Ernest Bevin Quotes
There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented. The common man I think, is the great protection against war
Ernest Bevin, 1881-1951, British Foreign Minister (Labour), Speech 1945
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3rd Earl Russell of Kingston. The military weak nations agreed with him, but the militarily strong ones did not—especially America and England which had the Atomic Bomb when others did not.
The documentation of this quotation comes from a memorandum summarizing the meeting written by Presidential aide Harry Hopkins.
Theodore Roosevelt was the Presidential nominee. Johnson was a leader of some members of Congress some of whom were extreme isolationists and some of whom were Nazi sympathizers and Hitler admirers. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor later that year, Germany, fulfilling its treaty with Japan, declared war on America, Johnson’s group no longer mattered. Before WWII most Republicans were opposed to Defense Spending and accused the Democrats of being war hawks. After WWII, they flip flopped and became more hawkish than the Democrats who they accused of being soft on defense for years thereafter. See {631380} for President Roosevelt’s different view.
The Russian motivation for going to the aid of Serbia when the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacked that country was religious affinity. Both were of the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Slaves had historically been attacked by the Roman Catholic Teutons. Russia had exercised hegemony over regions outside of Russia where there were Christian Orthodox co-religiouists.
Ernest Bevin was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–1940, and served as Minister of Labour and National Service in the war-time coalition government. He succeeded in maximising the British labour supply, for both the armed services and domestic industrial production, with a minimum of strikes and disruption.
