The Times Great Lives

National Defence

With the overrunning of Europe and the fall of France the attitude of the people of the United States began to change. Demands for a vast programme of national defence arose, and Roosevelt, responsive as ever to national feeling, announced that there could only be peace ‘if we are prepared to meet force with force if the challenge is ever made’. The last despairing appeal of France moved him deeply; but he was compelled to point out that assistance by armed forces was not for him but for Congress to give. By June, 1940, American opinion had moved so far that he was able to say of Italy that ‘the hand that held the dagger had struck it into the back of its neighbour’ and to add that America sent forward her prayers and hopes ‘to those beyond the seas who are maintaining with magnificent valour the battle for freedom’. In July, 1940, at a Press conference he defined the ‘five freedoms’, the aims to be realized if peace were to return to the earth.

In the election of 1940 Mr Wendell Willkie was the Republican candidate. There was an honoured and unbroken tradition which forbade a third term to any President, and for a long time Roosevelt refused to say whether he would be prepared to stand. At last, however, having made it clear that he had no desire to do so, he yielded to a unanimous request from the convention at Chicago. Willkie was a strong opponent of the New Deal and of most of Roosevelt’s internal legislation. He was, however, in general agreement with him on a more vigorous defence policy and fuller aid for Britain. It was therefore to those matters that the President confined his attention, inaugurating meanwhile a huge programme for the production of munitions with the aid of leading businessmen whom he called in to assist and advise. He also took two leading Republicans, Colonels Knox and Stimson, into the Cabinet, transferred 50 destroyers to Great Britain in return for naval bases, and worked out a defence policy with Canada. He thus fulfilled his slogan ‘Full speed ahead’ in war production. In the campaign itself, however, he took little part and made only a few speeches towards its close, when he said he had been misrepresented.

Third Time President

Once again, although Mr Willkie did better against him than either Mr Hoover or Mr Landon, he won handsomely – he was elected by a majority of some 5,000,000 on the popular vote – and thus opened up new fields of leadership. Almost immediately he brought forward his lend-lease proposals, which were embodied in a measure entitled ‘An Act to promote the defense of the United States’. These proposals were to enable him to provide war supplies for Great Britain and in fact for ‘the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States’. Thereafter he kept on enlarging his production plans and stated that America would be ‘the arsenal of democracy’. He also pushed her naval patrols farther into the ocean than they had gone in defence of neutrality, and, after the Italians had been driven from Eritrea, sent American supply ships to the Red Sea. Calling for ‘unqualified immediate all-out aid for Britain, increased and again increased until total victory has been won’, he urged that there should be no idle machine and that they should operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Speaking in May at the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, he said: ‘He taught us that democracy could not survive in isolation. We applaud his judgment. We applaud his faith.’ Thus, by arming his country for its own defence and in the meantime sustaining the resistance of Great Britain, he served what was in fact the single purpose of saving democracy.

On May 27, 1941, Roosevelt delivered one of the most momentous broadcasts of his career. He reasserted the American doctrine of the freedom of the seas and announced that he had issued a Proclamation to the effect that an unlimited national emergency existed which required strengthening of the defences of the United States to the extreme limit of national power and authority. He pointed to the sinkings of merchant shipping, and said that all measures necessary to the delivery to Great Britain of the supplies she needed would be taken. ‘This can be done. It must be done. It will be done.’ In June, Lord Halifax, as Chancellor of Oxford University, conferred the degree of dcl upon him, the first time that a Chancellor had officiated at a Convocation outside the walls of Oxford.

Pearl Harbour; Entry into the War

As the year progressed the President became even more assertive in word and action. American troops were sent to Iceland, and in August he met Mr Churchill at sea. The Atlantic Charter recorded their agreement. There were attacks upon the American Navy, and he replied to them with a warning that Axis warships would enter American defensive waters at their peril. A little later he went to Congress to seek a revision of the Neutrality Act. Meanwhile German hatred of him found expression in a crescendo of abuse. Ever since the attack upon Russia he had shown his determination to uphold her resistance, and in November a credit of $100,000,000 was extended to her. Thus as the situation in both the Western and Eastern Hemispheres grew tenser he appeared to be gathering his strength against an inevitable collision. It came on December 7. He had just sent a message to the Emperor of Japan couched in persuasive terms, but protesting against the flooding of Japanese forces into Indo-China. One hour before the reply was delivered by the Japanese Ambassador Pearl Harbour was in smoke and ruin. The next day he gave in person a message to Congress and called for a declaration of war. Except for one member of the House of Representatives the answer was unanimous. ‘With confidence, ’ he said, ‘in our armed forces, with the unbounded determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.’ And so when a few days later Congress no less readily accepted the challenge of Germany and Italy, Roosevelt entered upon the war leadership supported by the national confidence to which his wise and patient handling of a long-drawn crisis had so richly entitled him.

