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nerve up and so forth. But back of the eastern seaboard they scarcely were touched by what the British had done, and didn't care anything about whether France was saved.

I really think there was a large element in this country who thought, “Well, why not let the Germans go? Why should we mix in? What if the Germans do conquer Europe?” It was that kind of “where is Europe?” state of mind. That exists in this country in a much wider area than we ordinarily realize. There were a great many who thought then that there was nothing so very wrong about this Japanese idea of an East Asia co-prosperity sphere. It was a funny sounding phrase, but if the Japs wanted to do it, they seemed like smart fellows, and why should we go pitching into this?

Even after the draft and after most people were affected by it, most parts of the war didn't interest them. Sure they wanted the boys to have everything and to win, but they still couldn't see why they couldn't have butter. So many things seemed ridiculous. They didn't want to put their efforts into it. At the beginning they even had a hard time getting people to workat the Red Cross.

I think that possibly, therefore, one of the reasons that moved Roosevelt to this business of having so many agencies was that it was something to bring men down to Wash ngton do. You could bring important leaders from Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta into