Letter to President Roosevelt

This letter to President Roosevelt, reprinted from The Dartmouth of April 24,1941, was written by Charles G. Bolte '4l,Senior Fellow from Greenwich, Conn., andwas printed on the front page as "the bestcurrent expression of The Dartmouth's editorial opinion." It has since been reprintedwidely throughout the country and hasbeen the cause of the liveliest campus discussion of the year. Bolte was 1940-41 Undergraduate Editor of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE until this issue.

Sir: Now we have waited long enough. We have seen the Greeks go down and we have heard the words of a Greek: "On October 28 Roosevelt pledged America's complete aid to Greece, but not a single cartridge has yet arrived from the United States." Greece held on no longer. Like other modern small countries, even one or two modern big countries, Greece found that brave men cannot indefinitely fight airplanes with rifles.

Now we have waited long enough. We hear that Greece has fallen and on the same radio broadcast we hear that the United States is sending Britain some ships —"small ships, 20 torpedo boats." It is travesty in the midst of tragedy. We cannot laugh, though; only shake our heads in dumb amazement.

All over the world men are waiting for you. In Greece, in Yugoslavia, in Norway, in France, in Belgium, in Holland, in Poland, you are the only hope of men who fought and lost. In England, you are the only hope of men who are still fighting. It must be that in Germany itself there are men who think of you as the only hope.

In America we too hope. We know that your action is the only thing left that can change the course of the world. Because we know that although the soldiers of the British Empire have fought longer and harder and better than any other soldiers, they cannot fight alone and poorly armed forever.

Now we have waited long enough. We have seen the United States move slowly toward war, through conscription, industrial defense mobilization and the leaselend act; we have known that it moved too slowly.

We have not produced enough guns, tanks, airplanes, bombs.

We have not supplied the ships to carry what we have produced across the seas.

We have not supplied the men to fight the battle other men have been fighting for us.

Now we ask you to order complete industrial mobilization of this country on wartime lines. We ask you to set in motion the executive and legislative machinery which will stop the farce of producing automobiles, washing machines, gaudy fashions, and aluminum salad bowls while the peaceful world which is enhanced by these products is being blasted to pieces.

Now we ask you to authorize the sending of supplies across the seas in American ships, convoyed by the American navy.

Now we ask you to send American pilots, mechanics, sailors and soldiers to fight wherever they are needed.

In the dark catalogue of our public events no other answer can be given. The world we know is breaking up around us, and we try to maintain business as usual. We do not wish to die, so we seek reasons for avoiding war. Our logic compels us to the warlike answer: so we rat on our logic and turn off our conviction with the craven phrase "all aid short of war." In a world given over to war and bound to be shaped and determined by war, we strike for peace.

We are not our best selves when we do this. The loudest voices are those crying peace, peace; when there is no peace. In the Congress are men who, through an honest hatred of war, blind themselves to the consequences of refusing to wage war when it becomes essential. Having waited long, sir, we now ask you to override these voices: to override the personal distaste for death and armies held by every one of us: and to make us our best selves by waging war.

We cannot win without fighting. The people will not make up their minds that this is war unless we fight it. We will never win so long as we continue to lead strictly private lives, so long as we go on getting 7 per cent profits, so long as we refuse to give up an inch of ourselves to something bigger than ourselves.

We can lose without fighting. If England loses we stand alone. Ridden with internal dissension, hanging each other for fifth columnists, bearing the weight of a huge conscript army and a wartime economy, we will see Germany rule the world: and we will out of that mess produce a native fascism and an American Hitler. We will lose the war without even fighting it. Or if we do fight, finally goaded to it and still strong enough to field a unified army, we will fight alone, in two oceans at the same time, against an incomparably stronger and more concentrated foe.

We can win if we fight now. We can wake the sleepers in America. We can move the self-hypnotics from the destruction they seek before the wave of the future. We can stop "business as usual" and work longer and harder and for less money to produce the things we need. We can send ships to England and to the Mediterranean and to the East Indies; we can build a hemisphere strongly resistant; we can act now to save the last best hope on earth a nation ever had of staying free and bringing freedom.

Now, having waited long enough, we ask you to help us do this. We ask you to believe in us as much as we have believed in you. We ask you not to leave us stranded like the Greeks.

In Dr. Harvey Cushing's recently published The Medical Career, which takes its title from an address of his published by Dartmouth College in 1930, he tells an amusing anecdote about President John Wheelock of Dartmouth. President Wheelock attended a lecture in the newly opened medical course and was so impressed that he gave thanks in the prayers in the old chapel that evening in these words: "O Lord, we thank Thee for the oxygen gas; we thank Thee for the hydrogen gas, and for all the gases. We thank Thee for the cerebrum; we thank Thee for the cerebellum, and for the medulla oblongata. Amen!"

LETTER WRITER Charles G. Bolte '41, Senior Fellow fromGreenwich, Conn., whose open letter toPresident Roosevelt, printed on this andthe preceding page, stirred up the liveliest campus controversy of the year.

DARTMOUTH MEN IN NAVAL AVIATION, NAVAL AIR STATION, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA Ten young Dartmouth men are receiving aviation cadet training at the Naval Air Station,Jacksonville, after having completed elimination base training at various fields includingFloyd Bennett, Squantum, Anacostia, and Grosse lie. The photograph comes to the ALUMNI MAGAZINE through the courtesy of Lieut. Comdr. Albert F. Rice, DartmouthjpiB, who is Senior Member of the Aviation Cadet Selection Board for the Third NavalDistrict. The men in the picture are, standing, left to right: Howard A. Nopper '39, William A. Mason Jr. '39, John D. Brewer Jr. '42, Philip S. Conti '37, Thurston B. Perry 40,John R. McGreevy '38. Front row: Wallace T. Jones III '4l, William A. Shevlin '37, James C. Otis '37, Everett W. Wood '38.