Charles Lindberg and Committee to Defend America by Aiding the
Allies Article Review Directions
Directions: You will be using the following two articles to participate in a socratic seminar. You will support the
articles from textbook information (Chapter 26 and possibly Chapter 23-25). The article review, along with the
seminar, will be a test grade altogether, so it is very important to read carefully and participate fully.
First you will read Charles Lindberg’s speech and annotate it as you go. Pay attention to reasons he has for being
anti-war, and who he points blame to. Then you will answer these questions on a separate sheet of paper:
1. Give a summary of the speech, be specific in his critiques and requests.
2. What do you know about Lindberg that influences your opinion of him? Why do you think his position would
influence the American people?
3. What past issues would encourage Lindberg’s position? List specific evidence to support this.
4. Name 3 important things that you learned from the article, and 3 questions you have for him/his speech.
5. What connections can you make to information from your notes/the textbook. (give references to where in
your notes/the book this information can be found.) You need at least 3 connections.
Next you will read the excerpt from the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, and you will
annotate as you read. Again, focus on reasoning for being pro-war, and what issues that are pointed out. Then
answer these questions on a separate sheet of paper:
1. Give a summary of the pamphlet information, again be specific of reasoning.
2. What emotions does the committee appeal to? What are their major arguments?
3. What past issues encourage the committee’s position? Give evidence to support.
4. Name 3 important things that you learned from the pamphlet, and 3 questions you for the committee.
5. What connections can you make to information from your notes/the textbook. (give references to where in
your notes/the book this information can be found.) You need at least 3 connections.
When you have finished both readings, create a list of questions you have overall, and think about which side
you would choose to side with and explain why. You need at least 3 questions written below.
1.
2.
3.
Side chosen and why:
Charlies Lindberg’s America First Committee Speech, Des Moines, 1941
It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present
moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict. That effort has been
carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that,
today, our country stands on the verge of war.
At this time, as the war is about to enter its third winter, it seems appropriate to review the circumstances that
have led us to our present position. Why are we on the verge of war? Was it necessary for us to become so deeply
involved? Who is responsible for changing our national policy from one of neutrality and independence to one of
entanglement in European affairs?
Personally, I believe there is no better argument against our intervention than a study of the causes and
developments of the present war. I have often said that if the true facts and issues were placed before the
American people, there would be no danger of our involvement.
Here, I would like to point out to you a fundamental difference between the groups who advocate foreign war, and
those who believe in an independent destiny for America.
If you will look back over the record, you will find that those of us who oppose intervention have constantly tried
to clarify facts and issues; while the interventionists have tried to hide facts and confuse issues.
We ask you to read what we said last month, last year, and even before the war began. Our record is open and
clear, and we are proud of it. We have not led you on by subterfuge and propaganda. We have not resorted to
steps short of anything, in order to take the American people where they did not want to go. What we said before
the elections, we say [illegible] and again, and again today. And we will not tell you tomorrow that it was just
campaign oratory. Have you ever heard an interventionist, or a British agent, or a member of the administration in
Washington ask you to go back and study a record of what they have said since the war started? Are their selfstyled defenders of democracy willing to put the issue of war to a vote of our people? Do you find these crusaders
for foreign freedom of speech, or the removal of censorship here in our own country?
The subterfuge and propaganda that exists in our country is obvious on every side. Tonight, I shall try to pierce
through a portion of it, to the naked facts which lie beneath. When this war started in Europe, it was clear that the
American people were solidly opposed to entering it. Why shouldn't we be? We had the best defensive position in
the world; we had a tradition of independence from Europe; and the one time we did take part in a European war
left European problems unsolved, and debts to America unpaid. National polls showed that when England and
France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for
America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the
involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their
methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their
efforts, we must know exactly who they are.
The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and
the Roosevelt administration. Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists,
Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British
empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I
believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.
I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by
misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators.As I have said, these war
agitators comprise only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the
determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda,
their money, their patronage.
Let us consider these groups, one at a time.
First, the British: It is obvious and perfectly understandable that Great Britain wants the United States in the war
on her side. England is now in a desperate position. Her population is not large enough and her armies are not
strong enough to invade the continent of Europe and win the war she declared against Germany. Her geographical
position is such that she cannot win the war by the use of aviation alone, regardless of how many planes we send
her. Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm
the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our
shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost.
