Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes
Europe does not ask us to do their fighting. They ask us for the implements of war, the planes, the tanks, the guns, the freighters which will enable them to fight for their liberty and for our security. Emphatically we must get these weapons to them, get them to them in sufficient volume and quickly enough, so that we and our children will be saved the agony and suffering of war which others have had to endure.
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, we declared war on Japan. Germany then declared war on the United States, and America was in the fight. But the earlier policy had been to provide weapons, food, and supplies.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882-1945, 32nd President of the United States (Democrat, NY), National Radio Address, December 29, 1940
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was the earliest version of a variant of the great WWII propaganda phrase, “Arsenal of Democracy”. See --{624746} and {624747} for quotations related to this famous phrase.
This was the week after he returned from his meeting with Hitler in Munich where he appeased the German Dictator. See {585941} for his famous naive statement.
The documentation of this quotation comes from a memorandum summarizing the meeting written by Presidential aide Harry Hopkins.
Monnet began to use the exact phrase in Mid 1940. He almost certainly had read Sherwood’s earlier, similar phrase {624748}. However so had Presidential Aid Harry Hopkins who thought that it would be a good phrase for President Roosevelt to use to “brand” the activity of the United States. So diplomatically, Monnet was asked not to use the phrase any more, and he acceded to the request. At the end of the year, in a famous radio address, FDR used the phrase {624747}, and it has been associated with him ever since.
This was the address where FDR used the “arsenal of democracy” phrase which became so famous. A similar phrase was used in May by Robert E. Sherwood--{624748}. Then Jean Monnet began to use the exact phrase in Mid 1940--{624746}. He almost certainly had read Sherwood’s earlier, similar phrase. However so had Presidential Aid Harry Hopkins who thought that it would be a good phrase for President Roosevelt to use to “brand” the activity of the United States. So diplomatically, Monnet was asked not to use the phrase any more, and he acceded to the request. At the end of the year, FDR gave his address with this quotation.
Actually, the two world wars were wars of necessity. The Korean War and the Vietnam war are considered by many as wars of choice. But most of our military incursions—the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, Grenada, the Serbian War, Hati incursions and many others were wars of choice for which there were often very good reasons. However, we have to go to war when America is existentially threatened. In that sense, the Iraq War which Kerry was primarily addressing, could be interpreted either way. If it was really true thread. That is what caused most members of Congress to vote to approve the war. However, when that turned out to have been untrue, and it was suspected that the weapons of mass destruction was a deliberate ruse by some.
He fought in Algeria and other counterinsurgencies and then studied them. He wrote the classic book on counterinsurgency warfare. After all the mistakes the U. S. made after the successful invasion of Iraq, his book and doctrine were very influential in the change in strategy and tactics that turned the Iraq War in our favor.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office.
