twenty-six years. Sometimes we
were "in the right" and sometimes * "in the wrong.*
But don't forget they were always settled as warm
disputes between reasonable, law-abiding citizens
are sensibly settled by negotiation or arbitration.
During our Civil War there were a few such dis
putes, especially those known as the "Trent affair'*
and the "Alabama claims." In ihe former, Eng
land was right, and in the latter America was right.

The "Trent affair* arose in 1862 when we re
moved on the high seas four passengers from the
British ship Trent and brought them prisoners to
Boston substantially the sort of thing we went to
war about in 1812. Our navy captain responsible
for the action was hailed as a national hero, wined
and dined and eulogized, and even given a vote
of thanks by Congress. When the news reached
England, there was naturally intense resentment
at the outrage* One of Queen Victoria's cabinet
ministers even went so far as to prepare an ex
tremely hostile note for her signature. It probably
would have meant war. That good and wise woman
irmly said, "My lord, you must know that I will
agree to no paper that means war with the United

90

States.' 7 A less emphatic protest was sent. We were
in the wrong, and Abraham Lincoln was Presi
dent So we backed down and made restitution*

England was just as clearly wrong in building
cruisers for the Confederacy which sank our mer
chant ships. The most famous of these cruisers.,
named the Alabama, was built in Liverpool and
allowed by the British Government to slip out to
sea manned by Confederate officers and sailors.
We properly demanded reparation and got it. This
time Britain backed down, and as a result of ar
bitration paid the United States fifteen million
dollars in damages.

Much has been written about the sympathetic
attitude of the English toward the South. Any
honest historian will tell you that England was
divided in its opinions about that struggle, just as
we were. The English aristocracy sympathized
with the aristocratic South, the English liberal
and labor classes supported the North so strongly
that hundreds of thousands of them actually went
hungry rather than help the South to send the
cotton upon which their jobs in the mills depended.
Because of this "cotton famine* Parliament pro
vided work relief for thousands of cotton opera
tives in Lancashire (that was seventy years
before our Federal Government adopted the **iadi-
caF policy of work relief).

This support by the majority of the English
91

people became even more evident after President
Lincoln reversed Ms position on the slavery ques
tion and issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Remember that Lincoln had said in his first inaug
ural address in March, 1861, that he had no right to
interfere with slavery in the South* Here are his
words: "Apprehension seems to exist among the
people of the Southern States that by the acces
sion of a Republican Administration their prop
erty and their peace and personal security are to
be endangered. There has never been any reason
able cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most
ample evidence to the contrary ... is found in
nearly all the published speeches of him who now
addresses you. I do but quote from one of those
speeches when I declare that *I have no purpose,
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the insti
tution of slavery in the States where it exists. I
believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I
have no inclination to do so.* Those who nomi
nated and elected me did so with full knowledge
that I had made this and many similar declara
tions, and had never recanted them."

I suppose that in the light of those words the
Emancipation Proclamation might be termed "in
consistent" or even a "broken campaign pledge/*
and so on, but all of us today think it was not a
bad thing. (Have you forgotten that Lincoln did
it without asking the permission of Congress and

92

even without consulting the Congressional
whose hatred of grew steadily until Ms

death?)

Remember also that Britain, by peaceful means,
without much fuss and feathers, had outlawed
slave owning in her colonies a generation before
and in her own country more than a half century
earlier. Therefore, the moral issue of the Civil War
was not clear at first to most Englishmen. Even
so, they sensed it from the beginning of that war,
and despite all the snubs and pinpricks from her
aristocracy and the hardships imposed on her
trade by the Northern blockade, England did not
recognize the Confederacy as a nation. And, when
it comes to pinpricking, we have far outscored our
British cousins* At any rate, just as there is no use
for Northerners and Southerners to "fight the Civil
War all over again/* so there is no good reason
to keep alive the irritations which then existed
between some Englishmen and Americans.

Most of you are probably too young to remem
ber the little Spanish-American War. Certain big
European nations, especially Germany, would
have welcomed an opportunity to "gang up** on
us. Kaiser Wilhelm grimly wrote to a friend after
that war, c lf I had had a larger fleet I would have
taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck." He
might have tried it but for John Bull. While Ad
miral Dewey was stationed at Manila Bay, shortly

93

after his victory, a German naval squadron,
stronger than Dewey's, appeared on the scene.
Also present was a strong British squadron. "What
would you do/ 7 the German admiral asked the
English admiral, "in the event of trouble between
Admiral Dewey and myself?" The Englishman
coolly replied, "That is a secret known only to
Admiral Dewey and me/* The German returned
to his flagship, and the next morning he saw a
British cruiser stationed between Dewey and him
self. It was the kind of language Germans under
stand, and he sailed away. I think the ghosts of
George Canning and Thomas Jefferson and James
Monroe must have winked at each other and
smiled with grim satisfaction as they remembered
the Job they did back in 1823.

My fellow countrymen, I haven't the time or
space in this letter to give you in great detail the
history of Anglo-American relations. I am simply
calling your attention to some of the big and im
portant facts facts which the pro-Nazi and anti-
British propagandists among our pseudo intellec
tuals and cheapjohn politicians, our reactionaries
and our Communists have suppressed or twisted
or distorted for their evil purposes* And so, I have
not mentioned several other examples of friendly
co-operation or unhappy differences. There have
been, as you know, a few disputes and trivial
squabbles about boundaries and canal tolls and

94

isheries. But never lose sight of the big thing
that Britain and America have lived, competed,
and co-operated in peace with each other and
have always settled their differences int a reason
able and law-abiding manner.

