William Gibbs McAdoo Quotes
A man who could not serve in the trenches of France might nonetheless serve in the financial trenches at home….
William Gibbs McAdoo, 1863-1941, U. S. Treasury Secretary (Democrat), U. S. Senator (Democrat, CA), Statement during WWI, Quoted in New York Times, May 6, 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
What is particularly interesting about this quotation is that it shows the role that vengeance played in the support of the war effort. Revenge is a “baser” motive than making the world safe for democracy or preserving freedom or stopping dictators. Yet the political and military leadership did not shy away from revenge as a war aim. Contrast this with later wars. Arguably the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor created a different dimension than existed in the Korean or Vietnam wars. Yet in the War on Terror, the attack of 9-11, created a situation like Pearl Harbor did. Yet President Bush and other political and military leaders had a definite policy of never acknowledging that revenge was a factor, despite the fact that many Americans openly saw this as a major war aim.
The American Army had just liberated Bellau Wood, but had lost almost 8,000 men.
This quotation gives us a concept of the WWII home front effort where virtually everyone in American society was personally involved on a daily basis in the war. See also {637440}. This was so dramatically different from the home fronts for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where most of the American public had no direct contact with the war effort and was not called upon or even needed to do anything.
Most social conservatives thought Mrs. Roosevelt, a radical feminist. This is mostly because she would very frequently speak out on women’s issues. However, as this quotation illustrates, her values were not very radical at all. Her view was a woman’s first duty is to her family and she should only work if she could arrange the family life to allow it. But the family comes first. By the 21st century most feminists would argue that the woman also has a duty to herself and however so does the male. Both genders ought to value their duty to the family equally.
It took a lot longer than Mrs. Roosevelt liked, but the family friendly fast food restaurant chains like McDonalds, i-Hop, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Red Lobster, Olive Garden and many others catered to the families that were eating out more as more and more women became full time workers.
“Removal” was interpreted by some as killing and by others as jailing. Complaining about wartime suffering or hardship was a crime in militaristic Japan.
This is an interesting historical quotation because it shows how easily the United States commandeered private property during World War II. All it took was a letter from the Secretary of War. This particular quotation and letter had further historical significance. The school was acquired as the first facility for the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. This was where the atomic bomb was built.
The Russians had lost over 20 million of its people to German WWII hostilities. They wanted a vengeance and were willing to take the casualties that came with the invasion of Berlin and many other key cities that were heavily defended. Eisenhower and Churchill realized that this would give the Russians a very dominant military occupation of Eastern Europe and Eastern Germany. However, they did not want to take the huge casualties of all these battles. Politically, Churchill and American leaders had to explain to their right wings why Russia was involved as an equal partner in making occupation decisions about Germany.
June 1941 was the date that Nazi Germany invaded Russia.
The Chinese were massacred when the Japanese invaded with atrocities against civilians that were inconceivable until Hitler began his in Europe. However, there were many Chinese we worked against the Japanese including the Communists who made a truce with Chiang (see {636322}) so that they could oust the Japanese invaders.
FDR’s attempt to cap WWII income with any excess going to pay for the war failed as the wealthy in the country pulled out “all the stops” to defeat the proposal. Roosevelt was able, however, to get a maximum tax bracket of 88 percent on all income over $200,000 which was less onerous to the very rich but still terrible. They could not defeat that proposal.
William Gibbs McAdoo Jr. /ˈmækəˌduː/ was an American lawyer and statesman. McAdoo was a leader of the Progressive movement and played a major role in the administration of his father-in-law President Woodrow Wilson. A member of the Democratic Party, he also represented California in the United States Senate.
