Aggressively Neutral
Uploaded by lmmu on May 25, 2007
While the war in Europe and the Japanese battle raged on, the United States faced a difficult decision. Should they engage in war or maintain their level of neutrality? Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew that America’s involvement in the war stood as an inevitability, however; despite the president’s mentality, most Americans felt neutrality stood as the only way to handle the growing conflict afar.
On October 5, 1937, President Roosevelt delivered his Quarantine the Aggressors Speech in which he described the military provokers as the “reign of terror” promoting “international lawlessness.” He outed their unjust habits of breaking treaties by invading territories, and noted that these countries executed this with no formal declarations of war. They fought like bullies on the proverbial playground. Also, these nations used their force and dominating willpower to mindlessly slaughter millions of civilians—all to increase their power and strength. They attacked every foreign ship they encountered whether provoked or not, and worst of all, denied the very thing they claimed to fight for. Many nations claimed to combat for freedom—to better their land—but, while they themselves achieved this (if one calls a military state better) they denied these simple liberties to the people they oppressed. Roosevelt neglected to list the aggressive nation’s names because of this. He delivered his speech years before war officially broke out in Europe—let alone the U.S.—and did not desire a larger conflict yet. He did not want, at that point, to get involved, and naming names while laying blame would have engaged the U.S. America lacked the proper readiness for war.
Roosevelt worked to prepare America though. By stating that 90% of the world desired and strived for peace, he appealed to man’s sense of ethics and morality. He explained that the 90% of peace-loving people could not allow the 10% of anarchists to win, and, thus offered the path to peace. Roosevelt’s solution entailed taking a stand against international instability. A plan of neutrality could not suffice. America would work together for a triumph of morals and international peace. A reestablishment of the sanctity of treaties and national morality needed to occur. Also, to defeat the international anarchy, laws, that all obeyed, needed establishment in order to maintain stability and peace. This would aid in ending aggression and respecting other’s rights (like nations...