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"We reject that thought. We say that we are the future. We say that the direction in which they would lead us is backward, not forward, backward to the bondage of the Pharaohs, backward to the slavery of the Middle Ages. . . ."
He linked hemispheric defense to freedom of the seas: "We include the right to the peaceful use of the Atlantic Ocean and of the Pacific Ocean." He denied that "the course the Americas are following is slowly drawing one or all of us into war." Said he: "This country wants no war with any nation. This hemisphere wants no war with any nation." He salved South American pride with the statement that newly acquired U. S. naval bases were open to other republics of the Western Hemisphere for cooperative use. And he came to a defiant climax:
"The Americas will not be scared or threatened into the ways the dictators want us to follow. . . .
"No combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will stop the help that we are giving to almost the last free people now fighting to hold them at bay. . . . "We will continue to pile up our defense and our armaments. We will continue to help those who resist aggression and who now hold the aggressors far from our shores. . . .
"I speak bluntly. I speak the love the American people have for freedom and liberty and decency and humanity. . . .
"The men and the women of Britain have shown how free people defend what they know to be right. Their heroic defense will be recorded for all time. It will be perpetual proof that democracy, when put to the test, can show the stuff of which it is made.
"I well recall during my recent visit to three capital cities in South America the vast throngs which came to express by their cheers their friendship for the United States. I remember especially that above all the cheers I heard one constant cry again and again, one shout above all others: 'Viva la Democracia!' . . .
"As I salute the people of all the nations in all the western world, I echo that greeting from our good neighbors of the Americas: 'Viva la Democracia!'—'Long Live Democracy!''
The train started back a few moments later for Washington. The President had hurried through his speech, finished five minutes early. As if pondering on how greatly democracy had changed in the 20 years since his Vice-Presidential race, the President remarked to a broadcast company representative that in his 1920 campaign he had made 850 speeches. The 850 had probably reached a smaller total audience than were reached by this one. As praise for the first big speech of his 1940 campaign rolled in, Franklin Roosevelt may well have pondered what the last 20 years had done to la democracia.
Last week the President also:
>Froze all Rumanian funds in the U. S. (estimate: $100,000,000) after German troops entered the country.
>Asked Congress to allocate $30,076,000 for rivers and harbors improvements in the interests of national defense.
>In opening the annual Mobilization for Human Needs, appealed to U. S. citizens to give freely to private charity: "Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fibre of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough."