Roosevelt administration

In one line: From 4 March 1933 to 12 April 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States, elected four times in a constitutional democracy; his administration ran the New Deal and the war effort, built wartime censorship and information offices, and ordered the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, after which about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, roughly two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were held in camps.

The leader and the people under the leader

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  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  President of the United States · 1933 to 1945

  Franklin D. Roosevelt: Read more

  Head of state, head of government and Commander in Chief, who won the presidency in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944 and died in office on 12 April 1945.

  In their words

  “All Americans abhor censorship, just as they abhor war. But the experience of this and of all other Nations has demonstrated that some degree of censorship is essential in wartime, and we are at war.”

  “I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such actions necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commanders may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with such respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”

  “If you feel that your Government is not disclosing enough of the truth, you have every right to say so. But—in the absence of all the facts, as revealed by official sources—you have no right in the ethics of patriotism to deal out unconfirmed reports in such a way as to make people believe that they are gospel truth.”

  “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

  “Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.”

  “This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.”

  All 28 quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt, and 2 often attributed but not verified

  In the archive: The Office of War Information's Domestic Branch, 1942-43

White House

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  John Nance Garner

  Vice President of the United States · 1933 to 1941

  John Nance Garner: Read more

  Presided over the Senate from 4 March 1933 to 20 January 1941; a former Speaker of the House, he sought the 1940 Democratic presidential nomination and was not renominated as vice president.

  In their words

  “I don’t intend to spend the next four years counting the buttons on another man’s coat tails.”

  “a no man's land somewhere between the legislative and executive branch”

  “wasn't worth a pitcher of warm spit.”

  All 3 quotes from John Nance Garner, and 1 often attributed but not verified

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  Henry A. Wallace

  Vice President of the United States · 1941 to 1945

  Henry A. Wallace: Read more

  Presided over the Senate from 20 January 1941 and chaired the Board of Economic Warfare until July 1943; earlier Secretary of Agriculture (1933 to 1940), he was not renominated in 1944.

  In their words

  “Some have spoken of the "American Century." I say that the century on which we are entering—the century which will come out of this war—can be and must be the century of the common man.”

  “A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.”

  “The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

  All 4 quotes from Henry A. Wallace

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  Harry S. Truman

  Vice President of the United States · 1945

  Harry S. Truman: Read more

  Sworn in as vice president on 20 January 1945 and succeeded to the presidency on Roosevelt's death 82 days later; earlier a Senator from Missouri who chaired the Senate committee investigating the national defense program.

  In their words

  “If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.”

  “Our demand has been, and it remains--Unconditional Surrender! We will not traffic with the breakers of the peace on the terms of the peace. The responsibility for making of the peace--and it is a very grave responsibility--must rest with the defenders of the peace. We are not unconscious of the dictates of humanity. We do not wish to see unnecessary or unjustified suffering. But the laws of God and of man have been violated and the guilty must not go unpunished. Nothing shall shake our determination to punish the war criminals even though we must pursue them to the ends of the earth.”

  “If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

  All 12 quotes from Harry S. Truman, and 1 often attributed but not verified

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  Harry Hopkins

  Special Assistant to the President · 1940 to 1945

  Harry Hopkins: Read more

  Lived at the White House from May 1940 as Roosevelt's personal adviser and envoy to Churchill and Stalin; earlier ran the federal relief programmes (FERA, CWA, WPA) and served as Secretary of Commerce from 1938 to 1940.

  In their words

  “Behind that is a moral philosophy, if anyone is poor it's because something is wrong with them. Give them just as little relief as possible so you won't encourage them. They want these unemployed to walk up timidly and knock on the door, and why should they? They are American citizens like the rest of us. It is no fault of their own that they are out of work, and it is the business of society to take care of them. It shouldn't be done as an act of degradation. I made up my mind early in this game that relief was a matter of right and not a matter of charity.”

  “I am getting sick and tired of these people on the WPA and local relief rolls being called chiselers and cheats. It doesn't do any good to call these people names, because they are just like the rest of us.”

