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

U.S. Ties to Britain Strengthened 57
[I]f my neighbor’s house catches fi re . . . and I am watering the
grass in my backyard, and I don’t pass my garden hose over
the fence to my neighbor, I am a fool. How do you think the
country and the Congress would react if I should put aid to the
British in the form of lending them my garden hose? 12
Th is new lend-lease program was intended to help Britain by
tapping the wealth of U.S. taxpayers.
A few days after FDR proposed his scheme, the German
government charged that U.S. aid to the United Kingdom was
“moral aggression.” 13
During his December 29 “fi reside chat” on the radio, Roosevelt
answered Hitler’s charge:
Th e Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they
intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own
country but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to
use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world.
Th e intentions of the United States were completely honorable
and peaceful, he said:
Th ere is no demand for sending an American Expeditionary
Force outside our own borders. Th ere is no intention by any
member of your Government to send such a force. You can,
therefore, nail any talk about sending armies to Europe as
deliberate untruth. Our national policy is not directed toward
war. Its sole purpose is to keep war away from our country and
our people. . . . We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For
12 William C. Bullitt, “How We Won the War and Lost the Peace.” 2 parts.
Life (August 30, 1948), pp. 83–97; (September 6, 1948), pp. 86–103. See also
Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939–1941, p. 263.
13 U.S. House Committee on Foreign Aff airs. Events Leading up to World War
II: Chronological History of Certain Major International Events Leading up to
and During World War II with the Ostensible Reasons Advanced for their Occurrence,
1931–1944, 78th Cong., 2nd sess., 1944, pp. 1, 5.