Good morning. It’s Thursday, December 1, 2011, and 70 years ago today, Americans awoke expecting that they had a reasonable chance of escaping the war that seemed to be inexorably enveloping the world. By the end of that fateful day, many in the United States sensed that this hope was fading.
Today is also the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 State of the Union address. It came 10 weeks after he announced the Emancipation Proclamation – and less than three weeks after the midterm congressional elections revealed ambivalence among voters for that policy. Lincoln’s Republican Party added five new senators, but the Democrats picked up 34 seats in the House, along with the governorship of New York.
Lincoln’s Dec. 1, 1862 address did not dwell on partisan politics. He reached, as usual, much higher – and delivered some of the most memorable words of his presidency:
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history,” the president said. “In giving freedom to the slave, we ensure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth.”
Alas, the rhetoric on the 2012 campaign trail is not so lofty. Among those who seem to realize it are the governors in the Party of Lincoln. Gathering in Orlando, they suggested that one their own would make a fine president, but few are willing to say just yet which Republican governor they actually have in mind. Caitlin Huey-Burns is at the RGA conference and filed this report
Before returning to December 1941, I’d also point you to three other stories by RCP reporters and contributors:
- Mitt Romney may be in danger of repeating a key 2008 mistake: failing to recognize his strongest GOP rival until it is too late. Scott Conroy looks into Romney’s preoccupation with Rick Perry and his failure — until now — to push against the rise of Newt Gingrich.
- President Obama and Senate Republicans stumbled onto common ground yesterday: They agree that the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits should be extended into 2012. As for how to afford them, that’s another story, Alexis Simendinger reports.
- The Syrian government has been impervious to the global outcry over its crimes against humanity. RCP contributor Mark Salter forcefully makes the case that denunciations must also be directed at China and Russia, whose indifference to such criminality abets its perpetuation.
Salter’s column reminds us of one of history’s most enduring lessons: How difficult it is to appease despots. On December 1, 1941, a gozen kaigi (imperial conference) was held in Tokyo where Emperor Hirohito approved the military preparations for war with the Unites States. Even as Japanese diplomats in Washington were negotiating with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the date of the surprise attack was set – for December 7.
The morning of December 1, Americans awoke to Eleanor Roosevelt’s reassuring “My Day” column. The first lady revealed that she had started her Christmas shopping and attended Saturday’s Army-Navy game. Portentously, although she didn’t know it, Mrs. Roosevelt urged Americans to write servicemen stationed during the holidays in far-away places.
Her husband, after taking a disquieting phone call from Hull, had rushed back on the train from Warm Springs, Ga., barely 24 hours after arriving. The first lady – and the White House press corps – learned of Franklin Roosevelt return when Fala, the president’s dog, wandered into a room where Eleanor was talking with reporters.
“Ah, the president’s home,” she remarked. (These details – and a million more – are to be found in Craig Shirley’s riveting new book “December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World.”)
On the first day of December, FDR had come back to Washington to try and avoid war in the Pacific. But across the sea, caution had been cast to winds. And as Lincoln had said in another context: “Both parties deprecated war, but … the war came.”
Carl M. Cannon
Washington Editor
RealClearPolitics
