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that our general cost of living can be maintained at a reasonable level. We ought to avoid
the spiral processes of the World War, the rising spiral of costs of all kinds. The soundest
policy is for every employer in the country to help give useful employment to the
millions who are unemployed. By giving to those millions an increased purchasing
power, the prosperity of the whole nation will rise to a much higher level.
Today's threat to our national security is not a matter of military weapons alone. We
know of new methods of attack.
The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery.
Spies, saboteurs and traitors are the actors in this new strategy. With all of these we must
and will deal vigorously.
But there is an added technique for weakening a nation at its very roots, for disrupting
the entire pattern of life of a people. And it is important that we understand it.
The method is simple. It is, first, a dissemination of discord. A group not too large a
group that may be sectional or racial or political is encouraged to exploit its prejudices
through false slogans and emotional appeals. The aim of those who deliberately egg on
these groups is to create confusion of counsel, public indecision, political paralysis and
eventually, a state of panic.
Sound national policies come to be viewed with a new and unreasoning skepticism, not
through the wholesome political debates of honest and free men, but through the clever
schemes of foreign agents.
As a result of these new techniques, armament programs may be dangerously delayed.
Singleness of national purpose may be undermined. Men can lose confidence in each
other, and therefore lose confidence in the efficacy of their own united action. Faith and
courage can yield to doubt and fear. The unity of the State can be so sapped that its
strength is destroyed.
All this is no idle dream. It has happened time after time, in nation after nation, during
the last two years. Fortunately, American men and women are not easy dupes.
Campaigns of group hatred or class struggle have never made much headway among us,
and are not making headway now. But new forces are being unleashed, deliberately
planned propaganda to divide and weaken us in the face of danger as other nations have
been weakened before.
These dividing forces are undiluted poison. They must not be allowed to spread in the
New World as they have in the Old. Our morale and our mental defenses must be raised
up as never before against those who would cast a smokescreen across our vision.
The development of our defense program makes it essential that each and every one of
us, men and women, feel that we have some contribution to make toward the security of
our nation.
At this time, when the world and the world includes our own American Hemisphere
when the world is threatened by forces of destruction, it is my resolve and yours to build
up our armed defenses.
We shall build them to whatever heights the future may require.
We shall rebuild them swiftly, as the methods of warfare swiftly change.
For more than three centuries we Americans have been building on this continent a free
society, a society in which the promise of the human spirit may find fulfillment.
Commingled here are the blood and genius of all the peoples of the world who have
sought this promise.
We have built well. We are continuing our efforts to bring the blessings of a free society,
of a free and productive economic system, to every family in the land. This is the
promise of America.
It is this that we must continue to build this that we must continue to defend.
It is the task of our generation, yours and mine. But we build and defend not for our
generation alone. We defend the foundations laid down by our fathers. We build a life
for generations yet unborn. We defend and we build a way of life, not for America alone,
but for all mankind. Ours is a high duty, a noble task.
Day and night I pray for the restoration of peace in this mad world of ours. It is not
necessary that I, the President, ask the American people to pray in behalf of such a cause
for I know you are praying with me.
I am certain that out of the hearts of every man, woman and child in this land, in every
waking minute, a supplication goes up to Almighty God; that all of us beg that suffering
and starving, that death and destruction may end and that peace may return to the
world. In common affection for all mankind, your prayers join with mine that God will
heal the wounds and the hearts of humanity.
September 11, 1941.
My Fellow Americans:
The Navy Department of the United States has reported to me that on the morning of
September fourth the United States destroyer GREER, proceeding in full daylight
towards Iceland, had reached a point southeast of Greenland. She was carrying
American mail to Iceland. She was flying the American flag. Her identity as an
American ship was unmistakable.
She was then and there attacked by a submarine. Germany admits that it was a German
submarine. The submarine deliberately fired a torpedo at the GREER, followed later by
another torpedo attack. In spite of what Hitler's propaganda bureau has invented, and in
spite of what any American obstructionist organization may prefer to believe, I tell you
the blunt fact that the German submarine fired first upon this American destroyer
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