America First Committee Charges Roosevelt
with Fighting a One-Man War (excerpts)

Roosevelt's addresses convinced many Americans to endorse an interventionist policy toward the war in Europe. But diehard isolationists vigorously resisted what they perceived as an inexorable slide toward war by seeking to rally the public against the president. The isolationist America First Committee, in a treatise published on 23 September 1941, disputed Roosevelt's account of the American-German naval incidents and demanded that Congress check his war-making authority.

In his speech on September 11, 1941, President Roosevelt informed the nation that, without consultation with, or approval by, the Congress of the United States, he had ordered our naval and air patrols to clear all German and Italian warships from any waters considered vital to American defense, and had, in effect, ordered our armed forces to "shoot on sight." . . . His asserted justification for this sudden move, admittedly involving danger of involvement in a "shooting war," arose out of the sinking of three merchant ships and attacks on two American warships.... . . . [The] important criticisms of the President's speech are these: 1) shooting war is not justified; 2) it circumvents the spirit of the Neutrality Act and the Lease-Lend law; 3) the doctrine which the President calls "freedom of the seas" is really "freedom to aid one country at war without interference from that country's enemies"; 4) it takes the war-making power away from Congress. Examination of the circumstances under which occurred the attacks upon American ships cited by the President, demonstrates clearly that they fail utterly to justify participation in a "shooting war." The three merchant ships were the Robin Moor, the Steel Seafarer and the Sessa. The Robin Moor was sunk in the South Atlantic while carrying contraband to British South Africa, a country at war.... The Steel Seafarer was sunk without loss of life in the Red Sea, some 12,000 miles from the United States, while carrying war supplies for Britain, a country at war.... . , ;

The Sessa was not even sailing under the American flag when sunk.... [The ship] had been transferred to the flag of Panama in order that she might be used to carry supplies into war zones in clear violation of the intent of the Neutrality Act.... The attacks upon the destroyer Greer . . . were of course unjustified. But those attacks arose because of the one-man policy pursued by the President of occupying Iceland (nearer to the heart of the European war zone . . . than to the United States) and of keeping American troops there along with the British.... That is a policy whose implementation requires the use of American naval vessels for patrol purposes in order to keep the surrounding waters clear. It is inevitable that they will come into conflict with Nazi warships which are seeking British ships in those waters, part of the Nazi-declared war zone.... Certainly these five attacks, resulting in no loss of American lives on any ship operating under the American flag, do not justify American participation in a "shooting" war.... Nor can the President's "shoot on sight" order be justified, as he claims, as necessary to protect "freedom of the seas." It must be recalled that American armed protection is to be given, not only to American ships, but also to the ships of any flag, and that the waters in which that protection is to be given extend . . . to any waters the President chooses to declare vital to our "defense." This would enable our fleet to give what amounts to "convoy protection" to British ships or the ships of any other allied nation, as well as American ships, carrying war supplies for Britain or Russia or China. It would enable American patrols even to convoy British ships right into English ports.... . . . But there is a remedy, a means of checking the drive towards an all-out shooting war. Congress still has the constitutional power to assert its control over the war power.... Congress can still assert its control over the pursestrings.... Congress can still investigate and bring to the public view the orders given our patrols and their implications.... Assertion by the American people of their will to remain out of war, and of their intention to retain our constitutional form of government, can compel the repudiation of Presidential war moves. It is late, but not yet too late.

Excerpted from the America First Committee's newsletter Did You Know 22 (September 13,1941): 1-5.