The U.S. and the Holocaust

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Narrator

In the summer and fall of 1940, as Britain was under relentless attack from German bombs, President Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term. He would have to persuade voters that while he opposed American entry into the war, he also needed to provide aid to Britain as the last best hope of defeating Hitler and to ready the United States for conflict if it came as well. On September 16th, 1940, he signed into law the first peacetime draft in the history of the country. For the 16 million young men who register today, I say the democracy is a huge cause, the cause of youth. -

Narrator

The odds against the democracies had lengthened further. Germany was now allied with fascist Italy and Europe and Imperial Japan in Asia, the Axis. Roosevelt's Republican opponent, Wendell Willke, nominated just a few days after France fell shared Roosevelt's belief that Britain had to be helped. Now so did nearly three quarters of the American people. Public opinion was slowly beginning to change. But soon after Roosevelt agreed to provide Britain with 50 old Destroyers, Charles Lindbergh became the chief spokesman for a new isolationist organization dedicated to keeping America out of the war, the America First Committee. France has now been defeated. And despite the propaganda and confusion of recent months, it is now obvious that England is losing war. I believe- (people cheering) And I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England regardless of how much assistance we send. That is why the America First Committee has been formed. -

Narrator

It was founded by a handful of students at the Yale Law School and run by a national committee that at various times included General Robert E. Wood, chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck, the head of the United States Olympic committee, Avery Brundage, the automobile magnate, Henry Ford, World War I ace, Eddie Rickenbacker, Lillian Gish, the star of birth of a nation, and Theodore Roosevelt's daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth. The committee soon had some 800,000 members in 450 chapters all across the country, the largest anti-war organization in the history of the United States. (people cheering) Despite the opposition, FDR was reelected to a third term and soon proposed a Lend-Lease Bill allowing him to supply Britain with more desperately needed military and Naval supplies. I asked this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nation. -

Narrator

The bill was designated H.R. 1776 in hope that voters would see its passage as patriotic. Isolationists called it the dictator bill. Charles Lindbergh testified against it. He favored neither a British nor a German victory. He said and warned that US entry into the war would be the greatest disaster this country has ever gone through. FDR denounced him as an appeaser. Isolationist and antisemitic groups now flooded the halls of the capital to oppose the new bill including black clad members of a self-proclaimed Mother's movement who cursed legislators and insisted that Jews were behind what they believe to be Roosevelt's rush toward war. It's not just something that is hypothetical. England can fall. Hitler will take over all of the European continent. The America first fails to see the danger to the world at large. Tyrants will go as far as you allow them to go. They're always testing the waters. Can I go further? Can I push stronger? And the American First and the isolationist refused to acknowledge that. -

Narrator

In the end, the Lend-Lease bill passed. -

Reporter

Guns and munitions of all sorts pour into Britain as almost hourly convoys from the States bring their precious cargoes. The original $7 billion of Lend-Lease aid has already been allocated. Now, Congress studies final passage of another six billion and Britain studies invading the continent with arms made in the USA.