| Roosevelt was nearing the end of his second term as
president.
War clouds were looming on the horizon. His ambassador in London,
Joe Kennedy
(an Irishman) kept sending notes back, saying that the English
would never
be able to stand up to the Nazis. France seemed to be
the only
hope. When France fell the White house must have been a dismal
place.
Should England fall there would be nothing standing in the way of
the Axis
powers in Europe. Russia, the only real threat to Germany,
had a
treaty with the Germans. German submarines were already starting
to sink
merchant ships at an alarming rate.
On the other side of the world, the
Philippines stuck
out like a sore thumb. Japan had already attacked China and
showed every
reason, whit her "Greater Eastern Co- Prosperity Sphere" to have
her eye
on even more territory. One by one, the democracies were
falling
to the dictatorships. Yet America was pledged not to
fight.
This left Roosevelt only words. At almost every
opportunity he spoke
for the support of the British. Yet his man in London, Joe
Kennedy, never
let a chance pass to speak against the English. Almost
monthly, FDR
found himself freezing the American assets of some small
country, to keep
then from falling into the hands of the Axis powers. Now
even France
had to be dealt with. During the Great war Germany had
been stopped
in France. But now it seemed that the last war had just taken a
twenty
year breather. France, indeed almost all of Continent
Europe... gone.
And German spies and activists all over Latin and South
America.
Soon America would be forced to deal with Germany, one way or
another.
Hitler and Roosevelt were both the products
of the
great depression. Both took power the same year.
Both brought
hope to their nation. Both were spellbinding speakers.
Beyond that
there were many differences. Hitler came to power because
of the
failure of democracy, and ending it, created a
dictatorship. Roosevelt
came to power because of the triumph of democracy and saved us
from the
possibility of slipping into a dictatorship. (see It Can't
Happen Here
) Hitler told his people to blame everyone but themselves.
Roosevelt
told his people that they were the answer. America looked
inward.
Germany looked outward. America declared itself neutral to
combatants
and refused to join in a new arms race. Germany declared
itself a
victim, who's rights it was about to re- assert and started to
Re-Arm.
All of this Roosevelt saw. Yet he could do
nothing.
The year America became Neutral, Italy invaded Ethiopia, Japan
invaded
China. FDR watched as, with larger and larger bites, the
dictators
swallowed more land, more people, more capital and production
capacity.
He couldn't even speak against the nations themselves. It
was politically
unwise when so many Americans were of German or Italian
decent. He
could only attack the Parties; Nazi and Fascist. He
increased the
Neutrality Patrol, in the Atlantic. He lent England 50
four stack
destroyers. He twisted the Neutrality law every way he
could, but
he couldn't make America want to fight. He'd gone so far
as to have
Mussolini remark that, "America is already in the war." He
couldn't
be sure that she'd enter the war on the right side.
But there were the Japanese. They were
causing trouble
half way around the world. We'd opened the Orient to our
merchants,
through the threat of force. Yet the benefits to the
Japanese had
been many. Japan could now boast a navy that was
second to
none in the world. She had defeated a major European sea
power (Russia)
in 1904. She had more carriers then any other
nation. She was
soon to have the two largest Battle Ships ever built. She
was expanding
her boarders. America had a plan for dealing with trouble
in that
part of the world. The furthers outpost, the Philippines,
Had come
to us after the Spanish American War. We had, as they
said, 'stole
it fair and square.' And we had a Plan....
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