"Spirit of America"

For the first time since Pearl Harbor, Herbert Hoover stood up to tell the nation where he stands. Long in favor of aid-to-Britain but strongly against convoys and against getting into the war, he now wants victory first:

"To win total war President Roosevelt must have dictatorial economic powers. There must be no hesitancy in giving them to him. . . ."

Said Herbert Hoover: "We must start our thinking with a disagreeable, cold, hard fact. That is, the economic measures necessary to win total war are just plain Fascist economics. . . . We want to so design our actions that these Fascist economic measures are not frozen into American life.

"Criticism of the conduct of the war is necessary if we are to win the war. . . .

"The American people have always been a debating society. . . . They always have views. They always speculate about events. . . . It comes from concern to win the war and they ought to be allowed to grouse and gossip a little without being Sixth Columnists. . . .

"When uniformity comes we will have ceased to be free men. Those who would reduce us to a collection of parrots do not know the meaning of America. It is from our diversity that we sharpen our wits, gain in initiative and strength over regimented peoples. That is the whole distance between the spirit of America and the spirit of totalitarianism. . . ."

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