  “I suppose you wish to know what I am going to say to President Roosevelt on my return. Well, I'm going to quote you one verse from that Book of Books in the truth of which Mr. Johnston's mother and my own Scottish mother were brought up: 'Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'”

  All 4 quotes from Harry Hopkins, and 2 often attributed but not verified

Cabinet

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  Cordell Hull

  Secretary of State · 1933 to 1944

  Cordell Hull: Read more

  Headed the State Department from 4 March 1933 to 30 November 1944, negotiated reciprocal trade agreements, and delivered the U.S. note to Japan of 26 November 1941.

  In their words

  “I have washed my hands of it and it is now in the hands of you and Knox — the Army and the Navy.”

  “I must say that in all my conversations with you (the Japanese Ambassador) during the last nine months I have never uttered one word of untruth. This is borne out absolutely by the record. In all my fifty years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions—infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any Government on this planet was capable of uttering them.”

  “As the provisions of the four-nation declaration are carried into effect, there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or to promote their interests.”

  All 3 quotes from Cordell Hull

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  Henry Morgenthau Jr.

  Secretary of the Treasury · 1934 to 1945

  Henry Morgenthau Jr.: Read more

  Headed the Treasury from 1 January 1934 to 22 July 1945; the department ran the wartime war bond drives.

  In their words

  “One of the greatest crimes in history, the slaughter of the Jewish people in Europe, is continuing unabated. This Government has for a long time maintained that its policy is to work out programs to save those Jews and other persecuted minorities of Europe who could be saved. You are probably not as familiar as I with the utter failure of certain officials in our State Department, who are charged with actually carrying out this policy, to take any effective action to prevent the extermination of the Jews in German-controlled Europe.”

  “Whether one views this failure as being deliberate on the part of those officials handling the matter, or merely due to their incompetence, is not too important from my point of view. However, there is a growing number of responsible people and organizations today who have ceased to view our failure as the product of simple incompetence on the part of those officials in the State Department charged with handling this problem. They see plain Anti-Semitism motivating the actions of these State Department officials and, rightly or wrongly, it will require little more in the way of proof for this suspicion to explode into a nasty scandal.”

  “Here lies the heart of German industrial power, the caldron of wars. This area should not only be stripped of all presently existing industries but so weakened and controlled that it can not in the foreseeable future become an industrial area.”

  All 4 quotes from Henry Morgenthau Jr.

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  Henry L. Stimson

  Secretary of War · 1940 to 1945

  Henry L. Stimson: Read more

  Headed the War Department from 10 July 1940 to 21 September 1945; the department carried out the West Coast exclusion of Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066.

  In their words

  “There the President, instead of bringing up the Victory Parade, brought up entirely the relations with the Japanese. He brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked perhaps (as soon as) next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition.”

  “The view that second generation Japanese [Nisei] can only be evacuated either as part of a total evacuation, giving access to the areas only by permits, or by frankly trying to put them out on the ground that their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese. This latter is the fact but I am afraid it will make a tremendous hole in our constitutional system to apply it.”

  “Biddle, McCloy and Gullion had done a good piece of work in breaking down the issues between the Departments the night before, and a draft of a presidential executive order had been drawn by Biddle based upon that conference and the preceding conference I had had yesterday. We went over them. I made a few suggestions and then approved it. This marks a long step forward towards a solution of a very dangerous and vexing problem. But I have no illusions as to the magnitude of the task that lies before us and the wails which will go up in relation to some of the actions which will be taken under it.”

  All 4 quotes from Henry L. Stimson

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  Francis Biddle

  Attorney General · 1941 to 1945

  Francis Biddle: Read more

  Headed the Justice Department from 26 August 1941 to 26 June 1945, which administered the enemy-alien proclamations and the FBI; earlier Solicitor General, and afterwards a judge at the Nuremberg trial.

  In their words

  “It is extremely dangerous for the columnists, acting as "Armchair Strategists and Junior G-Men," to suggest that an attack on the West Coast and planned sabotage is imminent when the military authorities and the F.B.I. have indicated that this is not the fact. It comes close to shouting FIRE! in the theater; and if race riots occur, these writers will bear a heavy responsibility.”

  “Rowe and Ennis argued strongly against [the Executive Order]. But the decision had been made by the President. It was, he said, a matter of military judgment. I did not think I should oppose it any further. The Department of Justice, as I had made it clear to him from the beginning, was opposed to and would have nothing to do with the evacuation.”