Hotfoot upon the belligerency of the United States Mr Churchill went to Washington to plan for unity of action, and stayed at the White House. It was the beginning of a wartime association founded upon a well-established mutual regard and doubly proofed against external efforts to break it. Never before in history had the leaders of two great democracies worked together on the fraternal terms which came to exist between the President and the Prime Minister. Each stood high in the opinions of the other’s people, and as a result each strengthened the other’s hand. Roosevelt and Churchill together were a combination of scarcely precedented power.

Faith and Courage; All Resources Mobilized

The President’s message to Congress at the beginning of 1942 showed that the attack by Japan had not only failed to stun him but that he had reacted in much the same way as to the economic perils of 1932. In both cases his response was a programme of immediate action on a nationwide scale. All the vast resources of the United States were mobilized for war. A people which justly prided itself upon the largeness of its conceptions was given an almost unlimited scope for effort. The estimated cost was staggering, but the nation accepted it. He was close on 60 and his birthday at the end of the month brought many messages which indicated the regard of the allied peoples for him. He was already in the ninth year of the immense labours in which his own faith and courage had been his chief sustenance.

As Commander-in-Chief of the United States it was Roosevelt’s task to make a peaceful and largely self-centred people strategically minded, and to interpret the war to them as a world conflict rather than an opportunity for the counter-strike they longed to deal Japan. Isolationism was his greatest obstacle, and he said of those who still proclaimed its merits that they wanted the American Eagle to imitate the ostrich. Thus in firm but good-humoured fashion he led his people on, and the fact that the great majority were brought to take the broad, patient, and unselfish view which the character of the war demanded was due primarily to him. Despite, however, the huge measure of support he commanded, he continued to be exposed to a running fire of criticism from sections of the public and the Press.

In April he proposed a seven-point programme to combat the rise which had taken place in the cost of living and included a large increase in taxation. The fear of inflation had begun and was to continue to haunt him, but he was to find Congress somewhat reluctant to incur electoral unpopularity by supporting him in drastic measures. Another danger which he sought to avert was a light-hearted but, as he knew, unfounded optimism on the part of the people. By the summer, however, he was in a position to say that America’s reservoir of resources was reaching a flood stage, and vast amounts of material were being sent over-sea to the assistance of the allies. It was a vindication of his own far-sightedness. His lend-lease agreements were already taking shape as key instruments of national policy and he was beginning to realize his world statesman’s aim of distributing the financial burdens of the war. In June he welcomed Mr Churchill once again and found that they were still at one upon the major problems of the war. In September he made a quick tour of 11 States in order to test the spirit of the nation and reported it ‘unbeatable’. In November came the landing in North Africa – Mr Churchill attributed the authorship of it to him – and what he regarded as the turning point of the war.

Casablanca

The President’s New Year address in 1943 to a new Congress will probably rank among the greatest of many great utterances, for in it he was the inspired realist. He looked backward with a well justified satisfaction and forward with a lively hope. He said it was necessary to keep in mind not only the evil things against which America was fighting but the good things she was fighting for. Never indeed did he stand forth so clearly as the leader of his people’s thought as well as the ruler of their actions or as the possessor of a grasp wide enough to encompass the whole of the struggle for civilization. Then hard up on this call to thought and action came the bill for it – a Budget of $100,000,000,000. These preliminaries to the year performed, he was before the month had ended at Casablanca, when he conferred with Mr Churchill and the Fighting French at what, remembering General Grant, he called the ‘Unconditional Surrender Meeting’. The momentous conversations lasted for some 10 days and every aspect of the war was reviewed at them. Nothing like this had ever happened before, for he was the first President who had ever left his country in wartime. On the way home he stopped at Brazil for a discussion with the President. By thus breaking with tradition and adopting Mr Churchill’s practice of going himself to a vital centre of action Roosevelt achieved a master-stroke of leadership, for not only did he enhance his own authority as war leader but drew the beam of national interest after him. Paramount, however, though his authority was he continued to be engaged by efforts to keep prices down in spite of the hesitancy of Congress and the recalcitrance of active labour interests. In April he went to Mexico to discuss post-war cooperation. It was the first time the chief executives of the two countries had met. At the same time he visited the American forces in the Southern States.

In May Mr Churchill, at the President’s invitation, paid his fourth wartime visit to the United States, and it was widely noted that such occasions were the presage of great events. In this case the communiqué announced a full agreement on all points ‘from Great Britain to New Britain and beyond’. At the same time Roosevelt found himself in one of his recurrent troubles with labour – in this case, the miners – and handled it with characteristic firmness. He was not, however, to receive the support he desired from Congress, for late in June an Anti-Strike Bill which he vetoed was passed in spite of him. It was one of a series of setbacks in domestic policy. They were offset by occasional victories; but his supreme task of directing American strategy continued to be complicated by distractions due to the attitude of an increasingly difficult Legislature.

