The Pittsburgh Press (August 25, 1943)
‘Surrender now would pay,’ Hitler warned by Roosevelt
Allies to wipe out world outlaws in this war, President says
By Merriman Smith, United Press staff writer
Ottawa, Canada –
President Roosevelt, promising that the United Nations will rid the world once and for all of international “gangsterism,” said today that if the Axis generals knew what had been planned at Québec, they would realize that “surrender would pay them better now than later.”
Mr. Roosevelt said:
Sometimes I wish that that great master of intuition, the Nazi leader, could have been present in spirit at the Québec Conference. If he [Hitler] and his generals had known our plans they would have realized that discretion is still the better part of valor and that surrender would pay them better now than later.
President Roosevelt also promised “absolute victory” by the Allies, which, he said, would bring the world well along the road of “freedom from want.”
Outlaws to be eliminated
On the plaza before the entrance of the Parliament building, the President, flanked by Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King and the Earl of Athlone, Governor General of Canada, promised the elimination of “outlaws” from the community of nations.
Mr. Roosevelt, making the first visit of an American President to the Canadian capital, said that the Québec Conference, in addition to plotting new methods of military destruction of the Axis, also went into post-war problems on a worldwide basis.
This was the major theme of his speech, aside from lavish praise for Canada and its part in the war effort.
Cites brutality of foes
Condemning the Nazis for their “evil inability” to understand the rights of their fellowmen and the “fanatical militarists of Japan” for similar brutal qualities, Mr. Roosevelt told an audience which included 200 members of the Canadian Parliament and some 25,000 citizens of Ottawa that:
We have been forced to call out what we in the United States would call the sheriff’s posse to break up the gang in order that gangsterism may be eliminated in the community of nations.
We are making sure – absolutely, irrevocably sure – that this time the lesson is driven home to them once and for all. Yes, we are going to be rid of outlaws this time.
Citing unanimous belief among the United Nations that only “a real and lasting peace” could justify the sacrifices of the present war, the President said that the post-war world was discussed in Québec, but he offered no details of the discussions except to say they were probably duplicated in dozens of nations and hundreds of cities all over the world.
Mr. Roosevelt was optimistic about the movement of the war in the Pacific, turning his scorn on those Americans and Canadians who wanted to withdraw our forces from the Atlantic to Mediterranean when the Japanese first invaded “a few rocky specks in the Aleutians.”
He supported his scorn by recalling the recent elimination of Japanese forces from Kiska to Attu.
He added:
We have been told that Japs never surrender; their headlong retreat satisfies us just as well.
Mr. Roosevelt devoted much of his address of about 15 minutes to Canada and her participation in the war, praising the manner in which Canadians and Americans have fought “shoulder to shoulder” as they worked and played together in peace.
Called undaunted champion
Mr. Mackenzie King, in introducing the President, hailed him as:
…an undaunted champion of the rights of free men and a mighty leader of the forces of freedom in a world at war.
Mr. Mackenzie King forecast a substantial advance toward complete victory as a result of the Québec Conference where he was host.
Avoiding any detailed description of advance plans for the war, the President devoted himself largely to the broad moral principles of the four freedoms and the Atlantic Charter.
He said that unanimous action in clearing the world of savage outlaws and keeping them “under heel forever” would achieve “freedom from fear of violence.”
Cites everlasting anger
Professing “everlasting” anger at those who attack the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms, Mr. Roosevelt said that these same critics – if they had lived a century and a half ago – would have attacked the Declaration of Independence, and before that, the Magna Charta.
And if they had lived several thousand years ago, they would have derided Moses when he came from the mountain with the Ten Commandments.
Mr. Roosevelt concluded his speech with a few words in French directed at Canada’s large French-Canadian population. Calling Canada “a nation founded on a union of two great races,” Mr. Roosevelt said:
The harmony of their equal partnership is an example to all mankind – an example everywhere in the world.
The President was accomplished on his trip to the Canadian capital by Harry L. Hopkins, his principal advisor, RAdm. Wilson Brown, naval aide, RAdm. Ross T. McIntire, Surgeon General of the Navy and his personal physician, and Adm. William D. Leahy, his chief of staff.
Prime Minister Churchill and the President said goodbye last night for the present – they plan new conferences in the not-too-distant future – at the Citadel where they worked together for eight days. Mr. Churchill will fish until Saturday when he will make a radio speech also to elaborate on the “Declaration of Québec.”
City deserted
Ottawa was turned out in carnival array. The city was a riot of American red, white and blue. Ancient statues had had their faces washed and large pictures of Mr. Roosevelt adorned thousands of windows. A half-holiday had been proclaimed to permit working people to see the President. The show was the biggest public display in which Mr. Roosevelt has participated since the war began.
The scene was in direct contrast to the somber confines of the Citadel at Québec where Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill, in a press conference yesterday, said their decisions would not be disclosed in their true meaning until activated with ammunition. They offered this high-spot outline of their meeting:
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Plans for a speedup in the Pacific War and greater aid for China.
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New Allied blows against the Axis in general. They indicated these might come at any time.
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A tripartite meeting with Russia, possibly before the end of the year.
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Another Anglo-American conference before the end of the year and conferences at more frequent intervals than in the past.
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Approval of unanimous recommendations on sea, air and land operations on the part of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and their corps of between 300 and 400 expert aides. This was in addition to what Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill described as agreement on “the political issues underlying or arising out of the military operations.”
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Impending recognition of the French Committee of National Liberation.