Document 5
… [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt dwelt at length upon the threats to peace in various
tinderboxes [hot spots] around the globe in his State of the Union speech in January 1936.
“A point has been reached,” he said, “where the people of the Americas must take cognizance
[recognition] of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments,
of shortening tempers—a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy
of a general war.” He urged the continuation of “two-fold neutrality”: an embargo on the
shipment of arms, munitions, and implements of war, combined with efforts to discourage
belligerents from purchasing huge quantities of other American products such as oil and scrap
iron that were of assistance to their war efforts. And he reiterated [repeated] his belief that the
United States should serve as a beacon of liberty to mankind “and through example and all
legitimate encouragement and assistance to persuade other Nations to return to the ways of
peace and good will.” Speaking in Dallas at midyear, Roosevelt offered sympathy to the
Europeans facing the threat of war but repeated his pledge of neutrality. “We want to help them
all that we can,” he declared, “but they have understood very well…that help is going to be
confined to moral help, and that we are not going to get tangled up with their troubles in days
to come.”…
Source: Nathan Miller, FDR, An Intimate History, Doubleday & Company, 1983
According to Nathan Miller, what were two ways President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the United States
should respond to various threats to peace around the world in 1936? [2]