95

BRITAIN AND AMERICA:
ALIKE AND UNLIKE

This Is a good time, late as it is, to see in what
ways we British and Americans are alike and
unlike.

Britain is, o course, in some ways more demo
cratic and more progressive than the United
States. Yes, brothers and sisters, it's a fact one of
those plain, simple facts which madden the An-
glophobes and which even the honest element
among our intellectuals is scared to admit pub
licly. Ill tell you in a moment why and in what
ways Britain is more democratic and progressive
than we are.

Now then, I don't mean that there are more
opportunities to make money in England. There
aren't. Nature alone gives us more opportunity
that little island in the North Sea is less than one
third the size of Texas. We have actually and rel
atively many more millionaires. I don't mean that
the British produce or own as many newfangled
gadgets and automobiles and refrigerators and
cosmetics and plumbing facilities. They don't In
money and mechanics we're tops. Which is fine

96

and nothing to be ashamed about. We
honest pride in the material development of
America even after making proper allowance for
the crimes and blunders, the knavish dishonesties
and sickening brutalities committed in the process
of "conquering a continent** But next year's model
automobile doesn't mean more "democracy" and
it means "progress" only in a very narrow material
sense. Surely we Americans don't think that prog
ress is solely or almost entirely material if so, our
only boast would be that America is the biggest,
best, most streamlined and up-to-date human pig
sty on earth. And, assuming that we must boast
to remain somewhat sure of ourselves, we wouldn't
want that to be our loudest or only boast Well
most of us wouldn't

Another thing* If you are one of those hot-eyed
people who believe that existing democracy is a
fake and that we are all the helpless tools of dis
honest rich men, there isn't much use reading on.
That has been for several years a money-making
theme of certain notorious writers. Sometimes I
think more money has been gained by writing
about how our rich men got money dishonestly
than our rich men dishonestly got

You and I know that democracy in both coun
tries is imperfect, and our imperfections make
some of our intellectuals, who are not exactly per
fect, nervously impatient which strikes me as a

97

bit ungrateful because they thrive and prosper and
grow fat on our imperfection. At any rate, we
know, without their chattering and gibbering, that
democracy throughout our English-speaking world
has often faltered and stumbled, failed and blun
dered, but that somehow it keeps marching for
ward. Because we English-speaking peoples want
freedom more than life Itself and because we are
a bit suspicious of perfection in this world, our
democratic ideals have made a slow, rough, and,
at times, heartbreaking advance. My point is, that
in judging democracy, past and present, in Britain
and America, we must always keep an eye on the
"end figure'' and we shall see that it is plus and
not minus in the life of mankind.

Now, then, in what ways is Britain more demo
cratic than we are? Well in its government The
supreme governmental power in Great Britain is
the House of Commons, elected by the people.
The Prime Minister cannot veto an act of Parlia
ment Of course the King cannot. There is no
Supreme Court which can declare legislation un
constitutional. The veto power of the House of
Lords (like our Senate, the "upper chamber") was
taken away more than thirty years ago. The Prime
Minister has not a fixed term like that of our
President. He cannot stay in office for a definite
period whether or not a majority of the people's
representatives in the Commons want him to stay.

98

When they say ic no confidence** he's out unless
he directly to the people and a majority

of say "You're not doing a bad job we're

still for you.*

In the United States governmental power Is
equally distributed among the executive, legisla
tive, and judicial branches which "check and bal
ance* one another. Congress and the people may
think that the President is doing a bad job, but
they can't remove him as the House of Commons
and the British people can remove their chief ex-
excutive. Mind you, the British system, by and
large, has worked well for the British people and
our system, by and large, has worked well for us.
I'm not saying that their system is better but sim
ply that it is more democratic than ours. Would
you like to see our House of Representatives have
the same power in this country as the House of
Commons has in England? You wouldn't? I won
der why.

"All right/* some of you will say, ^ut in this
country a man may be bom in a log cabin and
regardless of his race or creed he can become
President." Quite true. Well wait a minute. Partly
true. Most of our presidents and, with the excep
tion of Lincoln, certainly the greatest of them
were born in wealthy or at least comfortable cir
cumstances. (Despite all our romanticizing and
gushing about the dear, old log cabins and their

99

rustic democracy they have not yet become "all
the rage** for our own living purposes.) Let's ad
mit, however, that a poor boy can become Presi
dent. "Regardless of race or creed*? Not yet. Has
a Jew become President? Not yet. Or Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court? Not yet. Or Secretary of
State? Not yet Do you remember the presidential
campaign of 1928? Have we ever elected a labor
leader to the presidency?

We know that one of England's greatest Prime
Ministers, Benjamin Disraeli, was a Jew, that the
radical son of a humble Scotch farm girl and that
a poor, obscure Welsh lawyer became Prime Min
isters, that an iron molder who was a manual
laborer until twenty-nine years old achieved fame
as a Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that a poor Jew
ish lad became Lord Chief Justice of England and
later Viceroy of India, a land he first saw as a
cabin boy, and that today labor is a full partner
in the British Government Do you know, it's pos
sible that we may learn a lot more about democ
racy from our friends and kinsmen in England.

