Know Your Government

Gus Gennerich (1886-1936): “He incorrigibly chewed gum no matter how elegant his surroundings. “

Body of Gus Gennerich lies in state at White House. Washington, D.C., Dec. 16. The body of Gus Gennerich, President Roosevelt's friend and bodyguard who died in Buenos Aires, lying in state in the East Room of the White House today following simple services attended by President Roosevelt, members of his family, Cabinet members and other friends, the body was taken to New York for burial. White House policemen acted as Guards of Honor. 1936 December 16. (Library of Congress)

From President Franklin Roosevelt’s Address before the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace at Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 1, 1936.

I am profoundly convinced that the plain people everywhere in the civilized world today wish to live in peace one with another. And still leaders and Governments resort to war. Truly, if the genius of mankind that has invented the weapons of death cannot discover the means of preserving peace, civilization as we know it lives in an evil day.

Roosevelt went on to sound an alarm that would be echoed by President Eisenhower, a Republican, 25 years later:

We know, too, that vast armaments are rising on every side and that the work of creating them employs men and women by the millions. It is natural, however, for us to conclude that such employment is false employment; that it builds no permanent structures and creates no consumers’ goods for the maintenance of a lasting prosperity. We know that Nations guilty of these follies inevitably face the day when either their weapons of destruction must be used against their neighbors or when an unsound economy, like a house of cards, will fall apart.