State of the Union Address

President Roosevelt stood in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon to give the State of the Union Address to the 76th session of Congress. His remarks were centered firmly on national defense. This is a topic that has in recent months become one of great interest and urgency. Developments in the past year in Europe as well as in East Asia have indicated a need for nations to take it upon themselves to ensure their continued peace and prosperity.

On this, the President said "All about us rage undeclared war - military and economic... threats of new aggression - military and economic." He stated that these entities are attacking the "new philosophies of force" with their threats to liberty, religion and international good faith. He pledged the defense of the Western Hemisphere from these philosophies. These philosophies are fascism, nazism and with less urgency though no less significant, communism. All of them subscribe in some measure to a rabid nationalism. He went on to say that the demands of the future will demand a United Nation. He linked national defense with his New Deal and social welfare programs.

He concluded his address by quoting Abraham Lincoln's closing remarks to his own 1862 State of the Union address: "This generation will 'nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. The way is pain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.'"

With it's conclusion, the President and his cabinet exited the chamber and left Capital Hill.

Japan & Germany sign Anti-Comintern Pact

Yestersay, Japan and German diplomats have signed a pact against the Communism International. The treaty stipulates that should either nation become belligerents in a conflict with the Soviet Union, they will consult the other for which measures they should employ. It does not necessitate that the other nation needs to come to the other nation's aid.

With Japan's increasing activity in China, Germany felt a need to establish some parameters with Japan. This treaty also seems to cut any support Germany might have given China in continuing military movements on mainland Asia. The pact is interesting considering Germany's historic alliance with China.

The Pact was to be originally introduced in late November 1935 with invitations for Britain, Italy, China and Poland to join. However, concerns by the German Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath and War Minister Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg that the pact might damage Chinese-German relations plus political disarray in Tokyo following the failed military coup of February 26, 1936 led to the Pact's being shelved for a year.

It was signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's Foreign Affairs Advisor and Ambassador Viscount Kintomo Mushakoji of Japan.