The Great Arsenal of Democracy Persuasive Speech
My friends:
This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security; because the nub of the whole purpose of your
President is to keep you now, and your children later, and your grandchildren much later, out of a last-ditch war for the
preservation of American independence and all of the things that American independence means to you and to me and
to ours.
Tonight, in the presence of a world crisis, my mind goes back eight years ago to a night in the midst of a domestic
crisis. It was a time when the wheels of American industry were grinding to a full stop, when the whole banking system
of our country had ceased to function.
I well remember that while I sat in my study in the White House, preparing to talk with the people of the United States, I
had before my eyes the picture of all those Americans with whom I was talking. I saw the workmen in the mills, the
mines, the factories; the girl behind the counter; the small shopkeeper; the farmer doing his spring plowing; the widows
and the old men wondering about their life's savings.
I tried to convey to the great mass of American people what the banking crisis meant to them in their daily lives.
Tonight, I want to do the same thing, with the same people, in this new crisis which faces America.
We met the issue of 1933 with courage and realism.
We face this new crisis—this new threat to the security of our Nation—with the same courage and realism.
Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now.
For, on September 27, 1940, by an agreement signed in Berlin, three powerful nations, two in Europe and one in Asia,
joined themselves together in the threat that if the United States of America interfered with or blocked the expansion
program of these three nations—a program aimed at world control—they would unite in ultimate action against the
United States.
The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own
country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the
world.
In other words, the Axis not merely admits but proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy
of government and our philosophy of government.
In view of the nature of this undeniable threat, it can be asserted, properly and categorically, that the United States has
no right or reason to encourage talk of peace until the day shall come when there is a clear intention on the part of the
aggressor nations to abandon all thought of dominating or conquering the world.
At this moment, the forces of the states that are leagued against all peoples who live in freedom are being held away
from our shores. The Germans and Italians are being blocked on the other side of the Atlantic by the British, and by the
Greeks, and by thousands of soldiers and sailors who were able to escape from subjugated countries. The Japanese
are being engaged in Asia by the Chinese in another great defense.
In the Pacific is our fleet.
Some of our people like to believe that wars in Europe and in Asia are of no concern to us. But it is a matter of most
vital concern to us that European and Asiatic war-makers should not gain control of the oceans which lead to this
hemisphere.
If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the high
seas—and they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere. It is no
exaggeration to say that all of us in the Americas would be living at the point of a gun—a gun loaded with explosive
bullets, economic as well as military.
We should enter upon a new and terrible era in which the whole world, our hemisphere included, would be run by
threats of brute force. To survive in such a world, we would have to convert ourselves permanently into a militaristic
power on the basis of war economy.
Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead—danger against which we must prepare. But we well know that we cannot
escape danger, or the fear of it, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.
The fate of the nations already attacked tells us what it means to live at the point of a Nazi gun.
The Nazis have justified such actions by various pious frauds. One of these frauds is the claim that they are occupying
a nation for the purpose of “restoring order.” Another is that they are occupying or controlling a nation on the excuse
that they are “protecting it” against the aggression of somebody else.
The plain facts are that the Nazis have proclaimed, time and again, that all other races are their inferiors and therefore
subject to their orders. And most important of all, the vast resources and wealth of this hemisphere constitute the most
tempting loot in all the world.
Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and
corrupted so many others are already within our own gates. Your Government knows much about them and every day
is ferreting them out.
Their secret emissaries are active in our own and neighboring countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension
to cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labor and vice versa. They try to reawaken long slumbering
racial and religious enmities which should have no place in this country. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose:
to divide our people into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves.
Americans never can and never will imitate the methods of dictatorships.
The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. There can be no
appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. We know now that a nation can
have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender.
Such a dictated peace would be no peace at all. It would be only another armistice, leading to the most gigantic
armament race and the most devastating trade wars in history. And in these contests the Americas would offer the only
real resistance to the Axis powers.
The proposed “new order” is the very opposite of a United States of Europe or a United States of Asia. It is not a
government based upon the consent of the governed. It is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to
protect themselves and their freedom and their dignity from oppression. It is an unholy alliance of power and pelf to
dominate and enslave the human race.
The British people are conducting an active war against this unholy alliance. Our own future security is greatly
dependent on the outcome of that fight. Our ability to “keep out of war” is going to be affected by that outcome.
