The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1941-12-25
THE INEVITABLE
HAS HAPPENED

The unprovoked attack of Japan on
American possessions simply marked
the occurrence of the inevitable For
many months, most authorities have
been convinced that we could not avoid
formal participation in the war that
now engulfs all the continents. The
big question was when and where the
spark would be ignited. The Japanese
Imilitarists, spurred by their Axis
comrades, have answered that ques-
,tion for us and for the world.
The American people enter this war
with sense of grim and bitter neces-
isity. No thinking man wants war. It
| is to the great credit of our govern
ment that it did everything possible,
within the bounds of our national
honor and interests, to maintain
peace. That effort failed through no
fault of those who administer our
governmental affairs. 1t failed be-
cause the ruthless conquerors of our
thine are bent on world domination.
Nothing less can satisfy them. 1t is
all or nothing. And so, at last, the
democratic world is allied in arms
against the totalitarian world in the
greatest war history has ever known.
Here in America the task is clear.
The American people will support
their government to the limit, and
they will make whatever sacrifices
prove necessary. The issue of inter-
|vention versus non-intervention is as
ldead as last years news. The iso-
lationist leaders, displaying that pa
triotism which characterizes all true
Americans, however different their
opinions, have pledged their full sup
port to the President and the nation.
From this time on, it is the job of all
to show the world that free America
lis more than a match for any adver-
'sary.
The soldiers and the sailors who
fight in this war carry into battle a
traditional freedom. They are not the
unthinking, "heiling" subjects of a
dictator. They are not slaves, living
and dying like puppets at the whim of
a master. They have been reared in
the freest of all great nations, under
the ideals which Lincoln called, "The
last, best hope of earth" They know
what they are fighting for. They know
how precious freedom is. And they
know the 'sorrowful truth that blood
must be shed if freedom is to be pre-
IServed.
Back of the fighting men of Amer
ica will be production machine un-
paralleled on earth. Labor and indus
!, try will not shirk the gigantic task
that time and circumstance have given
it. The price of failure would be the
death of freedom. The days ahead will
be hard and bitter, but no one can
doubt what the eventual end will be
victory for freedom, for way of life
that respects the dignity of men.
1t is all there in one word-free-
dom. Freedom of speech, freedom of
2 press, freedesrss worship, freedom of
2 eIenterprise. These are what we pos
7 Isess, and these are what we are fight
, mig to save and to perpetuate forever
Il -A'hNli iNe'ii hiuAoOi iCduy lOI IIllS
war. Go down the roster of our great
private enterprises--the railroads, the
power systems, the steel mills, the
motor Makers the coal and metal
mines, the oil wells and refining
= plants, the airplane factories and the
7 rest. American enterprise represents
a veritable miracle of preparedness
And now the tempo of production will
! be stepped up again and again There
can be no business as usual" STRIKES
as usual" or politics as usual" from
, now on.
Let there be no despair. Let there
be instead, uncompromising determi.
5 nation. War has been forced on us
1t has been forced on us by natior
to which we offered firm friendship
= economic cooperation, aid in solving
t It's problems-everything, in short, ex,
p |cept the right to pillage and destroy
a and conquer Now our enemies vii
learn how free men, backed by the
Illmltless resources of our free enter,
prise system, can acquit themselves
: in battle.