The Great Depression did NOT end with World War II. It was over well before then. This fiction that Roosevelt ended the Depression by starting the war is pure revisionist history, started by William Henry Chamberlin and a cadre of Right Wing Roosevelt haters, and picked up gleefully, years later, by the conspiracy theorists.

Japan had been ravaging China (anybody hear of "The Rape of Nanking?") for many years, determined to rule Asia and "turn the Pacific into a Japanese lake," and Germany was out to take over Europe and beyond. The United States, determined to stay out of it, participated to the extent of such things as the Lend-Lease program to Great Britain, and putting an embargo on selling arms to aggressor countries such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, but that was it.

Some people (such as Chamberlin) like to cite THAT as FDR's authorizing "a blatant breach of neutrality," thus precipitating us into the war, but the vast majority of Americans, although not wanting to get involved in the hostilities, were appalled at what was going on overseas, and applauded the Lend-Lease program and the embargoes.

Then, Japan sucker-punched the United States. Japan sent a diplomatic mission to Washington to talk "peace" and to negotiate for easing our ban on selling them strategic materials. And while the talks were going on, Pearl Harbor was bombed and most of the American Pacific fleet was destroyed. We had been "sneak-attacked."

In fact, the Japanese didn't know how much damage they had actually done. It was revealed later that we had been rendered so defenseless in the Pacific that if the Japanese had then invaded the West Coast of the United States, they would have met little military or naval resistance.

I don't seriousy believe that FDR would have really been the evil mastermind of something like THAT!

Other than the embargo on strategic materials, we had done nothing to provoke it—except that we weren't cooperating sufficiently with the Axis Powers' plan for world conquest. In fact, WE were on the menu ALSO.

I was pretty young at the time, but I was very much aware of what was going on, and since it was such a part of my childhood, I have since had a special interest in those events. And rather than hearing about it by sleeping through a high school history class, I REMEMBER what was going on back then and who was doing what to whom.

Among other things, I remember my father and a lot of people we knew being out of work, and the happiness and relief when my dad got a job on a WPA road crew. Along with many other people we knew. Within a short time, there were jobs! Jobs other than WPA and CCC. Because those jobs had paid people. They had money to spend again, and they spent it because they HAD to, on things like food and rent. And with money beginning to circulate again, the economy improved almost miraculously. My dad was able to get back into is real profession and things were well on the way to good again. For us and for the whole country.

FDR also started the Social Security program, which gave those over 65 a measure of security in their older years. It allowed them to retire rather than having to work 'til they dropped—and it ended "poor houses" and "poor farms" for the elderly. I remember that they called it "Old Age Pension." The elderly hated what it was called (so they changed it to "Social Security") but they were greatly relieved that they would no longer have to work themselves to death, live off their kids, or go to the poor house.

And this was in the late Thirties, NOT after December 7th, 1941!

Those who blithely pontificate that "FDR ended the Depression by starting World War II" have bought the long-standing Right Wing propaganda and simply ignored what REALLY brought it to an end. It was FDR's instituting the so-called "alphabet agencies" such as the WPA and CCC, which put people back to work and gave them paychecks that, as I said, they had to spend right away on things like food and rent that got the economy going again. And his putting regulatory agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, into place to regulate Wall Street and the banks and stop the endless run of Ponzi schemes that precipitated the Depression in the first place.

The Right Wing hated that! And they worked like beavers to either eliminate or render impotent those regulatory agencies. And they finally made it with Ronald Reagan. He either ended them or appointed executives from the businesses themselves to the agencies.

[In my best Mr. Rogers voice:   "Can you say 'Fox in charge of the chicken coop?'"]

THAT is why we're in this mess today.

And NOW, they want to kill Social Security and Medicare!

What we need now is someone with a grasp of the situation, and the intelligence, charisma, and GUTS to do what FDR did.

And no, not start a war. Haven't those of you who insist on mindlessly intoning the slanderous canard about FDR ending the Depression by starting a World War noticed?

We're already IN a couple of wars!!

How is THAT working for you?

Don Firth

P. S.   I fully realize that I'm wasting my time here. People are very fond of glib, "I'm really, really clever because I know what's not in the history books!"

Did it ever occur to you that the reason it's not in the history books is because it's simply not true?

But, oh, we love our conspiracy theories far too much to ever let them go.