Greetings to armed forces…
Roosevelt sees triumph over ‘the forces of evil’
WASHINGTON (UP) – President Roosevelt sent Christmas greetings today to members of the United States armed forces and told them that “you are setting an inspiring example for all the people, as you have done so often in the past.”
The president, signing the message as Franklin D. Roosevelt, commander-in-chief, said he was confident that “during the year which lies before us, you will triumph on all fronts against the forces of evil which are arrayed against us.”
“In the crisis which confronts the nation, our people have full faith in the steadfastness and the high devotion to duty demonstrated by the men in all ranks of our Army and Navy,” the message said.
“In sending my personal Christmas greeting to you, I feel that I should add a special measure of gratitude to the admiration and affection which I have always felt, and have expressed in other years.”
Editorial: The blessing of unity
We can be of good cheer about the way the war is going. Not happy, certainly, in the midst of suffering; but we can be deeply thankful that all the sacrifice, so far as we can see, leads to ultimate victory. It is not so hard to struggle through the long darkness when we are sustained by faith in the outcome.
This faith in the right and might of our cause, which inspires Americans at this Christmas season, is not wishful thinking. The record is clear that we and our Allies are defending ourselves and others against aggressors. Equally clear is the fact that the Allied potential strength far exceeds that of the Axis – in men, in materials, in machines.
The problem is to make that potential superiority effective in production and in battle, quickly. Once we can overcome the enemy’s initial advantage of advance preparedness and surprise attack, it will be a war of attrition in which all the odds favor us. From that time on, the collapse of the enemy from without and within may be even more rapid than we dare hope.
But until we have converted our vast potential strength into a fighting reality, it would be madness to allow our faith in eventual victory to blind us to the almost superhuman effort required now and to the almost inevitable defeats along the way.
In the far Pacific the situation probably will be worse before it is better. And another Hitler offensive against Britain somewhere, even more ferocious than his Russian attack, is to be taken for granted.
Fortunately, America has achieved the national unity essential to morale in adversity, and essential to the all-out victory effort on the home front and on the battle front. Hitler and Hirohito didn’t plan it that way, but their attacking fire fused our many factions, parties, and classes into one America. That is our national blessing this Christmas.
And tomorrow, while we are enjoying the blessings of this national unity, our President and the head of the great British Commonwealth of Nations will be working at the White House to perfect a larger unity among those who fight with us for a fairer and peaceful world for all men.
Editorial: Christmas, 1941
It is no easy matter on Christmas Day in this Year of Our Lord 1941 to put aside, even for a little while, the sentiments of anger and vengeance that have with good reason inspired Americans since the Battle of Pearl Harbor.
But it will be a good thing if we who can and will pause for this one day, and recapture fleetingly the warmth and friendliness and affection, the peace and goodwill, that this holy day has always represented. There is hard work ahead. There is bad news ahead, inevitably, before the good can come. Many a door now wreathed for Christmas may be draped, before the new year is out, for an American killed in action.
But this one day, at least, those of us who are not on the firing fronts can grasp this opportunity to enjoy, and to reflect on, the solid things that our troops and fleets and air squadrons are now risking life to defend – the homes and churches, the traditions, above all the decency, that foredoomed fanatics beyond the seas have in their recklessness seen fit to challenge.
Editorial: Pershing asks it
Many now retired Army officers who served with special distinction in the First World War were recommended for promotions which they did not receive before the war ended. A 1940 law gave most of them the honor of being advanced one grade on the retired list, without increase in pay or allowances.
That law, however, applies only to officers below the rank of brigadier general. The recognition it extends to others is thus denied to six brigadiers and one major general, all decorated for exceptionally meritorious service or gallantry in action. At the request of the American Legion, Rep. Canfield of New Jersey has introduced a bill to give these seven generals the same honor and the measure is before the House Committee on Military Affairs.
Gen. Pershing, in a letter to Mr. Canfield, has urged its passage. He feels that the unjustified discrimination against a handful of the officers who served under him should be corrected. We hope Congress will response with prompt action.
