Memorial Day: A Day of Rememberance

BROADCAST FROM THE OVAL ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE, NATIONALLY, AND OVER A WORLD-WIDE HOOKUP
DECEMBER 9, 1941 -- 10:00 PM

...

And what we have learned is this:

There is no such thing as security for any nation -- or any individual
-- in a world ruled by the principles of gangsterism. There is no such thing as
impregnable defense against powerful aggressors who sneak up in the dark and
strike without warning.

We have learned that our ocean-girt hemisphere is not immune from
severe attack -- that we cannot measure our safety in terms of miles on any map
any more.

We may acknowledge that our enemies have performed a brilliant feat of
deception, perfectly timed and executed with great skill. It was a thoroughly
dishonorable deed, but we must face the fact that modern warfare as conducted in
the Nazi manner is a dirty business. We don't like it -- we didn't want to get
in it -- but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got.

I do not think any American has any doubt of our ability to administer
proper punishment to the perpetrators of these crimes. Your Government knows
that for weeks Germany has been telling Japan that if Japan did not attack the
United States, Japan would not share in dividing the spoils with Germany when
peace came. She was promised by Germany that if she came in she would receive
the complete and perpetual control of the whole of the Pacific area -- and that
means not only the Ear East, but also all of the Islands in the Pacific, and
also a stranglehold on the west coast of North, Central and South America. We
know also that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval
operations in accordance with a joint plan. That plan considers all peoples and
nations which are not helping the Axis powers as common enemies of each and
every one of the Axis powers.

That is their simple and obvious grand strategy. And that is why the
American people must realize that it can be matched only with similar grand
strategy. We must realize for example that Japanese successes against the United
States in the Pacific are helpful to German operations in Libya; that any German
success against the Caucasus is inevitably an assistance to Japan in her
operations against the Dutch East Indies; that a German attack against Algiers
or Morocco opens the way to a German attack against South America and the Canal.

On the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that
guerilla warfare against the Germans in, let us say Serbia or Norway, helps us;
that a successful Russian offensive against the Germans helps us; and that
British successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

Remember always that Germany and Italy, regardless of any formal
declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the United States at this
moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with Britain or Russia.
And Germany puts all the other Republics of the Americas into the same category
of enemies. The people of our sister Republics of this Hemisphere can be honored
by that fact.

The true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle.
When we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall
be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers -- we are builders.

We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation, and all that this nation represents, will be safe for our children. We expect to eliminate the danger from Japan, but it would serve us ill if we accomplished that and found that the rest of the world was dominated by Hitler and Mussolini.

So we are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that
follows.

And in the difficult hours of this day -- through dark days that may be
yet to come -- we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human
race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying
for us. But, in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well -- our hope
and their hope for liberty under God.