  “The Constitution has not greatly bothered any wartime President.”

  All 4 quotes from Francis Biddle

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  Frances Perkins

  Secretary of Labor · 1933 to 1945

  Frances Perkins: Read more

  The first woman in a U.S. cabinet, she headed the Labor Department from 4 March 1933 to 30 June 1945 and chaired the Committee on Economic Security that drafted the Social Security Act.

  In their words

  “In broad terms, I proposed immediate federal aid to the states for direct unemployment relief, an extensive program of public works, a study and an approach to the establishment by federal law of minimum wages, maximum hours, true unemployment and old-age insurance, abolition of child labor, and the creation of a federal employment service. The program received Roosevelt’s hearty endorsement, and he told me he wanted me to carry it out.”

  “I summed up one section by saying, “We are trying to construct a more inclusive society.” I heard that speech over the radio some weeks later, and this is how he, with his instinct for simplicity, wound up that section: “We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.””

  “Under the immigration law an alien is deportable if he attempts to overthrow the Government of the United States by force and violence or if he is a member of an organization with that program. The evidence forwarded to me from Seattle was mostly hearsay, vague and indefinite.”

  All 3 quotes from Frances Perkins

Armed forces

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  George C. Marshall

  Chief of Staff of the Army · 1939 to 1945

  George C. Marshall: Read more

  Chief of Staff from 1 September 1939 to 21 November 1945, directed the wartime expansion of the Army and in 1942 asked Frank Capra to make the Why We Fight films for soldiers.

  In their words

  “For the first time since assuming this office six years ago, it is possible for me to report that the security of the United States of America is entirely in our own hands. Since my last formal report to you on the state of the Army, our forces in Europe; air and ground, have contributed mightily to the complete destruction of the Axis enemy. In the Pacific, Japan has been compelled to sue for an end to the war which she treacherously started.”

  “There is no easy way to win wars when two opponents are even remotely well matched. There is no easy way to safeguard the nation or preserve the peace. In the immediate years ahead the United Nations will unquestionably devote their sincere energies to the effort to establish a lasting peace. To my mind there is now greater chance of success in this effort than ever before in history. Certainly the implications of atomic explosion will spur men of judgment as they have never before been pressed to seek a method whereby the peoples of earth can live in peace and justice.”

  “The appearance of an unusually effective enemy weapon, or of a particularly attractive item of enemy equipment usually provoked animated public discussion in this country, especially when stimulated by criticism of the Army’s supposed failures to provide the best. Such incidents posed a very difficult problem for the War Department. In the first place, the morale of the fighting man is a matter of primary importance. To destroy his confidence in his weapons or in the higher command is the constant and intense desire of the enemy.”

  All 4 quotes from George C. Marshall, and 1 often attributed but not verified

  In the archive: Why We Fight: the U.S. Army's orientation films, 1942-1945

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  Ernest J. King

  Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations · 1941 to 1945

  Ernest J. King: Read more

  Commanded the U.S. Fleet from 30 December 1941 and was also Chief of Naval Operations from 26 March 1942 to December 1945; promoted Fleet Admiral in December 1944.

  In their words

  “We were therefore placed in an unfavorable strategic position, in that our naval forces at that time were not adequate to meet the demands in both oceans should we be forced into the war. The sudden treacherous attack by Japan, which resulted in heavy losses to us, made our unfavorable strategic position at the outbreak of war even worse than we had anticipated. Had we not suffered those losses, however, our fleet could not have proceeded to Manila as many people supposed and there relieved our hard pressed forces.”

  “Our submarines, operating thousands of miles from their bases and deep within enemy-controlled waters, began their campaign of attrition on Japanese shipping immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and continued to fight with telling effectiveness until the Japanese capitulated.”

  “We now have before us the essential lessons of the war. It is my earnest conviction that whatever else may have been learned as to the most effective relationship of the ground, naval and air forces, the most definite and most important lesson is that to attempt unity of command in Washington is ill-advised in concept and would be impracticable of realization.”