With the collapse of Italy the war entered on a new, and hopeful phase; but he refused to limit his aims even to a total victory over the Axis, and looked beyond it to another over all the forces of oppression, intolerance, insecurity, and injustice which had impeded the forward march of civilization. In August he went to Quebec for yet another meeting with Mr Churchill in which his old friend Mr Mackenzie King sat with them. Then, he travelled westwards to Ottawa, where he addressed the two Houses of the Canadian Parliament. It was the first time an American President had been there, and in his speech he stated that during the Quebec Conference things had been talked over and ways and means discussed ‘in the manner of members of the same family’, a phrase in true accord with both the theory and practice of the ‘good neighbour’ policy.

In November, 1943, Roosevelt left the United States for the series of historic conferences by which the leaders of the Allied Nations sought to consolidate their aims and efforts. At the first meetings in Cairo he and Mr Churchill met Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and discussed future military operations against Japan. They declared that she should be stripped of all her island gains in the Pacific as well as the territories she had stolen from China and other spoils of her aggression. To this end it was agreed to continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged efforts necessary to secure her unconditional surrender. The President with the Prime Minister moved next to Teheran, where for four intensive days they were in council with Marshal Stalin, whom Roosevelt then met for the first time. There in most amicable discussion the three leaders shaped and confirmed their international policy and announced jointly that they recognized their responsibility for a peace that would command the good will of the overwhelming masses of the peoples of the world. Thereupon the President with Mr Churchill went back to Cairo for discussions with M. Ismet Inönü, the President of the Turkish Republic. On the return journey Roosevelt visited both Malta and Sicily, arriving eventually at the White House bronzed and cheerful. One of his last actions of the year was to order the Secretary of State for War to take over the railways where trouble had been threatening.

In early January, 1944, Mr and Mrs Roosevelt presented their homestead at Hyde Park to the United States Government as a historical national site with a proviso that the immediate family might use it. It followed upon an earlier gift of the Roosevelt Library there. Then a few days later the President’s message to Congress embodied his programme for still further mobilization of the resources of the nation. In it he referred scathingly to the ‘pressure groups’ and others who, while he had been abroad, had been busy in the pursuit of interests which he regarded as only secondary to the supreme task of winning the war. This corrective he accompanied by yet another Budget for $100,000,000,000.

In the New Year there were to be still further difficulties with Congress. In late February he vetoed the Tax Bill, and thereby lost one of his staunchest supporters, Senator Barkley, of Kentucky, the Democratic Leader in the Senate, only to be overridden by large majorities in both Houses. It was a protest against what were regarded as the encroachments of the Administration. The obedient Legislature of his earlier years had long since been replaced by one largely hostile to his social policy. The result was the cat and dog relationship between President and Congress which the American Constitution permits, and his caustic description of the Bill as relief ‘not for the needy but for the greedy’ was an appeal over the head of the legislators to the people.

Senator Truman

As the spring lengthened the probability of his running for a fourth term seemed steadily to grow greater. In April, 1944, he had to take a rest, but in May be was back at the White House, himself again, clear of eye and voice. Simultaneously with his return to it the chairman of the Democratic National Committee asserted that he would accept the party’s nomination; but he himself refused to be drawn. At the end of the month, when reminded on one occasion of his support of President Wilson, he stated that he contemplated a new and better League of Nations in the post-war world and a little later outlined the American plan for a world security organization. On July 11 he broke his silence and announced that if elected he would serve a fourth term as President. The news was received calmly because it was widely expected. On July 20 the Democratic Convention at Chicago nominated him with loud applause and the waving of many banners ensigned with his name. Senator Truman was, however, chosen instead of his associate, Mr Wallace, to run for the Vice-Presidency.

In July the President was in Honolulu for a three days’ conference. On his way back he visited the Aleutians and Alaska, and dramatically broadcast from a warship on the Pacific coast. Then in September he went to Quebec to meet Mr Churchill. The discussions, which ranged over a wide field, were conducted, as Mr Churchill said, ‘in a blaze of friendship’. It was only after his return from Quebec that he made the first political speech of his campaign; but his wartime activities as Commander-in-Chief pleaded as strongly for him with the electorate as any words he could have uttered. Things were, indeed, beginning to go well for him, and on October 16 the New York Times came down in his favour. On October 22 he made a 51-mile tour of the City of New York in cold and rain. Meanwhile, his opponent, Mr Dewey, sought to mobilize every hostile and dissentient element against him. The President, however, standing foursquare upon his record, but dealing chiefly with foreign affairs, hit back upon occasion as hard as he had ever done.

