200 Questions On the Battle of Mankind Reynal & Hitchcock : New York COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY H. R. KNICKERBOCKER All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form Second Printing PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE CORNWALL PRESS, CORNWALL, N. Y. To Agnes...

I met H. R. Knickerbocker way back in 1927 or thereabouts. Those were the good old days. They were the days of the Long Armistice. No one had ever heard of the Rome-Berlin Axis, Stuka dive bombers, or the Haushofer Plan. Mr. Roosevelt was out of politics, Mr. Churchill was a chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Lindbergh had just flown the Atlantic. We talked of such neolithic creatures as Pilsudski of Poland and Alexander of Jugoslavia, and most of us thought that Hitler was a bad Austrian joke

There is no such thing as winning a fight without passion. France went to war apologetically; France fought the war without music, and so France lost. Britain went to war apologetically, but Britain had the inestimable advantage of being bombed, and today for the first time in 100 years Britain is angry and is fighting as she has never fought before. We, the United States, are today apologetic, so sorry that it seems we after all are called upon to fight, and some of us still say we should not f

Q. What is the best way for the United States to help the Russians fight the German Army? A. The best way for the United States to help the Russians fight the German Army is for us to go to war against Germany. Our declaration of war against Germany would be of more value to Russian resistance than all the war supplies we shall ever be able to send to the Soviet Union. We ought to try to send the Red Army as much as we can spare of airplanes and arms and anything else it needs to help it hold th

Q. What place do you think Churchill will have in history? A. If Churchill brings his country victorious out of this war, he will without a doubt go down as the greatest man in English history. No Prime Minister of the sixty ministries since Walpole, and none of the Monarchs when they exercised unlimited power, nor any Admiral or General has upon his tombstone: “He saved England from death.” Many have saved England from defeat. Many have added to England’s power and glory. But only Churchill wil

Q. What are Britain’s war aims? A. We Americans may still find it interesting to inquire “What are they fighting for?” but if we stood in the midst of the ruins of Westminster Abbey or the House of Commons, it would not occur to us to ask the question. Mr. Churchill has joined President Roosevelt in a formal statement, the so-called Atlantic Charter, but it seems to me that he has twice expressed himself far more eloquently and accurately than he did in the Eight Points. In those dread days when

Q. Why did France fall? A. Because the French people were hypnotized by their low birth rate; because their Maginot line had imprisoned their army; because, ignorant of the character and intentions of their enemy, they did not know why they had to fight the Germans and so preferred to fight among themselves; because they had no Churchill; because they were betrayed by a powerful group of their leaders including senior officers of the Army; and because the French were stultified by their debased

Q. What is the greatest danger we face as a nation? A. Our complacency. It is colossal, cosmic, suicidal. Q. Can you still call us complacent after we have conscripted an Army, begun to create an Air Force, gone far toward building a two-ocean Navy, flung a line of outposts from Iceland to South America, appropriated and recommended fifty billion dollars for defense, and told our Navy to sink German fighting ships? A. The very list you name reeks with complacency. All of that put together does n

Q. What makes Lindbergh the way he is? A. I am glad you asked this question because Lindbergh is our greatest native individual threat to American safety and so deserves careful scrutiny by his fellow citizens who some day may be compelled to decide what to do with him. There is nothing to be gained by abusing him, nor is there any merit in arguing that his sincerity ought to protect him against the charge that he assists America’s Fifth Column. Hitler’s most effective Fifth Columnists in every