As you all know, we were left with the debts of the last European war; and unless we are more cautious in the
future than we have been in the past, we will be left with the debts of the present case. If it were not for her hope
that she can make us responsible for the war financially, as well as militarily, I believe England would have
negotiated a peace in Europe many months ago, and be better off for doing so.
England has devoted, and will continue to devote every effort to get us into the war. We know that she spent huge
sums of money in this country during the last war in order to involve us. Englishmen have written books about the
cleverness of its use. We know that England is spending great sums of money for propaganda in America during
the present war. If we were Englishmen, we would do the same. But our interest is first in America; and as
Americans, it is essential for us to realize the effort that British interests are making to draw us into their war.
The second major group I mentioned is the Jewish.
It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they
suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race. No person with a sense of the dignity
of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can
look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for
them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for
they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength.
History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand
opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large
ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.
I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of
both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are
inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them
for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot
allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.
The Roosevelt administration is the third powerful group which has been carrying this country toward war. Its
members have used the war emergency to obtain a third presidential term for the first time in American history.
They have used the war to add unlimited billions to a debt which was already the highest we have ever known.
And they have just used the war to justify the restriction of congressional power, and the assumption of dictatorial
procedures on the part of the president and his appointees. The power of the Roosevelt administration depends
upon the maintenance of a wartime emergency. The prestige of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the
success of Great Britain to whom the president attached his political future at a time when most people thought
that England and France would easily win the war. The danger of the Roosevelt administration lies in its
subterfuge. While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon
which they were elected.
In selecting these three groups as the major agitators for war, I have included only those whose support is
essential to the war party. If any one of these groups--the British, the Jewish, or the administration--stops agitating
for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement. I do not believe that any two of them are powerful
enough to carry this country to war without the support of the third. And to these three, as I have said, all other
war groups are of secondary importance.
When hostilities commenced in Europe, in 1939, it was realized by these groups that the American people had no
intention of entering the war. They knew it would be worse than useless to ask us for a declaration of war at that
time. But they believed that this country could be entered into the war in very much the same way we were
entered into the last one.
They planned: first, to prepare the United States for foreign war under the guise of American defense; second, to
involve us in the war, step by step, without our realization; third, to create a series of incidents which would force
us into the actual conflict. These plans were of course, to be covered and assisted by the full power of their
propaganda.Our theaters soon became filled with plays portraying the glory of war. Newsreels lost all semblance
of objectivity. Newspapers and magazines began to lose advertising if they carried anti-war articles. A smear
campaign was instituted against individuals who opposed intervention. The terms "fifth columnist," "traitor,"
"Nazi," "anti-Semitic" were thrown ceaselessly at any one who dared to suggest that it was not to the best
interests of the United States to enter the war. Men lost their jobs if they were frankly anti-war. Many others
dared no longer speak. Before long, lecture halls that were open to the advocates of war were closed to speakers
who opposed it. A fear campaign was inaugurated. We were told that aviation, which has held the British fleet off
the continent of Europe, made America more vulnerable than ever before to invasion. Propaganda was in full
swing. There was no difficulty in obtaining billions of dollars for arms under the guise of defending America. Our
people stood united on a program of defense. Congress passed appropriation after appropriation for guns and
planes and battleships, with the approval of the overwhelming majority of our citizens. That a large portion of
these appropriations was to be used to build arms for Europe, we did not learn until later. That was another step.
To use a specific example; in 1939, we were told that we should increase our air corps to a total of 5,000 planes.
Congress passed the necessary legislation. A few months later, the administration told us that the United States
should have at least 50,000 planes for our national safety. But almost as fast as fighting planes were turned out
from our factories, they were sent abroad, although our own air corps was in the utmost need of new equipment;
so that today, two years after the start of war, the American army has a few hundred thoroughly modern bombers
and fighters--less in fact, than Germany is able to produce in a single month.
