Editor’s note: The quotations below are taken from William J. Federer’s new book “The Faith of FDR – From President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Public Papers 1933-1945,” published by Amerisearch, Inc., P.O. Box 20163, St. Louis, MO 63123; www.Amerisearch.net, 1-888-USA-WORD. This 400-page book is also available as an ebook. In today’s era of political correctness, coupled with fanatical Islamic threats, it is interesting to read President Franklin D. Roosevelt comments on the worldview struggle our nation faced in the not too distant past.
“The world is too small to provide adequate ‘living room’ for both Hitler and God. In proof of that, the Nazis have now announced their plan for enforcing their … pagan religion all over the world – a plan by which the Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be displaced by ‘Mein Kampf’ and the swastika.”
– FDR, Jan. 6, 1942, State of the Union Address
“Democracy is the birthright of every citizen, the white and the colored; the Protestant, the Catholic, the Jew.”
– FDR, Nov. 4, 1940, address, Hyde Park, N.Y.
“Your government is working at all times with representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths. Without these three, all three of them, without them working with us toward that great end, things would not be as clear or as easy.”
– FDR, Oct. 28, 1940, campaign address, Madison Square Garden, N.Y.
“Day by day, there has been definite progress towards a spiritual reawakening … I receive evidences of this from all our Protestant Churches; I get it from Catholic priests and from Jewish rabbis as well.”
– FDR, Jan. 31, 1938, Washington Ministerial Union
“The preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them, but to the whole future of Christian civilization.”
– FDR, Sept. 1, 1941, Labor Day radio address
“Those forces hate democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization. They oppose democracy because it is Christian. They oppose Christianity because it preaches democracy.”
– FDR, Nov. 1, 1940, campaign address, Brooklyn, N.Y.
“We guard ourselves against all evils – spiritual as well as material – which may beset us. We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression, which may attack us from without, and the forces of ignorance and fear which may corrupt us from within.”
– FDR, Oct. 28, 1940, campaign address, Madison Square Garden, N.Y.
“I am happy, at this festival season of Rosh Hashanah, to renew my good wishes to my fellow citizens of Jewish faith.”
– FDR, Aug. 13, 1934, New Years greeting
“In one of the blackest crimes of all history … the Nazis … wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of Europe goes on unabated every hour … hundreds of thousands of Jews … are now threatened with annihilation as Hitler’s forces descend.”
– FDR, March 24, 1944, on opening frontiers to war victims and justice for war crimes
“This nation is appalled by the … Nazis … insane desire to wipe out the Jewish race in Europe … Many Christian groups also are being murdered … The Nazis are determined to complete their program of mass extermination.”
– FDR, June 12, 1944, message to Congress on refugees
“The American people, ever zealous in the cause of human freedom, have watched with sympathetic interest the effort of the Jews to renew in Palestine the ties of their ancient homeland and to re-establish Jewish culture in the place where for centuries it flourished and whence it was carried to the far corners of the world.”
– FDR, Feb. 6, 1937, greeting to the United Palestine Appeal, addressing Dr. Stephen S. Wise, United Palestine Appeal, Washington, D.C.
“Two decades have witnessed a remarkable exemplification of the vitality and vision of the Jewish pioneers in Palestine. It should be a source of pride to Jewish citizens of the United States that they, too, have had a share in this great work of revival and restoration. It gives me great pleasure to send my hearty felicitations and warmest personal greetings.”
– FDR, Feb. 6, 1937, greeting to the United Palestine Appeal, addressing Dr. Stephen S. Wise, United Palestine Appeal, Washington, D.C.
“I had read about Warsaw and Lidice and Rotterdam and Coventry, but I saw Sevastopol and Yalta! And I know that there is not room enough on earth for both German militarism and Christian decency.”
– FDR, March 1, 1945, address to Congress on the Yalta Conference
“It is significant that tomorrow – Christmas Day – our plants and factories will be stilled. That is not true of the other holidays we have long been accustomed to celebrate. On all other holidays work goes on – gladly – for the winning of the war. So Christmas becomes the only holiday in all the year.”
– FDR, Dec. 24, 1942, Christmas message
“In this campaign, of course, all things taken together, I can’t talk about my opponent the way I would like to sometimes, because I try to think that I am a Christian. I try to think that some day I will go to Heaven, and I don’t believe there is anything to be gained in saying dreadful things about other people in any campaign.”
– FDR, Nov. 4, 1944, remarks at Bridgeport, Conn.
William J. Federer, is a best-selling author and the president of Amerisearch Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America’s noble heritage.
