Editor’s Be aware: In honor of the Labor Day vacation in the US, Warfare on the Rocks is publishing a transcript of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Labor Day radio handle from Sept. 1, 1941.
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On at the present time — this American vacation — we’re celebrating the rights of free laboring women and men.
The preservation of those rights is vitally vital now, not solely to us who get pleasure from them—however to the entire way forward for Christian civilization.
American labor now bears an amazing duty within the successful of this most brutal, most horrible of all wars.
In our factories and outlets and arsenals we’re constructing weapons on a scale nice in its magnitude. To all of the battle fronts of this world these weapons are being dispatched, by day and by evening, over the seas and thru the air. And this Nation is now devising and creating new weapons of unprecedented energy towards the upkeep of democracy.
Why are we doing this? Why are we decided to dedicate our total industrial effort to the prosecution of a warfare which has not but really touched our personal shores?
We aren’t a warlike individuals. Now we have by no means sought glory as a Nation of warriors. We aren’t concerned with aggression. We aren’t — because the dictators are — in looting. We don’t covet one sq. inch of the territory of some other Nation.
Our huge effort, and the unity of objective that evokes that effort, are due solely to our recognition of the truth that our elementary rights — together with the rights of labor — are threatened by Hitler’s violent try to rule the world.
These rights have been established by our forefathers on the sphere of battle. They’ve been defended — at nice value however with nice success — on the sphere of battle, right here on our personal soil, and in overseas lands, and on all of the seas everywhere in the world.
There has by no means been a second in our historical past when People weren’t prepared to face up as free males and combat for his or her rights.
In occasions of nationwide emergency, one truth is introduced dwelling to us, clearly and decisively — the truth that all of our rights are interdependent.
The best of freedom of worship would imply nothing with out freedom of speech. And the rights of free labor as we all know them right now couldn’t survive with out the rights of free enterprise.
That’s the indestructible bond that’s between us — between all of us People: interdependence of pursuits, privileges, alternatives, obligations — interdependence of rights.
That’s what unites us — women and men of all sections, of all races, of all faiths, of all occupations, of all political opinions. That’s the reason we’ve got been in a position to defy and frustrate the enemies who believed that they might divide us and conquer us from inside.
These enemies all know that we possess a robust Navy — a Navy gaining in energy. They know that that Navy — so long as the navies of the British Empire and the Netherlands and Norway and Russia exist — can collectively assure the liberty of the seas. These enemies know additionally that if these different navies are destroyed, the American Navy can’t now, or sooner or later, keep the liberty of the seas towards all the remainder of the world.
These enemies know that our Military is growing each day in its all-round energy.
These enemies know that right now the chief American fighters within the battles now raging are these engaged in American business, employers and staff alike.
These enemies know that the course of American manufacturing prior to now yr has proven monumental positive aspects and that the product of those industries is shifting to the battle fronts towards Hitlerism in growing quantity every day.
However these enemies additionally know that our American effort shouldn’t be but sufficient — and that until we step up the full of our manufacturing and extra vastly safeguard it on its journeys to the battlefields, these enemies will take coronary heart in pushing their assault in fields — previous and new.
I give solemn warning to those that assume that Hitler has been blocked and halted, that they’re making a really harmful assumption. When in any warfare your enemy appears to be making slower progress than he did the yr earlier than, that’s the very second to strike with redoubled power — to throw extra vitality into the job of defeating him — to finish all the time the menace of world conquest and thereby finish all speak or considered any peace based on a compromise with evil itself.
And we all know {that a} free labor system is the very basis of a functioning democracy. We all know that one of many first acts of the Axis dictatorships has been to wipe out all of the ideas and requirements which labor had been in a position to set up for its personal preservation and development.
Commerce unionism is a forbidden philosophy beneath these rule-or-ruin dictators. For commerce unionism calls for full freedom of expression and peaceable meeting. Commerce unionism has helped to present to each one who toils the place of dignity which is his due.
The current place of labor in the US as an interdependent unit within the lifetime of the Nation has not come about by likelihood. It has been an evolutionary technique of a wholesome democracy at work.
Hitler has not labored that method. He won’t — he can’t work that method. Simply as he denies all rights to people, he should deny all rights to teams — teams of labor, of enterprise — teams of studying, of the church. He has abolished commerce unions as ruthlessly as he has persecuted faith.
No group of People has realized extra clearly what Nazi domination of the world means than has organized labor — what it means to their lifestyle, their freedom — their lives. No group has a better stake within the defeat of Nazism, within the preservation of the elemental freedoms, within the continuance of democracy all through the world.
Now we have already achieved a lot; it’s crucial that we obtain infinitely extra.
The one-mindedness and sacrifice with which we collectively dedicate ourselves to the manufacturing of the weapons of freedom will decide in no small half the size of the ordeal by means of which humanity should go.
We can’t hesitate, we can’t equivocate within the nice process earlier than us. The protection of America’s freedom should take priority over each non-public intention and over each non-public curiosity.
Sure, we’re engaged on a grim and threatening process. Forces of insane violence have been let free by Hitler upon this earth. We should do our full half in conquering them. For these forces could also be unleashed on this Nation as we go about our enterprise of defending the correct pursuits of our nation.
The duty of defeating Hitler could also be lengthy and arduous. There are a couple of appeasers and Nazi sympathizers who say it can’t be achieved. They even ask me to barter with Hitler — to wish for crumbs from his victorious desk. They do, in actual fact, ask me to grow to be the fashionable Benedict Arnold and betray all that I maintain pricey — my devotion to our freedom — to our church buildings — to our nation. This course I’ve rejected — I reject it once more.
As an alternative, I do know that I communicate the conscience and dedication of the American individuals after I say that we will do every little thing in our energy to crush Hitler and his Nazi forces.
American employees, American farmers, American businessmen, American church individuals — all of us collectively — have the nice duty and the nice privilege of laboring to construct a democratic world on enduring foundations.
Might it’s mentioned on some future Labor Day by some future president of the US that we did our work faithfully and nicely.
Picture: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
