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of war weapons, manned by skilled mechanics ad stouthearted freemen, as   
we shall loose in 1943 and 1944 against the Axis. In some few sectors, we   
have already taken the offensive, moths ahead of our original plans. That   
offensive will rise in irresistible crescendo, more and more rapidly, more   
and more powerfully, until totalitarianism, with its menace to religion   
        and freedom, is finally and utterly crushed.        
 
                                                            
 
 
The Axis knows this, kmows that its ill-gotten gains cannot be held by   
continuing the war. What they won through treacherous war, they may now   
try to retain by a treacherous peace. They timed this war to begin when   
they were at the zenith of their strength, and when the freedom and   
peace-loving nations were unprepared. Their plans have miscarried; now,   
we have reason to believe, they are casting about for someone to make a   
peace proposal which will enable them to escape the inexorable results of   
defeat in the field. It is the first sign of a break in Nazi confidence:   
     their peace offensive is a confession of weakness.     
 
                                                            
 
 
We Americans are new at world politics. Our geographical position in the   
past isolated us from Europe and the other continents. Modern communications   
have forced us from our isolation into world affairs. We are learning.   
One of the first  lessons we have grasped is this: that cunninly timed   
and craftily planned peace proposals may be used by faithless aggressors   
as instruments of war. A peace move may be a snare; for the Nazis, it has   
always been a part of military strategy. Their record in Austria,   
Czechoslovakia, Poland and elsewhere is too recent to be forgotten.   
Japan talked peace to us at Washington whie she was preparing and   
consumating the treachery of Pearl Harbor. Thus world experience of Axis   
"peace" has been bitter. In our case it has also been salutary. Since the  
 Nazis, conscious of their waning power, are likely to be searching for   
an intermediary to put forth peace-fellers, it is well that those whom we   
trust should know in advance the position of the United States Government   
on any tentative proposal from such a source: We shall not be led away   
from principle by any stop-gap peace. Our Christian ideals, as well as   
our national existence, would be in jeopardy if we consented to forego   
now our manifest advantages. An indesisive peace would be a partial   
victory foe the Axis, and would lead later to a resumption of the   
conflict under conditions which might be diadavntageous to us and what   
we stand for. We want none of it. We will have nothing of an armed truce   
which would be a breathing space for the enemies of Christian civilization.  
We will not permist Axis grand strategy, which includes in its arsenal   
the hypocrisy of false peace, to hold the initiative in the conduct of   
this war. We have determined that we cannot deal with the faithless men;   
that the peaceful ways of diplomacy hav utterly failed against Axis   
                         duplicity,