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of the depths of depression. Although we were by no means in an economic picnic, we were better. There was more vitality, and, of course, with the beginning of the defense orders, the beginnings of reaching a comfortable economic level, were in sight. We could see that. Obviously rearmament had to be a policy. Everybody agreed on that. Orders were being given and the relief work ceased to be essential because there was real work on the defense orders. So the preoccupation with what the unemployed were going to do tonight eased a bit. He didn't have to be thinking about things like that. He had to be thinking about the contingencies that the war in Europe was bringing about.
Ever since the Panay incident there was a very deep understanding that there was war hazard all around us, that the Asiatic war hazard was very real. Of course, with the beginning of the understanding of the Hitler movement there had been a kind of dread that there might be an outbreak of war. The possibilities had been discussed a little, but now in this 1940 situation those matters, the matters of international relationships and diplomacy, estimating the strength of the various parties to the European war, the strength of the United States for its own defense and the strength
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