But Britain has an aristocracy. Yes. And we
have a plutocracy. In the British aristocracy are
many men who place their country's welfare above
their own interest and a few rich men who don't,
and in our plutocracy are a few men with a sense
of responsibility to others (the hallmark of aris
tocracy) who place their country's welfare above

100

their wealth and too many who don't. Our aristoo
racy, both Southern and Northerly died at Appo-
mattox in 1865. Our plutocrats of the Newport
Paki Beach variety, who spend loads of money
pretending to be what they aren't, merely ape the
superficial aspects of the fast-disappearing British
aristocracy but not its magnificent qualities of
honor and duty and self-sacrifice which the Eng
lish people have appreciated in the past and again
today have called upon from Winston Churchill.
As for the so-called night club "smart sef* in Lon
don and New York they attract about the same
amount of attention and pull about the same
weight in both countries as the characters in our
"funny papers/*

Of course, there are many examples in both
Britain and America of men who have risen from
humble circumstances to positions of eminence in
the professions, in politics and in business by vir
tue of their character, energy, ability, and good
luck. Their distinction and their public service are
sometimes rewarded in England with a nice title
and in this country with a long obituary. Let's not
begrudge them either.

If we wished, we could spend days and nights
pointing out wherein democracy has not yet fully
succeeded in Britain and the British could do the
same about our lack of success. You know what I
mean. There are miserable slums in the East End

101

of London and equally miserable slums on the
East Side and in the Harlem section of New York
City; conditions are bad among the coal miners
in Wales and equally so among the coal miners
in Kentucky; the poorer English farm tenants lack
adequate plumbing in their houses and our share
croppers lack adequate food in their stomachs;
college education is not as widespread in England
and graft and corruption are far more wide
spread here; too many British politicians were
educated at Eton and Oxford and too many
American politicians obviously have never been
educated at all. Yes, we could carry on a long,
long time picking out and bewailing the unpleas
ant shortcomings and tragic mistakes of both peo
ples. That is a peacetime luxury. We have a
matter of life and death to decide now.

We are more alike than unlike. That is why we
shall soon be comrades-in-arms in this war and
full-fledged partners in the peace to come. But we
must be mature enough to realize that there are
also strength and richness and mutual benefit in
our unlikenesses. The men and women of Alabama
and Vermont, of Massachusetts and Mississippi,
of Rhode Island and Oklahoma are somewhat un
like yet American. And Americans, Australians,
Canadians, Englishmen, New Zealanders, and
South Africans are somewhat unlike yet members
and neighbors of the English-speaking family. Be-

102

hind each and every one of us in family are
the blood, tears, toil, and sweat of a
years. Government with the consent of the gov
erned, freedom of the individual under the law
which he has helped to make, individual oppor
tunity with proper regard for the rights of one's
neighbors, protection for the helpless and the tin*
fortunate these are the things we English-speak
ing peoples have lived for, Mled for; and wffl die
for. We Just can't help it weVe been made that
way, through a thousand years. And well go on
that way.

Let's take another look backward for a moment*
It will help make clear that our present struggle
to live as free men is not only supremely worth
while but perfectly natural. I have time and space
in this letter to recall only a few things which have
made us English-speaking peoples what we are.

Some of our shyster historians and unclean An-
glophobes may have given a few of you the im
pression that representative government, personal
liberty, and modem social reforms were American
inventions which the rest of the English-speaking
nations, especially Britain, slowly and reluctantly
imitated. It's the other way around. Those things
were born in England and grew there long before
they were spread by Englishmen to other parts
of the world, including Jamestown and Plymouth,
or taken over by us and applied to our own needs*

103

They have had a slow, rough growth here as in
Britain, and they are still in the process of perfec
tion and will be as long as our civilization sur
vives. When we have become a community o
saints (which I think a merciful God will not per
mit on earth), then the process will stop.

Long before the Norman conquest, the Anglo-
Saxons began their experiment with representative
government in their "witenagemotT a group of
men elected to legislate for the needs and desires
of their locality. In the thirteenth century the first
national parliament met and made laws, and dur
ing the next two hundred years the members of
Parliament were busy passing laws of all lands
including many to fix prices, restrain unfair trade
practices, and otherwise regulate business. The
Tudor monarchs were a high-handed lot, and Par
liament usually did their bidding, but even Queen
Elizabeth, in the sixteenth century, had a healthy
regard for the Commons and wisely realized that
her power was not absolute. Charles the First in
the seventeenth century was not so wise and lost
his head after a grim civil war won by the plain
people the Puritans of England under the lead
ership of men like Cromwell and Hampden, Pym
and Milton. In the eighteenth century the respon
sibility of the Prime Minister and his cabinet to
the House of Commons was finally established.
Meanwhile the English settlers in this country,

104

during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
had established their legislative bodies such as the
Virginia House of Burgesses and the Massachu
setts General Court. The majority of men both in
America and in Britain at the time of our Revo
lution did not have the absolute right to vote.
There were property qualifications in both coun
tries. And at that time the British Parliament, with
some magnificent exceptions, was almost as venal,
corrupt, and incompetent as our Congress was
after the Civil Warabout a hundred years later.
The people in both countries would not be de
nied. There are now no requirements of property
ownership in either country for the right to vote,
although in some sections of the United States,
both North and South, certain poll taxes still pre
vent the very poor from voting. Britain, as we have
seen, became even more democratic by taking
away the veto power of the House of Lords
whereas our Senate has become in practice more
powerful than the House of Representatives.
Finally in this twentieth century the vote was
given to the ladies in both countries on their fran
tic assurance that our politics would be thereby
raised to the very gates of heaven.

