Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

think the apathy was more the result of not understanding the war and not having imagination about it.

After all, it was a push button war and it was an awful long ways off. It was very hard for most people to visualize it. They didn't feel hot and bothered about the principles at stake. They didn't really care. Somebody sent me a paper today (June 1954) from California, in which a member of Congress, speaking in a small town in California, said that if he had his way, and there were a great many members of Congress that agreed with him, we would go right into Indo China now and drive the Russians and all the Reds out of there, drive them out quick, tell them they've got to go out. We aren't going to have any more little fancy wars on the outside. This country doesn't like war and isn't going to be in one. We're just going to kill the Reds and be done with it. In other words, that Congressman is willing to fool himself into thinking that he can kill Reds with guns and swords, and then we won't have to think about war anymore.

I don't think most people have fully appreciated how very apathetic the country was about getting under way during the Second World War. Along the Eastern seaboard there was a great deal of ardor and interest. The impression that the British had made was magnificent. The Eastern seaboard knew what the British had done and how they had done it, kept their





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help