Ever since its inception, our arms program has been laid out for the purpose of carrying on the war in Europe, far
more than for the purpose of building an adequate defense for America. Now at the same time we were being
prepared for a foreign war, it was necessary, as I have said, to involve us in the war. This was accomplished under
that now famous phrase "steps short of war." England and France would win if the United States would only repeal
its arms embargo and sell munitions for cash, we were told. And then [illegible] began, a refrain that marked every
step we took toward war for many months--"the best way to defend America and keep out of war." we were told,
was "by aiding the Allies." First, we agreed to sell arms to Europe; next, we agreed to loan arms to Europe; then we
agreed to patrol the ocean for Europe; then we occupied a European island in the war zone. Now, we have
reached the verge of war.
The war groups have succeeded in the first two of their three major steps into war. The greatest armament
program in our history is under way. We have become involved in the war from practically every standpoint except
actual shooting. Only the creation of sufficient "incidents" yet remains; and you see the first of these already taking
place, according to plan [ill.]-- a plan that was never laid before the American people for their approval.
We are on the verge of a war for which we are still unprepared, and for which no one has offered a feasible plan
for victory--a war which cannot be won without sending our soldiers across the ocean to force a landing on a
hostile coast against armies stronger than our own. We are on the verge of war, but it is not yet too late to stay
out. It is not too late to show that no amount of money, or propaganda, or patronage can force a free and
independent people into war against its will. It is not yet too late to retrieve and to maintain the independent
American destiny that our forefathers established in this new world. The entire future rests upon our shoulders. It
depends upon our action, our courage, and our intelligence. If you oppose our intervention in the war, now is the
time to make your voice heard. There, we can still make our will known. And if we, the American people, do that,
independence and freedom will continue to live among us, and there will be no foreign war.
Statement by William Allen White which lead to the formation of the Committee to Defend America by
Aiding the Allies
INTRODUCTION
As one democracy after another crumbles under the mechanized columns of the dictators, it becomes evident that
the future of western civilization is being decided upon the battlefields of Europe. Here is a life and death struggle
for every principle we cherish in America, for freedom of speech, of religion, of the ballot and of every freedom that
upholds the dignity of the human spirit. Here all the rights that the common man has fought for during a thousand
years are menaced. Terrible as it may seem, the people of our country could not avoid the consequence of a possible
victory of Hitler and of those who are or may be allied with him. A totalitarian victory would wipe out hope for a
just and lasting peace.
The time has come when the United States should throw its economic and moral weight on the side of the nations of
western Europe, great and small, that are struggling in battle for a civilized way of life. They constitute our first line
of defense. I~ would be folly to hold this nation chained to a neutrality policy determined in the light of last year's
facts. The new situation requires a new attitude.
From this day on, America must spend every ounce of energy to keep the war away from the Western Hemisphere
by preparing to defend herself and by aiding with our supplies and wealth the nations now fighting to stem the tide
of aggression. This is no time for leaders to consider party or factional advantage. All men and all creeds and clans
may well call upon our President to confer with leaders of all parties looking to a foreign policy providing for an
increase in armaments to defend ourselves and for every economic effort to help the Allies. In foreign affairs we
must present an unbroken, non-partisan front to the world. It is for us to show the people of England, of France, of
Holland, of Belgium and of Scandinavia that the richest country on earth is not too blind or too timid to help those
who are fighting tyranny abroad. If they fail, we shall not have time to prepare to face their conquerors alone.
ACTION NOW!
How can we be sure that the United States can stay out of this war and not be involved in another in the near future?
On only one condition: that Britain and France win. How can we have assurance that we can have time to prepare
ourselves adequately against the possibility of any future war? In only one way, by the Allies holding on long
enough to give us time to get ready.
These two assertions seem to me to be incontrovertible. Every other argument is conjectural. Therefore, one
conclusion appears inevitable. It is in our national interest for us immediately to give all the help we possibly can
short of war to the nations combined to check the aggressive policies of the Third Reich.
I use the word "give" advisedly. This is no time to haggle, to drive bargains or to count dollars. Every dollar we save
now will be collected from us in lives later on. The Allies in this present emergency stand between us and the threat
of Nazi world dominance. The issue is a matter of months and maybe of weeks. The time for action is now.
We must move at once to send airplanes, supplies and food to Europe, and a stream of such provisions should be on
its way before the end of June. Only by such a program can we safeguard ourselves against needless sacrifice of our
sons in a day more tragic for us.