Most of the "Fathers of the Republic" read and
thought and felt deeply. They knew history and
were thoroughly versed in the political philosophy
of the great Englishmen like Coke, Bolingbroke,

105

Locke, Hampden, Vane, and Milton. (The most
magnificent defense of freedom of the press in our
language is Milton*s AreopagiticaYe&d it if you
truly wish to understand much of our English-
speaking civilization, past and present) The
"Fathers" were steeped in the British tradition of
parliamentary government; and, when the hour of
decision struck, they had in Oliver Cromwell a
mighty precedent for the last resort of revolution
by force. When our political independence was
achieved, they did not slavishly imitate the British
form of government but wisely applied the Eng
lish political philosophy to our own needs and
circumstances. They also built much that was new
in government but they built on the bedrock of
their Anglo-Saxon past

Most of those wise and learned men were thor
oughly grounded in the English common law,
which is our law as well as England's. They knew
what many Americans today tragically fail to re
alizethat the supremacy of the law is the surest
safeguard of the liberties of the people. Long be
fore their time the battle against arbitrary power
had been led by the greatest master of the com
mon law, Sir Edward Coke. In November, 1608,
there took place between him and King James the
First one of the most important personal inter
views in modern history. Coke firmly explained to
that arbitrary sovereign what the common law

106

meant Said Coke: "The king in his own person
cannot adjudge any case either criminal ... or be
twixt party and party." Moreover, "The king can
not take any cause out of any of his courts and
give judgment upon it himself." His Majesty an
grily retorted, "This means that I shal be under
the law which it is treason to affirm." "To which/*
writes Coke, "I replied that Bracton saith, quod
Rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et
legef (Translated for those who, like myself, have
fofgotten what little Latin they ever knew: "Be
cause the king ought not to be under man, but
under God and the law.")

Personal liberty freedom of speech, freedom of
worship, freedom of the press, freedom from un
lawful search and seizure all those things without
which life is not worth living for us English-speak
ing men and women they were made in England.
To be sure they have been momentarily in danger
and even wickedly violated there and here, and
certain it is that we must always be vigilant to pro
tect and eager to strengthen them. I think we care
about them a good deal. They are in our Bill of
Rights. We liave long taken them for granted as
we do the air we breathe. Yes, I think most of us
care about them as much as the British do. Were
alike, you see, in the things that count. Not only
because we want to be but simply because we

107

can't help it. That's why we shall ec be fighting once
more, side by side, in the same cause. 3 *

Perhaps the most vital aspect of our English-
speaking civilization is its emphasis on the in
dividual man (you and me) his safety from
physical abuse or theft or tyranny by his fellows
or by his government, his self-respect and integrity
as a member of society, his very real importance
as a human being, his spirit and conscience as one
of the children of God whether or not he believes
in Him. Trial by jury, habeas corpus, the rules of
evidence, the laws of property and wills and in
heritance, the relief of equity these are some of
the safeguards of civilization which in one way
or another affect each one of us. They are the
products of no intellectual's blueprint for a perfect
society or of a tyrant's scheme for a "new order"
but of trial and error, of many wise men's judg
ments, brave men's fights, and plain men's daily
experience products which were English in their
origins and in the development of which both
Britain and America have shared. The struggle for
your and my right to worship as we please and
deem fitting or not to worship at all is one of
the saddest, cruelest, and yet most triumphant in
the record.

In Britain that protection and respect for each
man's mind and personality and body and prop
erty are even more highly developed than in the

108

United States. That Is one reason why an English
man's love of "privacy" is at times misunderstood
and mistakenly ascribed by some of us to snob
bishness. Many Americans have too much rever
ence for a majority and too little respect for the
minorityand yet democracy means, among other
things, a proper balance between that reverence
and that respect But, in the last analysis, aU of
us men and women Americans and British are
alike in needing these personal freedoms and their
safeguards, as we need light and air and sunshine^
simply to live. During the last ten centuries we
English-speaking peoples, in our struggle for lib
erty, have ground in die dust thousands of tyrants
and their evil accomplices. Hitler's attack on our
liberty is of course an outrage but we must prove
to mankind that it is also an impertinence.

The so-called "social reforms" of recent times
were introduced in Britain earlier than in the
United States. That was natural because the need
for them there became more apparent and more
urgent much earlier than here. Her Industrial Rev
olution began about fifty years before ours. (Like
it or not, these 'reforms'* have only started because
they are simply adjustments which human society
must make from time to time, and there's plenty
of adjusting ahead of us. ) The abolition of slavery,
as we have seen, was peacefully achieved in Eng
land long before we did it by civil war. Unem-
109

ployment relief was first and successfully tried in
Lancashire in 1863, under an act of Parliament,
and later, on a national scale, after the last war.
Such "socialistic" measures as unemployment in
surance and employment bureaus were proposed
more than thirty years ago by radicals like David
Lloyd George and Winston Churchill and were
adopted by Parliament* The English have done a
far bigger job than we have in slum clearance and
housing projects for the underprivileged. Our
government has publicly acknowledged the splen
did pioneering work already done in Britain. At
any rate, we Americans and British have had
more or less similar problems of social and eco
nomic adjustment, and we've been alike in deal
ing with them in a democratic and experimental
sort of way, making mistakes while making prog
ress.

It should be especially noted by some of you
that the British Conservative Party is proud of its
achievements in these respects and has striven to
outdo its Labour Party opponents. Just as our "lib
erals" can learn and to a certain extent have
learned much from English liberalism, so our
"conservatives" can learn but unfortunately have
not learned a good deal by studying the Conserv
ative Party's record. It was a long time ago sev
enty years or more that a wise Tory genially

110

remarked that lie "caught the Whigs in bathing
and stole their clothes."

It's true that in trying to pay off the terrific costs
of the last war and in spending vast sums for the
social betterment of the people the British failed
to prepare against the growing menace of Hitler-
ism. But let's remember that disarmament during
the prewar years was the favorite lullaby of "lib
erals" and indeed of most people throughout the
English-speaking democracies. It wasn't until last
June that our Congress woke up with a jump.
England wasn't "ready for war." Neither are we.
And we never have been prepared for war. That's
part of the steep price we pay for democracy. But,
though unready, we have fought to become an in
dependent and to remain a united people. Now
we shall fight to sa 7 e our national existence and
the only kind of world in which we can live as a
free democracy.

