Evening star., 1941-07-25

| an information bureau to all of.
them. And I will give you the
example.
Here on the East Coast, you have
been reading that the Secretary of
the Interior, as oil administrator, is
faced with the problem of not
enough gasoline to 60 around in the
| East Coast, and how he is asking
everybody to curtail their consump-
ton of gasoline. All right Now, I
AMI might be called an American
citizen, living in Hyde Park, N. Y.
And I say, That's funny thing
Why am I asked to curtail my con-
sumption of gasoline when I read
in the papers that thousands of tons
of gasoline are going out from Los
Angeles-West Coast-to Japan: and
we are helping Japan in what looks
like an act of aggression"
All right Now the answer is
very simple one. There is a world
war going on, and has been for
some time-nearly two years. One
of our efforts, from the very be-
ginning. was to prevent the spread
Of that world war in certain areas
where it hadn't started. One of
those areas is place called the
Pacific Ocean-one of the largest
areas of the earth There hap
pened to be place in the South
Pacific, where we had to get
lot of things-rubber, tin and so
forth and so on-down in the
Dutch Indies, the Straits Settle
ments and China. And we
had to help get the Australian sur
plus of meat and wheat and corn
for England.
Essential for Defense
1t was very essential from our
own selfish point of view of de-
fense to prevent a war from start
ing in the South Pacific. So our
foreign policy was trying to stop
war from breaking out down
there. At the same time. from the
point Of view of even France at
that time-of course, France still
had her head above water-we
wanted to keep that line of supplies
from Australia and New Zealand
going to the Near East-all their
troops, all their supplies that they
have maintained in Syria, North
Africa and Palestine. So it was
essential for Great Britain that
we try to keep the peace down
there In the South Pacific.
All right. And now here is a
nation called Japan. Whether they
had at that time aggressive pur-
poses to enlarge their empire south
ward, they didn't have any oil of
their own up in the north. Now,
If we cut the oil of. they probably
would have gone down to the Dutch
East Indies q year ago and you
would have had war.
Therefore, there was-you might |
Gala method in letting this oil
go to Japan, with the hope-and
it has worked for two years-of
keeping war out of the South Pacific
for our own good, for the good of
the defense of Great Britain and
the freedom of the seas.
You people can help to enlighten
the average citizen who wouldn't
hear of that, or doesn't read the
papers carefully, or listen to the ra-
dio carefully, to understand what
some of these apparent anomalies
mean. So, on the information end,
I think you have got just as great
task as you have in the actual or
ganization work.
Now on this organization-to come
back to that for a minute-it Is
amazing the number Of letters I
get here in the White House-and
my wife in the White House-from
men and women in literally every
county in the United States-who
are pleading to be told what they
can do to help. They honestly are
ready to work.
So my message to you is: Act as
starters of this "horse race"