December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World by Craig Shirley

Author:Craig Shirley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: History, ebook, World War II, 1939-1945 - Causes, 20th Century, 1941, 1939-1945, General, United States, book, Attack On, Military, World War, Pearl Harbor (Hawaii)
ISBN: 9781595554574
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

With FDR’s new authority under the War Powers Act granted him by Congress, some Americans may not have agreed altogether with the new policies, but they understood the sentiment of their Allies down under. The headline in the Christian Science Monitor said it all: “Australians Give up Liberty to Assure Defense of Liberty.” The story detailed how Aussie citizens were giving up all their basic rights for the war and doing so happily. “Australians have now been asked by their Government to throw their own freedom to the winds until victory has been won.”62

The New York Times said Congress had conferred “on President Roosevelt almost unlimited powers to regulate the nation’s emergency effort at home.”63 President Roosevelt’s new agency for dealing with censorship said its mission was “partly mandatory, partly voluntary.”64 FDR announced the Censorship Bureau at a press conference, ironically, but he made no bones or apologies about the goals of the new agency. “It is necessary that prohibitions of some types of information contained in long existing statutes be rigidly enforced.” He also called on “a patriotic press and radio”; and the new head of the department, Byron Price, a former executive with the Associated Press, made clear his initial target was the U.S. Mail—specifically, letters written by private citizens going outside the country.65

FDR appeared well, dressed in a gray tweed suit and black tie, but the dark circles under his eyes were noticeable to reporters. There was some light banter with a radio reporter over the rumor that Roosevelt had called the Japanese “dirty yellow bastards.” Roosevelt cautioned the reporter to be careful with his consonants, and everybody laughed. When asked, he said he felt “fit as a fiddle.”66 Only the president’s doctor knew that FDR was a very sick man. A longtime sufferer of polio, he was plagued with dangerously high blood pressure that went largely unaddressed. The toll of stress and illness were starting to show in his gray pallor and bouts of fatigue. To the rest of the world, though, he seemed as cheerful and vigorous as ever with his trademark cigarette holder stuck in his mouth at the usual jaunty angle. It was one of the greatest deceptions, in a war full of them.

“When he traveled by car, he was lifted in and out of the back seat away from public view. News photographers understood that they were not to photograph the president sitting in his wheelchair or being carried, and when anyone violated that rule the Secret Service confiscated the film,” said David Brinkley.67 In the face of the new government crackdown on communications, the Justice Department announced that local officials had been going too far in arresting people under the Sedition Act and warned that in the future they must consult with Washington before moving ahead with any apprehensions.68

At the same time, the final Selective Service Bill was passed by Congress. While all men ages eighteen to sixty-four would be registered, only men ages twenty-one to forty-five would be drafted. But eighteen-year-olds could enlist with their parents’ permission.

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