Posted on 07/25/2005 12:57:46 PM PDT by Altair333
When Britain stood alone against the fascist dictators early in 1941--Pearl Harbor was nearly a year away--Franklin Roosevelt, beset by an isolationist Congress, sent his aide Harry Hopkins to shore up the morale of the British. Winston Churchill entertained Hopkins toward the end of his visit at a state dinner. He and the cabinet were nervous about what Hopkins might report back to Washington, since Britain could not hope to sustain the fight without American aid.
The slight and diffident Hopkins rose to speak with words that are as vivid and memorable today in the light of the atrocities wreaked upon London. This is what he said: "I suppose you wish to know what I am going to say to President Roosevelt on my return.
"Well, I am going to quote to you one verse from the Book of Ruth: 'Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.' " Hopkins paused and then very quietly said, "Even to the end."
Churchill was moved to tears.
What does that mean, exactly?
Hopkins was a Soviet spy. I doubt he had much regard for real history.
"What does that mean, exactly?"
It means that the world seems like a more mediocre and less momentous place than it was in 1940. There aren't as many big struggles and competing ideas. The biggest struggle seems to be with a handful of crazed Islamists who don't really promote any coherent ideas but merely want to die and take some of us with them.
In 1940 you had democracy standing against fascism and communism and it wasn't at all clear how things would turn out. Now you've got a stew of international mediocrity with the vast majority of nations adopting some form of capitalist system. But look at the United States- the best party we have to choose from shows no political courage on spending and can't wait to turn this country over to Mexicans in the name of paying a dollar an hour less in wages. No real principles, no real struggles. Just the almighty dollar at work.
Remember the left-wing propaganda for the "Eastern Front"? The claim was in part correct that aiding Russia would bleed Germany without the cost of more American lives. But the reason for that ploy was to save the USSR's government, which surely would have fallen if the Nazis took Moscow.
Congressman Billybob
What you say doesn't make sense. Hopkins said this quite a while before Hitler attacked Stalin. At the time, there was no indication that the two dictators wouldn't remain good buddies.
I think he indicated that he was not completely under their control tho.
Hopkins was never vice president. FDR's vices were Garner, Wallace and Truman. (Actually, he probably had other vices.)
If Hopkins was indeed secretly on the Nazi/Soviet side in early 1941, but forced to parrot the administration line, I submit that he would not have chosen such highly emotional language to state the US's position.
People forced to say something they secretly disagree with just don't talk that eloquently.
Hopkins was never on the Nazi side, he was on the Soviet side, which at the time was also our side.
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