Evening star., 1941-07-05
President Back
In Capital for
Defense Farley
Principal Advisers
Called to Talk at
White House
BY JOHN c. HENRY.

President Roosevelt conferred with
defense advisers at the
White House today, perhaps dis
cussing with them his Independence
Day pledge that IF it be necessary,
our very lives" shall be offered for
the protection of democratic liberties
the world.
Summoned for the White House
were Secretary Of War
Stimson, Undersecretary of State
Welles. Undersecretary Of Navy
Forrestal, Army Chief of Staff Gen.
George C. Marshall and Rear Ad-
miral Royal E. Ingersoll. assistant
chief of naval operations.
The appointment was the only one
scheduled for the President ovei
the week end.
Demands From Within Cabinet.
Whether the extreme of an offer
ing of American lives will become
necessary in the course OF imple-
menting our established defense and
foreign policies still is not clearly
ulSCCIl III OOOCN
international developments. but
there have been authoritative de-
mands from within Mr.. Roosevelts S
own cabinet in recent days that now
is the time for the American fleet
to clear the Atlantic" and that
statutory obstacles should be re-
moved to permit American troops to
serve anywhere in the world If our
national interests are at stake.
For his own part the President :
actions during a Today absence
from the Capital have been con-
sistently directed toward the objec
tive of strengthening the Nations
defenses and expediting aid to those
countries already fighting the totali-
tartan Axis-even while by word he
was expressing mis- hopes" to press
conference that We may succeed in
staying out of actual participation
in the conflict.
No Tempering Of Policies.
That these hopes should not
be taken to imply any temperlng
of this Government established
defense and aid policies was made
clear in the Presidents address Of
yesterday. Speaking from his
private study in the new Franklin
D. Roosevelt Library. close to his
family home in HYDE Park, N. Y,
the Chief Executive warned Ma
ton which had paused in its holi
day celebration that new resist
ance to human freedoms in the
form of several new practices of
tyranny, has been making such
headway that the fundamentals of
l776 are being struck down abroad
and threatened here. and definitely
they are being threatened here"
Scornfully. he raped at the sp-
peasers and the isolationists as he
continued
1T is. indeed. fallacy. based on
no logic. for any Americans to sug-
gest that the rule of force can de-
feat human freedom in all the
other parts Of the world and allot
1t to survive in the United States
oAOAlC ouG II has DcCIl lIIdl CIIllO-
like fantasy itself-that misdirected
faith-which has led nation after
nation to go about its peaceful tasks.
relying on the thought, and even
the promise, that it and its life
and its government would be allowed
TO live when the juggernaut of
force came that way.
Need for Modern Defense.
1T is simple-I could almost SAY
simple-minded-for us Americans
to wave the flag. to reassert our
belief in the cause of freedom
and to let it go at that"
The need for modern defense to
oppose modern tyranny was ex-
pressed in further warning by Mr..
Roosevelt as he declared that "in
these days We cannot save free
dom with pitchforks and muskets
after a dictator combination has
gained control Of the rest of the
world.
I'VE know, too, that We cannot
save freedom in our oVn midst.
in our own land. if all around us
our neighbor nations-have lost
their freedom"
Referring then to the present
national effort on behalf of hemi-
sphere defense and freedom of the
seas. the Chief Executive urged on
the American people not only unity
but speed and efficiency and toll
and an end to backbiting and to
the sabotage which runs far deeper
than the blowing up Of munitions
plants
II tell the American people SOL
emnly." he concluded. that the
United States will never survive as a
happy and fertile oasis of liberty
in the midst of a cruel desert of
dictatorship.
Stone Leads in Oath.
And so it is that when we repeat
the great pledge to our country
and to our flag, it must be our deep
conviction that we pledge as we'll
our work, our will and, " 1t be
necessary, our lives"
As Mr.. Roosevelt concluded these
carefully spoken words, Harlan
Fiske Stone. new Chief Justice Of
the United States, led the listening
Nation in the traditional oath OF
allegiance, ito the flag of the United
States of America and to the Re
public for which it stands"
From coast to coast, radio listen
ers in homes, baseball parks, auto
mobiles, and wherever, Joined in this
ceremony, perhaps the most i'm
pressive mass manifestation OF
patriotism ever staged in this coun-
try.
Present in the library study as Mr.
Roosevelt spoke were Mrs. Sara
Delano Roosevelt, the Presidents S6-
year -old mother; Mrs. Eleanor
Roosevelt, Crown Princess Martha
of Norway and her three children,
and a few others.
Al. TIL n-k 1-k.k.aI