Fourth Term

A Landslide Victory

The result of the election was once again a victory for Roosevelt so decisive as to be in fact a landslide. Such strength as Mr Dewey showed was in the rural districts; the workers in the great towns and cities were overwhelmingly for the President. In both the Senate and the House of Representatives he had comfortable majorities. Thus, not only unique in American history but triumphantly so, he prepared himself to enter on his fourth term.

No sooner was Roosevelt back at the White House than suggestions that he would shortly confer with Mr Churchill and Marshal Stalin filled the American Press, but arrangements had still to be made. In the meantime, therefore, he attended to the preparations for his fourth term, and spent a holiday at Warm Springs, in Georgia. On his return he took occasion to allay some disquietude in regard to the validity of the Atlantic Charter by declaring that its objectives were sound and as valid as when they were framed.

Early in 1945 his message on the state of the Union was read to a joint session of Congress. It was of exceptional length and great significance, and, after a masterly and comprehensive review of the military situation, in which he paid a vigorous personal tribute to General Eisenhower, went on to state that his country could not and would not shrink from the responsibilities which follow in the wake of battle. He followed it on January 20 by his fourth inaugural address, delivered from the south portico of the White House. On this occasion he spoke for only 14 minutes, though it was historical indeed as the first wartime Presidential inauguration since that of Abraham Lincoln. Then the next important news of him came from the Black Sea, when on February 8 the Press announced that he, Mr Churchill, and Marshal Stalin had reached complete agreement for joint military operations in the final phase of the war against Germany. In a few days the famous Yalta declaration, which disclosed the full extent of the agreement reached among the three national leaders, was given to the world. For him personally, no less than for the other two, it was a crowning triumph of wisdom and political capacity.

Crimea Conference

On March 1 Roosevelt made what he called his ‘personal report’ of the Crimea conference to the Senate and the House of Representatives and, by broadcast, to the American people. He had, so far as any United States President could, accepted joint responsibility with Great Britain and Russia for the solution of the political problems in Europe – a responsibility, he said, the shirking of which would be ‘our own tragic loss’ – and he asked for approval of the decisions made by political leaders and public opinion. He looked forward with hope to the San Francisco conference. He believed that the three great centres of military power would be able to achieve their aims for security; and in this mood of confidence he approached the full and intricate problems involved in America’s collaboration with the rest of the world. Thus he worked to the end.

Roosevelt was a tall and handsome man with a fine head. In compensation for his weakened lower limbs he had developed a great torso and immense strength in his arms. A direct speaker of remarkable precision and clarity, he had a clear voice with a ring of music in it, which helped him particularly in broadcasting. Instinctively friendly and sympathetic, he was the most approachable of men and had an engaging smile for all. At his Press conferences, which he managed in a fashion of his own, he was the familiar of all who attended them; but nowhere were his immense skill and clever touch in human relationships more apparent. At them he was open to direct viva voce examination and permitted himself a frankness which only the observance by the American Press of the strict code of honour embodied in the words ‘Off the record’ could have rendered possible. He had many interests. In his latter days he was particularly fond of deep sea fishing, and often went for long fishing trips; but his chief hobbies were ships – he had a remarkable collection of prints of them – and philately.

He leaves four sons, James, Elliot, Franklin, and John, all of whom have served in the armed forces, and a daughter who is married to Mr John Boetiger, a journalist, who is now on war service.

Adolf Hitler

Dictator of Germany. Twelve years of force and tyranny.

30 April 1945

Few men in the whole of history and none in modern times have been the cause of human suffering on so large a scale as Hitler, who died in Berlin yesterday. If history judges to be greatest those who fill most of her pages, Hitler was a very great man; and the house-painter who became for a while master of Europe cannot be denied the most remarkable talents. He found Germans depressed, bewildered, aimless. After five years in office he had united the German race in a single Reich, abolished regional diversities of administration, and got rid of unemployment. But these achievements were merely instruments of an overwhelming lust for power. Nazi domination over Germany was a stepping stone towards the domination of Nazi Germany over the world. The process was continuous, and the methods were the same. Hitler effected the triumph of the Nazi Party in Germany by a mixture of deceit and violence; he then employed the same devices to destroy other nations. From the time he became master of Germany he made lies, cruelty, and terror his principal means to achieve his ends; and he became in the eyes of virtually the whole world an incarnation of absolute evil.

Hitler was unimpressive to meet on informal occasions, but became transformed when he was face to face with a crowd, especially if it was an audience of his followers. He would speak to them like a man possessed and give the appearance of utter exhaustion when his speech was over. His speeches betrayed few if any original ideas, and even his belief in the suggestive power of reiteration scarcely justified the repetitions of past history with which most of his public orations were overladen. He was, however, a propagandist of the first order, and his uncannily subtle and acute understanding of the mind of his own people was the ultimate source of his power for evil.