were talking peace. How then could we have confidence in the word of any
Axis Power? In the conviction that anything less than complete victory
would endanger the principles we fight for and our very existence as a
nation, the United States of America will prosecute this was until the
Axis collapses. We shall not again allow ourselves to be imperilled from
behind while we are talking peace with criminal aggrssors of the kind
referred to in the "Summi Pontificatus" as men without faith to the
plighted word.
Our confidence in final and complete victory is based upon the most
objective foundations. There is nothing of emotional optimism or wishful
thinking in it. We are prepared for a long war. We foresaw early
reverses. But in the end, we know that no nation or combination of
nations can stand against us in the field.
In the first place, we are a nation united as never before in our history.
Axis propaganda had made itself felt in the United States as elsewhere
before our entry into the war, and we know thay are boasting of divisions
among us. Let no one be deceived. Our very love of peace made it
difficult for some of our people to see the world menace of Nazism. Pearl
Harbor opened their eyes. The dishonorable attack of Japan at the very
moment when her special ambassador was talking peace at Washington united
overnight Americans of all shades of opinion. Among the architects of
this unity are the formost Catholic leaders in our conutry, the bishops
and hte prominent laymen of all racial strains. Their public utterances
and the editorial statements of Catholic papers after the aggression of
Pearl Harbor can be summed up in these words: Prosecute the war to a
victorious conclusion; and then
bend