Thinking in terms of today and tomorrow, I make the direct statement to the American people that there is far less
chance of the United States getting into war if we do all we can now to support the nations defending themselves
against attack by the Axis than if we acquiesce in their defeat, submit tamely to an Axis victory, and wait our turn to be
the object of attack in another war later on.
If we are to be completely honest with ourselves, we must admit there is risk in any course we may take. But I deeply
believe that the great majority of our people agree that the course that I advocate involves the least risk now and the
greatest hope for world peace in the future.
The people of Europe who are defending themselves do 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 our security.
Emphatically we must get these weapons 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.
Let not defeatists tell us that it is too late. It will never be earlier. Tomorrow will be later than today.
In a military sense Great Britain and the British Empire are today the spearhead of resistance to world conquest. They
are putting up a fight which will live forever in the story of human gallantry.
There is no demand for sending an American Expeditionary Force outside our own borders. There is no intention by
any member of your Government to send such a force.
Our national policy is not directed toward war. Its sole purpose is to keep war away from our country and our people.
Democracy’s fight against world conquest is being greatly aided, and must be more greatly aided, by the rearmament
of the United States and by sending every ounce and every ton of munitions and supplies that we can possibly spare to
help the defenders who are in the front lines.
We are planning our own defense with the utmost urgency; and in its vast scale we must integrate the war needs of
Britain and the other free nations resisting aggression.
This is not a matter of sentiment or of controversial personal opinion. It is a matter of realistic military policy, based on
the advice of our military experts who are in close touch with existing warfare. These military and naval experts and the
members of the Congress and the administration have a single-minded purpose—the defense of the United States.
This Nation is making a great effort to produce everything that is necessary in this emergency—and with all possible
speed. This great effort requires great sacrifice.
I would ask no one to defend a democracy which in turn would not defend everyone in the Nation against want and
privation. The strength of this Nation shall not be diluted by the failure of the Government to protect the economic
well-being of all citizens.
The worker possesses the same human dignity and is entitled to the same security of position as the engineer or
manager or owner. For the workers provide the human power that turns out the destroyers, the airplanes, and the
tanks.
The Nation expects our defense industries to continue operation without interruption by strikes or lock-outs. It expects
and insists that management and workers will reconcile their differences by voluntary or legal means, to continue to
produce the supplies that are so sorely needed.
American industrial genius, unmatched throughout the world in the solution of production problems, has been called
upon to bring its resources and talents into action. Manufacturers of watches, farm implements, automobiles, sewing
machines, lawn mowers, and locomotives are now making fuses, bomb-packing crates, telescope mounts, shells,
pistols, and tanks.
But all our present efforts are not enough. We must have more ships, more guns, more planes—more of everything.
This can only be accomplished if we discard the notion of “business as usual.”
After the present needs of our defense are past, a proper handling of the country’s peacetime needs will require all of
the new productive capacity—if not more.
No pessimistic policy about the future of America shall delay the immediate expansion of those industries essential to
defense.
I want to make it clear that it is the purpose of the Nation to build now with all possible speed every machine and
arsenal and factory that we need to manufacture our defense material. We have the men, the skill, the wealth, and
above all, the will.
I appeal to the owners of plants, to the managers, to the workers, to our own Government employees, to put every
ounce of effort into producing these munitions swiftly and without stint.
As planes and ships and guns and shells are produced, your Government, with its defense experts, can then determine
how best to use them to defend this hemisphere. The decision as to how much shall be sent abroad and how much
shall remain at home must be made on the basis of our overall military necessities.
We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply
ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice,
as we would show were we at war.
We have furnished the British great material support and we will furnish far more in the future.
There will be no “bottlenecks” in our determination to aid Great Britain. No dictator, no combination of dictators, will
weaken that determination by threats.
The British have received invaluable military support from the heroic Greek Army and from the forces of all the
governments in exile. Their strength is growing. It is the strength of men and women who value their freedom more
highly than they value their lives.
I believe that the Axis powers are not going to win this war. I base that belief on the latest and best information.
We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope—hope for peace, hope for the defense of our
civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future.
I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they
have ever yet made to increase our production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our democratic
faith.
As President of the United States I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this Nation which we love and
honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our
common cause will greatly succeed.
