Berlin, May 9, 1935.
 
 
 
Personal
 
Dear Mr. President:
 
 
The remark with which you closed
 
your letter of April 16 only emphasizes the attitudes
 
of us all here: What can anyone do now to change 
 
the fixed drift everywhere towards war? I sometimes 
 
wonder if all democratic peoples ought not to with-
 
draw their representatives to countries which flout
 
all democratic principles and talk constantly of
 
the great honor of bearing arms, shooting fellow-
 
men and the necessity of annexing other peoples'
 
territory.
 
 
You know how Wilson struggled
 
in Paris to show Europe how foolish such policies
 
are. The United States saved Italy from conquest 
 
in 1918, yet Italian statesmen (?) behaved as if 
 
they had won the war, and they made annexations 
 
which started the movement which now has that 
 
country in a hopeless position. That is, Italy 
 
is armed and drilled to the last degree. If Mus-
 
solini ceases building great warships, stops 
 
making bombing planes or sends his million sol-
 
diers to their homes (he is adding 500,000 more), 
 
he will have an unemployment which would overthrow 
 
him -the imaginary Caesar. If he goes on arming 
 
and drilling as heretofore, the debt of his govern-
 
ment will soon equal what a hundred billion dollars 
 
would be to us| The only other procedure is war, 
 
and that would ruin him and his country, unless 
 
England and France came to his aid. This began when 
 
the Italians demanded in Paris what they had no 
 
right to ask - yet Senator Lodge lined up Italians 
 
and Irishmen in Massachusetts in behalf of Italian 
 
demands|
 
The President,                        The
 
      The White House,
 
       Washington, D.C.