Analysis: Our Heritage Can Be Preserved Only by Fighting

Date: December 22, 1941

Author: James Bryant Conant

Genre: speech

Summary Overview

This speech was delivered at the annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York on December 22, 1941, fifteen days after the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and eleven days after Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States. American public opinion changed drastically after the attack from a strong current of isolationism to widespread support for World War II. The attention of the nation turned immediately to mobilizing for war, but opinion differed on how the war should be fought and what its goals should be. Some believed that the military effort should focus primarily on defense and providing materials to Allied nations, and that a negotiated peace with Germany was possible in the future. James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard University, believed that there was no way short of total victory and the destruction of Nazi Germany in an offensive war to ensure the preservation of democracy and the American way of life.

Defining Moment

While the Axis powers pursued their aggressive expansion throughout the world in 1939 and 1940, public sentiment in the United States was strongly isolationist and antiwar. US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had declared a national state of limited emergency when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, was convinced—as were some other key government officials—that US involvement in the war was likely, even inevitable, and acted to strengthen the military as a defensive “preparedness” measure.

By September 1940, Great Britain was near collapse as Germany relentlessly bombed the country's cities and blockaded its ports. It seemed that if both Russia and Great Britain fell, the United States would have to oppose Hitler alone. As a precautionary measure, Roosevelt signed the Selective Service and Training Act on September 16, requiring all male citizens between the ages of twenty-six and thirty-five to register for military service. Though still officially neutral, the nation prepared for war.

On December 7, 1941, Americans gathered around their radios to hear the news that the naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, had been attacked by the Japanese. The attack damaged all of the US Navy battleships, sinking four of them. Airfields were bombed simultaneously to prevent counterattack. Additionally, 188 planes were destroyed and 159 were damaged. The entire attack lasted just under two hours, but the United States lost 2,403 people, including both military personnel and civilians. War with Japan was declared the following day in a joint session of Congress.

In September 1940, Italy, Germany, and Japan had signed the Tripartite Pact—an agreement that Italy and Germany would divide Europe, Japan would control Asia after the war, and all three would come to each other's aid if attacked. Though Germany was given no warning of the attack on Pearl Harbor and was under no treaty obligation to declare war, Hitler believed that it would embarrass Roosevelt if Germany declared war first, and that the United States would take a long time to mobilize. He was wrong on both counts. Germany's declaration of war perfectly suited Roosevelt's portrayal of an innocent nation roused to war against its will but determined to defend itself, and the speed of mobilization increased significantly. The first War Powers Act was signed into law less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor, dramatically increasing federal powers. It gave the president the authority to reorganize and fund government agencies, censor communications, and set up corporations during the war.

As important to the war effort as military spending and manufacturing may have been, motivating public support for an all-out war was equally important. Even after Pearl Harbor, there were those who argued that the nation should spend its time and energy preparing for a defensive war, and that the government should not rule out a negotiated peace with Hitler. Conant, like many others, believed that there was no alternative to an all-out offensive war that would destroy Nazi Germany. In the early days of the war, speeches such as this one further cemented the nation's commitment to an offensive war effort.

Author Biography

James Bryant Conant was born in 1893 in Massachusetts. He attended Roxbury Latin School and enrolled at Harvard University in 1910, where he studied chemistry. After earning a doctorate in chemistry, Conant worked in chemical manufacturing with two other Harvard graduates, eventually joining the World War I effort in 1917. He worked on the development of poison gasses, though the war ended before these were used. He then returned to Harvard, where he taught chemistry. Elected president of Harvard University in 1933, Conant made several key reforms, including the admission of women into the student body and the abolition of guaranteed tenure. In 1940, Conant was appointed to the National Defense Research Committee, a group of scientists brought together to study and develop new technologies for warfare, including atomic and nuclear weapons; the United States was preparing for a war that many thought was inevitable. During the war, Conant served on a board that monitored the development of atomic weapons and worked to develop synthetic rubber for military vehicles.

In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Conant US high commissioner for Germany and, later, he was made the first ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). After returning to the United States, he wrote studies about the state of public education. He died in 1978.

Document Analysis

Conant gave this speech at an event for the New England Society in the City of New York, a venerable social and charitable organization founded in 1805. He begins with an acknowledgement that if it were any other time, he would be using his position as the president of a New England academic institution to pay homage to generations of New Englanders. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the advent of war has erased these regional distinctions, however. He declares, “Without thought of sectionalism, with unparalleled unanimity, we plunged into the midst of war. We now stand undivided.” Because of this unity, Conant broadens his remarks to include a discussion of the American, not just the New England, character.

This character, Conant believes, is unique in the world, and the state of Europe under dictatorship serves to emphasize the importance of maintaining the freedom and equality that are American ideals. When the United States was attacked, it not only aroused anger, it also highlighted the importance of what had been accomplished by free men throughout the country's history, he states. The dictators of the world had made it clear, he claims, that “It is their way of life or ours. Our heritage can be preserved only by fighting.”

Now that the American way of life was threatened, Conant is clear that a defensive position is not sufficient. “Victory, not defense, is now the slogan of the country.” In the days after Pearl Harbor, when the country experiences the “unanimity of belligerent emotion,” he urges Americans not to forget that public sentiment will fluctuate throughout the tribulations of war. Conant understands that the public will tire of war, and there will be those who will argue that it should be brought to a conclusion short of victory.

Any wavering in the pursuit of victory will damage the war effort, however, so “there must be no limitation on our commitments,” Conant states. The focus on defensive, rather than offensive, war is also dangerous. The French were quickly overrun by the German army, in part because of their flawed belief that their defenses along the Maginot line were impregnable. The attention of the military must be turned outward.

Previously, the United States had been dominated by an “arsenal psychology,” the idea that the war could be won by supplying weapons to allies without actually sending soldiers to fight abroad. Conant emphasizes that this approach alone will not lead to victory.

Conant also looks ahead to a time when Hitler might offer the war-weary nation some sort of negotiated peace and cautions against readily accepting it. There is no way to trust this, he argues. A democratic nation would not be able to work with a dictatorship to reorder the world in peacetime. The United States needs not only to win the war but also to be prepared to safeguard freedom after the war.

Glossary

extol: to praise highly; laud

sectionalism: excessive regard for sectional or local interests; regional or local spirit, prejudice, etc.

rife: of common of frequent occurrence; prevalence

jettison: to throw off something as an obstacle or burden; discard

dastardly: cowardly; meanly base; sneaking

radiolocator: a device for determining the presence and location of an object; radar

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Gillon, Steven M. Pearl Harbor: FDR Leads the Nation into War. New York: Basic, 2011. Print.

Klein, Maury. A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.

“Overview of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 7 December 1941.” Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.

Piehler, G. Kurt. United States in World War II: A Documentary Reader. Malden: Wiley, 2013. Print.