Very few Americans know what the British Em
pire is. And very few Englishmen do. But it's
worth while to note a few general facts about it so
that we can better combat the anti-British propa
ganda of the Nazis and their friends in this
country.

As you know, there have been three great
periods in the development of the Empire the
colonial, the autonomous, and the present part
nership, called the British Commonwealth of Na-

111

tions. They all overlap somewhat, but that has
been the general trend. Remember that the British
Empire Is a world power and that all parts of the
world don't move at the same time, in the same
direction, and at the same speed. Our self-styled
''thinkers'* with their psychopathic terror of plain,
obvious facts try to forget that when they sob
today about India or some of the African colonies.
But the trend throughout the Empire has been
steadily toward political liberty and independent
partnership of the peoples within it. Today, the
British Commonwealth is such a partnership of
nations including Great Britain, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, and South Africa. These nations are
free and equal; they manage their own internal
affairs; appoint their own diplomatic representa
tives; make their own treaties; can remain at peace
or declare war as they see fit and can secede from
the Empire any time they choose. And yet the Em
pire is stronger today than ever before. The Nazi
mind couldn't possibly understand why. We Ameri
cans can grasp the idea because we are a member,
the greatest single member, of the English-speaking
family. The biggest reason is that these nations in
the Commonwealth are free. Another is that the
Empire represents the kind of political society
they want an Anglo-Saxon civilization in which
political and personal liberty is as matter-of-fact
as bread and water. (It includes Dutch and

112

French-Canadian minorities but they are content
because they live in freedom.) Then too, there is
the mystic and deeply personal loyalty to the
Crown. That is one of those mighty intangibles
which cannot be defined or successfully analyzed.
Like the religious instinct in most of us it cannot
be measured or weighed. But it is supremely real.
Our reverence for the Flag is the closest analogy
I can think of. How can we account for that in
ner surge of joy, the quickened heart beat, the
flashing consciousness of a fierce loyalty when we
see Old Glory passing by even more so when we
are away from the homeland? Well there are
some things we understand without words.

Yes the trend of Anglo-American civilization is
toward more liberty, more democracy, more life.
Nazism means death. My guess is that our civiliza
tion will live.

Does someone want a catalogue of the crimes
and blunders that we have committed in building
that civilization? I haven't the space it would be
a voluminous thing. I leave that task to the scrupu
lous historian, the sensitive poet, the observing
dramatist, the honest public servant, the learned
judge, the alert journalist, the plain man and
woman. Those crimes and blunders are a cause for
shame and reformation; they are a challenge to
do right as it is given us to see the right; they
should not lead us into the moral suicide which

113

some of our exhibitionist intellectuals are messlly
committing. We know we English-speaking men
and women know that our direction is right and
that, united, we are strong enough to go ahead.

I want to say a few words about our closest
neighbor and most understanding friend in our
Anglo-American family I mean that great nation
to the north of us Canada. Itjs unfortunate but
not surprising that most Americans do not know
very much about Canada. New Yorkers, for ex
ample, are generally quite "provincial" in their
knowledge of what lies west of the Hudson river,
and I'm sure that many Bostonians still think it's
the intellectual boundary line of American civili
zation. Then, too, our Canadian friends have not
devoted their talents and energies to advertising
on a really big scale their virtues and achieve
ments. They seem to be rather quaintly content to
do the job at hand, do it well and not talk much
about it. The strong Scottish strain in them may
account for this slightly old-fashioned way of do
ing things. Mind you, they are immensely hos
pitable, as many of us know, and theyll listen with
flattering and genuine interest while we tell them
about our hard problems and great deeds. We
could learn a lot if we listened as much to them.

Moreover, a great many Canadians have had
American ancestors and a large number of Ameri
cans have had Canadian parents. There has been

114

from colonial times a big low of people back and
forth across our boundary lines. Some of our finest
professional and businessmen are Canadian-bom,
and American-born, men have contributed splen
didly to Canada's greatness. Incidentally, for some
time she has been our best customer in the whole
world. The Canadian government is more flexible
and, like the British, more directly responsive to
the people, but in their fundamental political and
social ideals the Canadians and Americans are
alike. Of course, the United States and Canada
have had disputes, as good neighbors do mostly
about fish and real estate but theyVe been ironed
out, and no grudges have remained. In short, we
like and trust each other.

But Canada is a great nation in her own right
She's proud of being next to the oldest partner in
the British Commonwealth of Nations. And her
loyalty to Britain is no mere lip service. Her faith
in Anglo-Saxon civilization, in democracy, in per
sonal freedom does not stop short of paying the
price for them. Canada is the British Empire's best
witness. She was free to do as she liked when this
war broke out. She did so as she had done before
in 1914 she stood with Britain in the ranks of
freedom. And don't forget that her casualties in the
last war were nearly equal to as well as relatively
greater than ours although we have twelve times
her population. Again today, Canada is in the bat-
115

tie line with. Her men in an expeditionary force,
on the seas, and in the air, and giving half her
income directly to the cause. And she's happy.
Which we soon shall be when we really start do
ing the job that must be done.