Ferguson: The trees
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Children, Santa Claus and trees. Add them up and the answer is Christmas. This week, millions of women will trim little evergreens and put them into windows where lighted candles will make a gleaming over the land. It is our poor, fumbling, human way of reasserting our belief in the Star of Bethlehem.
In the beginning people felt very close to the trees. Maybe that is the reason for the present Yuletide anachronism, when forests are uprooted and transplanted in cities where many little boys and girls have never known what it means to live among trees.
I can never cease feeling sorry for those children. Since the sweetest memories of my own infancy hold a remembrance of the arch of sheltering boughs, and my favorite playhouses were built among the gnarled roots of giant oaks, the thought of toddlers without these delights saddens my heart.
I’ve often looked with a shudder at city school grounds – bare cement courts, hard brick walls, cold corridors. Happily, some of the youngsters can go home to trees, but many others can’t. Of that companionship they are wholly bereft.
When I was a little girl our parents kept up a beautiful old custom. Each time a baby was born, a tree was planted to celebrate the event. And so all the village children had green mansions of their own. The trees sheltered us in play; they soothed our tiredness with leafy lullabys; they curtained our windows for the night’s rest.
And when one among us died we let him sleep where the trees grew thickest, so he would not be lonesome. We felt then, though we could not prove it with words, that a man is never lonely if he has a tree for a companion and friend.
Background of news –
Wartime Christmas, 1917 and 1941
By Editorial Research Reports
The situation at Christmas, 1941, of the United States at war, is different in almost every respect from the situation at Christmas, 1917. Now the nation is distinctly on the defensive, with a severe naval loss not many days before, with its territory in the Pacific invaded, and with its mainland preparing for attack from the air. In 1917, no soil under the United States flag was under attack or even in danger of attack. With the war only 18 days old at Christmas, 1941, there have been several thousand deaths and casualties in action; with the war 8½ months old at Christmas, 1917, U.S. forces had suffered only a few casualties, all at sea.
In 1917, the United States had entered war with only lackadaisical preparation. The Army and Navy had possessed exactly 55 airplanes, 51 of which the Advisory Committee on Aeronautics pronounced obsolete. By Christmas, 1917, not a single U.S.-produced combat plane had been completed. But conscription (21-31) had been in effect for 7½ months, and 1,100,000 men were in the Army. By Christmas, 1941, with conscription (21-36) in effect for 1⅓ years, the Army has a strength of perhaps 1,750,000 (announced as 1,589,000 on October 9, 1941).
Christmas in 1941 sees no immediate prospect of an American Expeditionary Force being sent to foreign lands outside the Western Hemisphere. At Christmas, 1917, 165,000 men were already in Europe, although no American units were yet in the active battle line. The millionth soldier to be sent abroad had just been inducted into service. (The average American soldier who saw actual fighting in France had had nine months’ training – six months in the United States, two abroad, one in an inactive section of the front.) Some of the Christmas boxes sent to American soldiers in France were not delivered until the following spring.
By Christmas, 1917, the number of flying officers in the Army and Navy had grown to 1,100, from 75 at the outbreak of the war. But no U.S.-produced new machine guns or field guns had yet been completed. The federal debt was around seven billion dollars; at Christmas, 1941, it was $57 billion.
At Christmas, 1917, the new Communist government of Russia was conducting peace negotiations with Germany, and War Commissar Leon Trotsky was complaining that Germany had violated the armistice terms by shifting large numbers of troops from the Russian to the French front. At Christmas, 1941, Germany is again withdrawing troops from the Russian front, but this time involuntarily.
At Christmas, 1917, President Wilson was preparing to have the government take over the railroads, unable without such imposed unification to handle the war transportation problem satisfactorily. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker warned that Germany was about to launch another drive for peace. Food Administrator Herbert C. Hoover was protesting at the methods used by a Senate committee investigating the shortage of sugar.