FDR Speaks about Cancer of Nazis, and Aid to Britain, Dec. 29, 1940 - Arsenal of Democracy

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- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, radio broadcast, December 29, 1940. The Great Arsenal of Democracy. (Print copy, American Rhetoric. - Excerpts, Ed.).
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My friends:

This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security; because the nub of the whole purpose of your President is to keep you now, and your children later, and your grandchildren much later, out of a last-ditch war for the preservation of American independence.. Tonight, in the presence of a world crisis, my mind goes back 8 years to a night in the midst of a domestic crisis. It was a time when the wheels of American industry were grinding to a full stop, when the whole banking system of our country had ceased to function.. I tried to convey to the great mass of American people what the banking crisis meant to them in their daily lives.

Tonight, I want to do the same thing, with the same people, in this new crisis which faces America. We met the issue of 1933 with courage and realism.

We face this new crisis, this new threat to the security of our nation, with the same courage and realism. Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now. For on Sept. 27th, 1940 -- this year -- by an agreement signed in Berlin, 3 powerful nations, 2 in Europe and 1 in Asia, joined themselves together in the threat that if the USA interfered with or blocked the expansion program of these 3 nations -- a program aimed at world control -- they would unite in ultimate action against the United States. The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.

It was only 3 weeks ago that their leader stated this: "There are 2 worlds that stand opposed to each other."

And then in defiant reply to his opponents he said this: "Others are correct when they say: 'With this world we cannot ever reconcile ourselves.''' I can beat any other power in the world." So said the leader of the Nazis. In other words, the Axis not merely admits but the Axis proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy -- their philosophy of government -- and our philosophy of government. In view of this undeniable threat, it can be asserted that the US has no right or reason to encourage talk of peace until the day shall come when there is a clear intention on the part of the aggressor nations to abandon all thought of dominating or conquering the world..

The plain facts are that the Nazis have proclaimed, time and again, that all other races are their inferiors and therefore subject to their orders.

And most important of all, the vast resources and wealth of this American hemisphere constitute the most tempting loot in all of the round world. The history of recent years proves that the shootings and the chains and the concentration camps are not simply the transient tools but the very altars of modern dictatorships. They may talk of a "new order" in the world, but what they have in mind is only a revival of the oldest and the worst tyranny. In that there is no liberty, no religion, no hope. The proposed "new order" is the very opposite of a United States of Europe or a United States of Asia. It is not a government based upon the consent of the governed. It is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to protect themselves and their freedom and their dignity from oppression.

It is an unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate and to enslave the human race...

- Full Speech:
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html