We do not yet appreciate and the Canadians
themselves are probably too busy to realize what
an effective and decisive part Canada is playing
in this war. I am referring not only to her mili
tary efforts which are becoming more obvious and
more splendid day by day. There is something
even more important than that for us and our chil
dren. Canada has become, as never before, the
mighty bridge of a better understanding and a
wanner sense of kinship between the British Em
pire and the United States. She is bridging the gap
which certain superficial differences have created
between Englishmen and Americans. Yes, super
ficial indeed, as we now know, but sufficient in
times past to cause needless irritations and absurd
suspicions. It is given to Canada to help bring
about the mightiest and most enduring friendship
in the history of nations. If she can do that, it
will be the noblest achievement of any country in
modern times. Did I say "if? She is doing it by
word and deed, by her superb and unquenchable
loyalty to Britain and by her daily acts of friend
ship to America.

If ever a nation deserved loyalty, it is Britain
116

now. She has won such a loyalty as she has never
had before loyalty from her sons and daughters
throughout the Empire, from her kinsmen and
friends in America, from people throughout the
world who want to remain or pray to become free.
They know that if Britain lives freedom lives.

The British people once again are the pioneers
of human liberty. The Mother Country of the
English-speaking nations is leading the way to a
better world. It is our privilege to be in her com
pany, to share her burden, and with her to fight
the good fight

Yes, I said "privilege" and I mean it. Because
the men and women of Britain have made us no
longer ashamed of the eternal values, the supreme
human virtues. For a while men desperately tried
to find cheap and sordid and coldly selfish reasons
for their own and others' actions. The doctrine of
"self-interest/" the philosophy and ethical stand
ards of the hogpen were supposed to guide us in
all we thought and did. We winced under the
Nazi and Communist jibes at our old faith and
basic ideals.

The English have given them back to us. They
have poured life and meaning into our greatest
words and have restored them to their ancient
primacy in our language and in our hearts. Words
like Truth, Justice, Freedom, Mercy and Humility,
Faith and Fortitude, Prayer and Sacrifice, Love

117

and Duty. We know again what they mean-
thanks to England. Out of their blood, tears, toil,
and sweat the men and women and children of
Britain have made a heroic age and have restored
to the world the only things for which free peoples
will fight and die. Their sacrifices will spare us
much of their suffering, but at least we Americans
must give all that lies in our power. That is our
duty and our privilege.

We in America can never quite repay our debt
to the British people in this war. And that is not
only because they are hurling back the Nazi bar
barians day and night while we get ready. More
than that They have taught us again that democ
racy can be tough; that democracy can summon
from Its people a supreme devotion more lasting
than a ruthless fanaticism begotten of cruelty and
lies; that democracy can make a better world than
any system, however efficient^ which buys so-called
"material progress" at the price of the Gestapo and
the degradation of the human spirit. They have
taught us that we are fighting a classless war, a
war of the plain people, a war of the little homes,
a war for those simple decencies without which
life is not worth living. And they have taught us
in America that the English and Scotch and Welsh
peoples today are not our ancestors but our con
temporaries, our neighbors, our friends, the same
kind of men and women as we are.

118

And their magnificent leader, Winston Churchill,
is the living symbol of the underlying unity of the
English-speaking world, a unity which Is the best
hope for the future of mankind. A heroic people
and a heroic age need a heroic leader. Such is
Churchill. When America has hit her stride, when
she has taken her rightful place on the battle line
of freedom, then we Americans shall be entitled
to take pride that Winston Churchill is the worthy
product of an Anglo-American alliance, that he is
our man as well as England's.

Some people, especially the younger generation
who have been so thoroughly educated in the hog
pen theories of modern thought, are amazed in a
manner reminiscent of Paul of Tarsus on the road
to Damascus, by the revelation of the British
spirit They need not be. It is an old storv older
than the United States.

More than half a century before the first Eng
lish settlers came to Jamestown and Plymouth the
great churchman, Bishop Latimer, was burned at
the stake for his religious beliefs. Just as the fires
were lighted, he turned to his friend at the stake
next to him and said: "Play the man, Master Rid
ley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's
grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put
out."

That, my friends, is why thereTl always be an
England.

119

BRITAIN AND AMERICA:
THEY WILL DO JOB

Uncle Sam lias made much progress, since Sep
tember, 1939, along the dark and rough road to
ward the peace and freedom of mankind. He has
wallowed in the Slough of Despond; was held
prisoner in the dungeon of Giant Despair; been
tempted by the glittering goods and wares of Van
ity Fair; momentarily deceived by Mr. Facing-
both-ways. He still has ahead of him a terrific
fight with the Nazi Apollyon. But he will not be
alone. Mr. Greatheart of the British Empire will
be fighting with him. Even when they reach their
great destination together and enjoy the peace and
freedom for which they have fought and suffered
even then they must work hard and gladly to
keep what they have won.

During these last hours before America marches
into battle we must be on guard against the tricks
and wiles of Hitler and his isolationist allies who
will stop at nothing to keep us "at peace" or at
least "short of war." You and I are hearing and
reading a good deal these days about "unity" and
"tolerance." Those are fine things which we want

120

and should strive to have. But be on guard. Those
good words are being used by men of evil inten
tions to check and weaken our efforts to destroy
Hitler and all his works. Our notorious appeasers
and isolationists talk sweetly about the "need for
unity" before we do anything. They plead and
whine for "tolerance" and against "name calling.**
Tolerance toward whom and what? Themselves,
who daily do Hitler's will and preach, in large part
knowingly, the doctrines of moral cowardice and
national suicide? "Tolerance** toward slavery and
torture, toward black-hearted men and their will
ing or obedient followers, toward the vile and
crafty forces which threaten to mangle and crush
the common decencies and precious liberties of
our lives and our children's lives? "Tolerance'' to
ward conscious or unconscious betrayal? "Toler
ance" toward those vicious men who whine for
a peace without freedom a "negotiated" peace
the peace of death?

