Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now. … If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the high seas – and they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere. It is no exaggeration to say that all of us, in all the Americas, would be living at the point of a gun.

The 1930s were the first protracted period of economic contraction in U.S. history, and the first time that neither an open frontier nor an open world provided a safety valve. The West Coast was already settled, and the Great Plains a Dust Bowl. The collapse of credit and the rush to protectionism choked world trade. Savings disappeared, and not just traditional hard cases – Negroes and new immigrants – but even white farmers, factory workers, tradesmen, and shopkeepers despaired of opportunity. […]