Great Britain is facing its present bitter crisis for one single reason. It woke up too late. It has missed every bus up to
date. We are not advising our country to come to the aid of Britain. We are proposing that we learn from the follies
of others how to chart a true defence for ourselves. We can still wake up in time and take advantage of our fortunate
position in the world to keep ourselves safe from the enemies of our way of life both outside our borders and within
them.
We face tragic failure in this hour of emergency if we lull ourselves into inaction with easy theories of our own
safety, with facile arguments of isolation, and with amateur opinions about what Herr Hitler can and cannot do to us.
It is more than a man that is confronting us. It is a world revolution. And already it has shown its extraordinary
dynamic power. It is a revolution of nihilism founded on the great denials - denial of human dignity, of human
brotherhood, and of the sacredness of life itself. Its passion is for power. Its weapons are falsehood and treachery. Its
method is the ruthless spilling of human blood. Its end is tyranny.
We have one task: to see that it does not invade our life. Military invasion is not the first threat. Once the Nazis have
mastered Europe and have taken the French, Dutch, Danish, Belgian and British Empires into their keeping they will
control sources of raw materials we need, and so will be in a position to harass us economically. Either we shall do
business on their terms or they will deny us supplies vital to our industries. Any one who thinks that they will not
take full advantage of their position is either blind or incompetent.
No camouflage of propaganda can obscure for us the calamity of human suffering that their ruthlessness has already
created. Exiled men, women and children, driven from their homes without warning or excuse, herded along roads
having no destination, without shelter and without hope, tell by their pitiful procession the full story of heartless
aggression. Only the swift movement of this cruelty, gorging itself on one country after another, h~s made it
possible for the full measure of its agony to register in our hearts. Here is something more than nation at war with
nation or imperialism competing with imperialism. It is humanity ravaged - men and women and children cut off
from all ,. security, handled like animals whose only crime is that they are not valuable enough to kill, frightened
and despairing, dumbly seeking a place where others have not forgotten how to be kind. If, in some clear moment,
we should actually see these hundreds of our fellow human beings as they really are, we should not rest nor hold our
hands until every one of them should have a home and all the lips of the little ones learn again to smile.
We have not yet seen them with this clarity, but we must. They make plainer than any words can the violent contrast
to our way of life that this revolution of nihilism presents. We Americans do not treat people in this way. We have
made up our minds that the days for such mass savagery have gone forever. Certainly we have set our wills to the
end that this sort of inhumanity shall have no place upon our soil. We are plain people, with no aristocracy and no
patience with rulers inflated by illusions of grandeur. We have declared our independence of all tyrants. We make
no demand upon the rest of the world except to be allowed to enjoy our liberty in peace. But if any man threatens to
take this from us, in the names of our fathers and of our children we shall defend it with every resource that we have.
As free men, identifying ourselves with no other country but only holding to the safeguarding of our own liberties,
we see that an evil spirit is threatening all the foundations of thought and practice upon which our way of life is
built. Not we, but the tyrant, decided that the world should not continue half-free and half-totalitarian. By his own
act he has roused us out of apathy. His trumpet has sounded. There is no course left for us except to defend
ourselves by giving needed aid to those who check his rash fierce blaze of riot.
IF HITLER WINS
"If Hitler wins" - that is the phrase which now trembles upon the lips of vast numbers of frightened Americans, and
the phrase is followed by all sorts of speculations, some of them fantastic, though not much more fantastic than the
events of this shattering Spring of 1940. "If Hitler wins" - there is one result of that calamity of which we can be
certain: the otherwise discredited isolationists will have been granted their dearest wish. The United States will be
friendless and alone in the world.
"Keep us out of war" - the isolationists have cried, fomenting a kind of peace hysteria. They believed that this
hollow slogan was all the protection we needed against the swelling forces of evil. Now we confront, and face to
face, the terrible, immediate problem of how to keep the war out of us.