And "unity." What do these false appeasers,
these deathly isolationists, these tricksters of Hit
lerwhat do they mean? Unity with whom and
for what? "Unity" with them? "Unity" for their
and Hitler's purposes? "Unity" with fear and de
lay? "Unity" with Nazism and ruin?

No. We won't be fooled any longer by those
tricks. Most Americans now are wise to them. We
have come to ourselves. We are once more masters

121

of our own destiny as a free people not nervously
waiting for Hitler and his allies to determine our
policy. And that means Hitler must go. The voice
of America has grown clear and firm and it is
saying to the Fiihrer:

"You have preached pure evil for many years
and you have the solitary merit of practicing what
you preach. You have debased the mind and cor
rupted the hearts of the German people espe
cially the young, whom you have crazed with the
lusts of cruelty and power; you have tortured and
driven into exile men and women of the Jewish
race, partly no doubt because of your maddening
sense of inferiority to them and partly because
your evil genius told you that a sure way to the
dark chambers of the soul of man is the path of
intolerance; you turned the German nation, into
the mightiest and most efficient criminal force in
all history, and decent men, free men, honest men,
kind men in your own land and everywhere on
earth feared and despised you. And yet, Herr Hit
ler, you will lose.

"You conquered two nations with your lies and
then, when your other peace-loving neighbors be
gan to face the facts, you struck them down while
they groped too late and in vain amidst treachery
and confusion for the means to ward off and to
return the blow. For the moment they are in your
power. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark,

122

Norway, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, France,
Yugoslavia, Greece. They are in your power. But,
according to the clock of history., only for a mo
ment. Two or three years, perhaps. Because, Heir
Hitler, you will lose.

"You have caused much suffering and destroyed
much beauty in the Mother Country of the Eng
lish-speaking nations. Your bombers have carefully
maimed and killed old men and women and chil
dren, the innocent and the helpless. They have
marred or ruined venerable churches, great build
ings, and ancient landmarks which for centuries
have been the physical evidence of the spiritual
things we cherish most. And you will cause more
suffering and do more damage to our friends and
kinsmen across the sea. Even so, Herr Hitler, you
will lose.

"You tried to kill the spirit of America. You
wanted to take from us our moral manhood so
that we would feel a cold indifference toward
right and wrong. For a little while, here and there,
you were horribly successful, partly because you
enlisted some kindred spirits among us, some
pseudo economists and shyster historians, some
scheming Communists and gullible businessmen,
and, most pathetic of all, some honest, well-mean
ing folk who seemed to think, as did good folk
five centuries ago, that the earth is flat and that

123

the world ends at the ocean's horizon. You ap
pealed to our Pontius Pilates who told us to wash
our hands of the 'mess/ Your agents sobbed about
the *Crime of Versailles' while you bombed and
enslaved nation after nation. Some of our whining
intellectuals pleaded, like you, for 'justice* toward
your 'rightful claims* while thousands of honest,
free-thinking men and women writhed in the tor
ture of your concentration camps. You have left
no stone unturned, no trick untried to confuse our
minds and to harden our hearts. And even at this
eleventh hour you are still trying ingeniously,
desperately trying to kill the American spirit. But,
Herr Hitler, you will lose.**

There are, of course, many kindly people who
are disturbed by the thought that in our midst
are men of ill will and with evil designs against
our democratic ideals and our Anglo-American
civilization. It may comfort these worthy people
to realize that unanimity has seldom if ever been
achieved in mans long journey from the jungle.
It is one of the silly trade-marks of the perfection
ists. Progress has been made by various groups of
people despite blind opposition and black treach
ery within their ranks. The degree of opposition
and treachery has varied and is not predictable.
In a quite well-known group, two thousand years
ago, it was one in twelve. In our Revolutionary
War the proportion was much greater, and it's a

124

debatable question whether, if a poll had
taken in 1775, a majority of Americans would have
voted for war the vote might have been only for
measures "short of war/ 7 If you're interested
enough to dig into the history of that time, you'll
find that some of our "best people" in New York
and Philadelphia greeted the British officers with
feasting and good cheer; that many plain people
did not lift a finger to help the American cause;
that the farmers near Valley Forge did not give
anything from their well-stocked bams to the hun
gry men fighting their battle; that men were
bribed a thousand dollars or more apiece to fight
under Washington and they often took the bribe
and ran away; that the colonies did not fill one-
sixth of their quotas for troops; that there were
weak and unscrupulous men in Congress then as
now. Our Constitution was adopted only by a
narrow squeak. The states were fearful of surren
dering some of their sovereignty for the common
good it took Alexander Hamilton's supreme ef
forts to bring New York into the Union. As for
the Civil War-well, it wasn't all "Abe" Lincoln
and Battle Hymns and the "boys in blue." Have
you forgotten about the "draft riots/* which were
partly race riots, in Northern cities? Did you know
that well-to-do citizens in the North hired substi
tutes to serve for them in the Union armies and
that in many cases men auctioned their services
125

to the highest bidder the price sometimes reach
ing fifteen hundred dollars? Do you remember
reading about the conscienceless profiteering
which was in great part the foundation of our
plutocracy? Have you read about the contempt,
hatred, and treachery which Lincoln suffered but
overcame in his own ranks? It turned out all right
in the Revolution, in the state conventions adopt
ing the Constitution, and in the Civil War. There
were a sufficient number of true Americans to win
in every case. But there wasn't "unity." And there
was no treacherous "tolerance" shown to the ene
mies within our ranks.

