James Holland

It's all the New Deal, and it's all about how we can sort out the internal domestic mess from the fallout of the Wall Street crash and the Smoot-Hawley tariff act.

But here he's recognising that America is the richest nation in the world, it's the most powerful nation in the world, and so therefore it has a global role to play.

It is no longer... You know, isolation has been kicked into the long grass, even though at this stage, at the beginning of 1941, America is not, strictly speaking, in the war at all.

It is still, you know, neutral and at peace.

But he's putting his colours to the mast in a very, very strong way.

Well, he's about to actively arm the British.

Yeah.

This is the culmination of what I think are three really, really important speeches, strokes, statements.

This is the seed of what becomes known as an enlist.

And he's really, really clever because Congress is in recess in December because it's Christmas holidays.

And what he wants to do is sell this to the public first to ensure that it gets through Congress.

So he just drops it into the conversation during a press briefing at the White House on, I think it's the 17th of December, 1940.

And this is where he comes up with the famous... Well, let's summon him once more from the other world.

Let me give you an illustration.

Suppose my neighbor's home catches fire and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away.

If he can take my garden hose and connect it up to his hydrant, I may be able to help put out his fire.

Now what do I do?

I don't say to him before that operation, neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15.

You have to pay me $15 for it.

No, you just hand it over and sort it out later.