Abstract
WITH remarkable propriety, the occasion for Mr. Roosevelt's first public address after the presidential election was Armistice Day, November 11, when he spoke at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Arlington Cemetery. Equally appropriate was his choice of a theme—a review of the progress of democracy since the Declaration of Independence, when, as he said, a New Order came into being. In showing how the gospel of democracy has been carried among peoples, great and small, by the Americas, “all of the Americas” and the British Isles with them, the President brought the War of 1914–18 into a truer perspective, not as a useless sacrifice, but as a phase in the resistance to the doctrine that might is right which then made a definite effort to destroy this New Order after its relatively short trial. The struggle of 1914–18, Mr. Roosevelt continued, preserved the New Order of the ages for at least a generation; and had the Axis of 1918 been successful over the associated nations, resistance on behalf of democracy in 1940 would have been impossible. At the same time, he recognized and impressed upon his hearers the need for great flexibility in the methods of democracy. Certain facts of 1940 did not exist in 1918. There is need for the elimination of aggressive armaments, the breaking down of barriers in a more closely knitted world and a need for restoring honour in the written and spoken word. To attain these purposes the processes of democracy must be much improved.
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Mr. Roosevelt and the “New Order”. Nature 146, 679–680 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/146679c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/146679c0