Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

Talk of Ultimatums and Deadlines 113
Th eodore Roosevelt; World War I aviator Edward Rickenbacker;
Lillian Gish, star of the early fi lms; Socialist Norman Th omas;
and aviator Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh. 3 Lindbergh, a national
hero ever since his dramatic solo fl ight across the Atlantic in
1927, became America First’s most popular spokesman. When
he spoke at New York’s Manhattan Center on April 23, 1941, the
hall was jammed with 5,500 people. In subsequent appearances—
New York, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Hollywood,
Cleveland, Des Moines, Fort Wayne—he attracted even larger
enthusiastic crowds, up to 22,000. 4
Others were also working to maintain peace with Japan.
Among them were religious groups, the Friends, or Quakers, and
the followers of the Reverend E. Stanley Jones, a well-known
Methodist missionary. Reverend Jones believed the Japanese
were tired of fi ghting in China and were ready to make peace. He
hoped to act as a “catalyst,” to help the various parties reconcile
their diff erences, and had approached high Japanese and Chinese
offi cials informally to learn their reaction to his suggestions. He
had talked with offi cials in the U.S. State Department, and his
suggestions had been transmitted by memoranda to the president.
He wanted FDR to send a personal cable to the Emperor.
Jones had also spoken to groups of ministers, usually fi nding
them receptive to his ideas. By November 1941, Jones seemed to
be making some progress with his suggestions.
Th e pro-peace noninterventionists, however, were gradually
being overwhelmed by the pro-British propaganda emanating
from the administration and the mass communications media—
radio, movies, newsreels, and major newspapers and magazines.
Although the majority of the people in the United States still did
3For an account of the America First Committee, see Wayne S. Cole, America
First: Th e Battle Against Intervention, 1940–1941 (New York: Octagon Books,
1971).
4E. Eastman Irving, ed., Th e World Almanac (New York: New York World-
Telegram, 1942), pp. 62, 75, 78.