One of the last-minute appeals to fear and self-
deception is familiar to most of you. It is that the
United States of America will become a perma
nent dictatorship "go totalitarian" take away
our liberties forever if it goes to war. A few good
people are innocently and several bad people are
purposely repeating that ancient lie. Naturally,
when we go to war we shall give up for its dura
tion many of the rights, privileges, luxuries, and
pleasures of peacetime. And of course that's one
of the big reasons why the decent, peace-loving,
law-abiding men and women in our English-
speaking democracies hate war. But it's either silly
or malicious to argue that when free men band
together and submit to essential discipline so that
they may crush the tyranny which threatens them

126

and their tomes they destroy their own freedom.
It's true that we can't fight gangsters who are
roaming about our neighborhood and be as blithe
and free as when they don't trouble us* We can't
fight a fire which menaces our homes and go to
the movies at the same moment We can choose,
of course, which to do. Wars are rough and ugly
and tragic, but we could no more surrender or
permit anyone to take away our liberties perma
nently than we could jump over the moon. We
English-speaking peoples are simply made that
way. That's what Hitler and some of our whining
intellectuals cannot quite understand. Which is
perfectly natural, because they are made very,
very differently.

Have you forgotten that, during the Civil War,
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus so
that the Government could and did arrest and im
prison people on mere suspicion without trial? Do
you remember what the Great Emancipator said
in 1863 about the effect of wartime measures on
our civil liberties? Read again his words, consult
your common sense, and your hearts will not be
troubled. "I am unable/' said Honest Abe, "to ap
preciate the danger apprehended that the Ameri
can people will, by means of military arrests
during the Rebellion, lose the right of public dis
cussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the
laws of evidence, trial by jury, and habeas corpus,

127

throughout the Indefinite peaceful future which. I
trust lies before them., any more than I am able
to believe that a man could contract so strong an
appetite for emetics during a temporary Illness as
to persist In feeding upon them during the re
mainder of his healthful life." I think most of us
share Lincoln's faith in the living traditions and
good sense of our democracy.

There's a lot of talk these days about "war aims"
and "peace aims." Some of it is being done, of
course, by our pro-Nazi and anti-British propa
gandists for sabotage purposes, but I won't dis
cuss those vicious people any more in this letter.
I've paid my respects to them. A good deal of this
talk Is being done by honest, able, high-minded
men and women. Many of them appreciate Win
ston Churchill's remark to the effect that if Britain
stopped fighting we would soon find out what the
fighting was about But It seems to me that some
of these splendid citizens have overlooked one or
two practical little Items which require our imme
diate attention. We have a war to winHitler to
beat before we can make a world nearer to our
heart's desire. We must earn our reward before
we wisely enjoy It. In other words, we must con
tribute our full share of the ff blood, toil, tears,
and sweat" needed for a common victory. If we
don't, our talk and advice won't amount to a damn
in building and maintaining a better world. Amer-

128

lea cannot get self-respect and the respect of
otters "on the cheap/'

But we shall do our share. On that basis It
will be wise and helpful for us to do some hard
thinking about what lies ahead. It's too early, and
there are too many uncertain factors for us to
adopt any definite blueprint for the future. How
ever, we can and must face certain big facts with
out flinching if the best part of our civilization is
to live and grow. Ill jot down a few of them.

We must avoid treacherous sentimentality in the
peace terms. That sentimentality was largely re
sponsible for the unchecked growth and early
successes of the Nazi power. IVe pointed that out
before, but I do it again because it's so awfully
important. Our sentimentalists have blood on
their hands not their blood. If we are again de
ceived by the German whine in defeat, by our
slushy self-styled "thinkers," by well-meaning
people of the "forgive and forget" school, then
we'll have Germany again grabbing at our
throats in another twenty-five years.

The world has suffered enough within the
memory of people still living from the brute mili
tarism of Germany which has grown more and
more bestial as it developed under Chancellor Bis
marck, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Heir Hitler. When
the English-speaking democracies have won this
war, they must leave no doubt of their victory in

129

the minds and memories of the German people and
no chance for "stab in the back" legends to revive
their lust for power over others. We must remem
ber that in Germany after this war there will be
millions of the younger generation whose minds
have been permanently warped by the Nazi
teachings and in whose sullen hearts will be smol
dering the lusts of cruelty and power. It will take
more than a well-meaning intellectual or a beam
ing Y.M.C.A, secretary to deal with them. I don't
know what the solution is, but we simply must find
and face it no matter how stem it may be and
despite all the shrieks and sobs of our sentimen
talists who will again help to wreck the peace of
the world if given a chance.

Another big fact. Either isolationism as a na
tional policy must die or our sons will. Of course
all the isolationists won't die there'll be several of
them in our midst just as there are still people who
think the world is flat, and both should be treated
alike. The isolationists, as well as the sentimen
talists, are blood-stained men and women. The
sincerity of some of them merely adds to the vast
human tragedy for which they are largely respon
sible. They have helped Hitler enough. And along
with isolationism must go the cowardly and dis
honest policy of "moral support." It is neither truly
moral nor real support, and is satisfying only to
those drank with self-righteousness.

130

The United States and the British Common
wealth will be partners in the peace they both
must win. That's a big fact we can gladly face* We
the English-speaking democracies must do as
partners what Britain did alone for more than a
hundred years (and we must do it even better)
maintain a reasonably well-ordered world in which
most people can live and work in peace and free
dom. The articles of partnership are not yet drawn,
but the necessity and desire for them are already
in our minds and hearts. Even so, there will be no
Utopia after this war. The future will be hard, ter
ribly hard but not too hard. Mankind can count
on John Bull and Uncle Sam. They will do the
job.

Faithfully yours,

Lawrence Hunt

131

110718