  All 4 quotes from Ernest J. King, and 1 often attributed but not verified

War information, censorship and intelligence

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  Elmer Davis

  Director of the Office of War Information · 1942 to 1945

  Elmer Davis: Read more

  A CBS news commentator, he directed the Office of War Information from its creation on 13 June 1942, and gave a weekly radio news commentary to the public.

  In their words

  “All of us in the news business ought to remember that our primary responsibility is to the man who buys his newspaper, or turns on his radio, expecting us to give him in so far as is humanly possible not only the truth and nothing but the truth, but the whole truth.”

  “This is a people’s war, and to win it the people should know as much about it as they can. This office will do its best to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, both at home and abroad. Military information that would aid the enemy must be withheld; but within that limitation we shall try to give the people a clear, complete, and accurate picture.”

  “But propaganda is an instrument; it may employ truth instead of falsehood in its operation (as Wilson did, and as this Office intends to do); and it may be directed to worthy instead of unworthy purposes. To condemn the instrument, because the wrong people use it for the wrong purposes, is like condemning the automobile because criminals use it for a getaway.”

  “It may be objected that such surveys would be propaganda, directed against the American people and not against our enemies. Well, propaganda is an instrument which may use truth or falsehood as its material, which may be directed toward worthy or unworthy ends. We are going to use the truth, and we are going to use it toward the end of winning the war; for we know what would happen to the American people if we lose it. “Propaganda” is a word in bad odor in this country, but there is no public hostility to the idea of education as such, and we regard this part of our job as education.”

  All 5 quotes from Elmer Davis, and 1 often attributed but not verified

  In the archive: The Office of War Information's Domestic Branch, 1942-43, The U.S. Office of War Information and the Writers' War Board: a 'strategy of truth' meets the advertising men

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  William J. Donovan

  Coordinator of Information; from 1942 Director of the Office of Strategic Services · 1941 to 1945

  William J. Donovan: Read more

  Headed the Coordinator of Information from 11 July 1941 and the Office of Strategic Services, created on 13 June 1942, until it was dissolved in 1945; the OSS ran intelligence, sabotage and propaganda operations abroad.

  In their words

  “Strategy, without information upon which it can rely, is helpless. Likewise, information is useless unless it is intelligently directed to the strategic purpose.”

  “Thus there is another element in modern warfare, and that is the psychological attack against the moral and spiritual defenses of a nation. In this attack, the most powerful weapon is radio. The use of radio as a weapon, though effectively employed by Germany, is still to be perfected. But this perfection can be realized only by planning, and planning is dependent upon accurate information.”

  “Once our enemies are defeated the demand will be equally pressing for information that will aid us in solving the problems of peace.”

  All 5 quotes from William J. Donovan

  In the archive: The U.S. Office of War Information and the Writers' War Board: a 'strategy of truth' meets the advertising men

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  Byron Price

  Director of Censorship · 1941 to 1945

  Byron Price: Read more

  An Associated Press executive news editor, named Director of Censorship on 19 December 1941, he ran the Office of Censorship, whose voluntary press and radio code took effect in January 1942, until it closed in November 1945.

  In their words

  “The code was in the form of a request to newspapers and all other publications to refrain from publishing information on a given list of subjects, such as the movements of troops and ships, exact war production statistics, and the development of new military models, unless such information was given out officially.”

  “So I begin this discussion, as we must begin any discussion of censorship, with a recognition of certain basic truths. The first of these is that you will never like censorship. Everything the censor does, from opening private letters to keeping Page One stories out of print, is contrary to all we have been taught to regard as right and proper. Because you are Americans you resent this sort of interference.”

  “The Code of Wartime Practices for the American Press was a pioneering venture. It was far from perfect, and even now is undergoing a revision in the light of experience. But it had this underlying quality which I believe deserves to endure: It put newspapers and other publications on their honor. It enlisted every writer and every editor in the army of the republic.”

  “You are all aware that we are in the midst of psychological as well as physical warfare. Rumor and misinformation march to battle under the same command with tanks and planes. [...] Irresponsible journalism is reprehensible anytime, anywhere; in wartime it may easily become a crime against national security.”

  All 6 quotes from Byron Price

  In the archive: The U.S. Office of War Information and the Writers' War Board: a 'strategy of truth' meets the advertising men