If Hitler wins our country will be, in the true words of Lewis Douglas, "an isolated island of freedom in a great sea
of violence." For how long can we remain free? Our island is protected at one point by those "three thousand miles
of good green water" which have formed the fragile walls of our Fool's Paradise. At other points, the measurement
shrinks. For instance - to the south - we are protected by only the few feet of not so good green water that is the Rio
Grande River. It is now pretty well agreed by all that, to be perfectly secure, we must defend the entire Western
Hemisphere, from without and from within. But how many of us know what such a gigantic task will involve,
entirely aside from the appropriation of money? How many realize that to perform such a task, we must ourselves
become a totalitarian power, as ruthless, as regardless of the rights of our weaker neighbors, as the Nazis will be in
Europe - if Hitler wins?
Col. Lindbergh has spoken vigorously on this subject. "This hemisphere is our domain," he has said. "From Alaska
to Labrador, from the Hawaiian Islands to Bermuda, from Canada to South America, we must allow no invading
army to set foot." And when the Colonel uses the word "domain," that is just what he means. All the other nations of
the hemisphere must take dictation from us in the conduct of their foreign policy - they must "cooperate", in the
same way that the Scandinavian and the Low Countries were instructed to "cooperate" with the Nazis or suffer the
consequences. Canada, specifically, has been told by Col. Lindbergh to renounce its preference for "the crown of
England to American independence", implying that since Canadians dwell within our "domain", they are not entitled
to exercise their own independent choice.
I make these quotations from Col. Lindbergh in no attempt to belittle their importance as sign-posts to the future. On
the contrary, I am uncomfortably aware that, because of his extensive study of Nazi methods, the Colonel is amply
qualified to advise us as to just how we should meet them. Their air force has been triumphant, and so has their
ideology. Nothing succeeds like success. It is all too true that we can't really be safe unless this hemisphere is our
domain - and we can make it our domain only if we imitate Hitler's proven methods - if we become, in fact, the
Nazis of the Western World.
If it is proposed to move the seat of the British Government (the Crown with it) from London to Ottawa, we must
forbid such a move. If the Canadians refuse to heed our commands, we must march in and conquer them and take
them over. We must accord similar treatment to Mexico or any other Latin American country if, by vote or by
revolution of its citizens, it establishes a government which we consider hostile to our dominant interests.
With the British Empire crushed, perhaps Canada will submit meekly to our dominion (though I, for one, doubt it.)
But any- one who has visited Latin America, or studied its complex problems and incalculable potentialities, will
know that in this area we shall have a job of appalling proportions. Not only will the defense of these coast-lines, as
well as our own, require a vast naval and military establishment, but we shall require a Gestapo to watch all the
interiors for the Fifth Columns which are already there. The Nazi, Fascist, Japanese and Soviet invasions of Latin
America started years ago and have achieved tremendous force. Their propaganda, their trade schemes, their bribery,
persuasion and intimidation have been violently effective. They have successfully fostered hatred and fear of
"Yanqui Imperialism". The most civilized and influential people of South America are far closer to Europe
spiritually and emotionally - as, indeed, many of them are geographically - than to us. With our present system of
government discredited in the world of Nazi-Fascist victory, we shall no longer be able to influence them with our
"Good Neighbor" policy. We shall have to dominate them, personally, and at the point of a gun. We shall have to
concede that we are in a permanent state of warfare and organize ourselves totally on that basis.
And what of the effect of this permanent state on our own people? We Americans are addicted to a "live and let live"
attitude. Will we take easily to the regimentation which will be necessary if we are to hold our own as a dynamic
race? Will we J adapt ourselves readily to this new order, this new star-spangled imperialism, to enforce which
many of us will have to fight and ii, die in the jungles of Brazil or the mountains of Chile?
Perhaps we shall. Perhaps, when the last spark of the free spirit has been extinguished in the rest of the world, it will
flicker and die here too. There are plenty of signs that this is already happening here, as witness Senator Reynolds'
successful amendments to Senator La Folette' s "Civil Liberties Bill" (a name which is now gruesomely
inappropriate.) Perhaps we shall decide to destroy the Bill of Rights and the Gettysburg address along with Magna
Charta, agreeing in our hearts that nothing does succeed like success.
The time to defend ourselves against such dreadful consequences is now. And the way to defend ourselves is to go
to the aid of the democratic Allies, while there is yet time, with all the force, moral and material, that we can
speedily command; to take all possible insurance against a Hitler victory. I seriously and sincerely believe it is the
only hope we have of saving our own heritage.