Franklin D. Roosevelt
thirty-second U.S. President

These men and their hypnotized followers call this a new order. It is not new, and it is not order.

On March 15, 1941, four days after signing the sweeping Lend-Lease Act into law, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of America's expanded role in World War II at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Previous to the passage of Lend-Lease by Congress, the United States was technically a neutral power in the conflict, but now billions of dollars in military aid would be leaving the United States for Britain and other Allied nations, with no assurance of future compensation. Initially, Britain would pay cash and lease territorial holdings to the U.S., but the once the capital and land dried up the arms would keep coming. In the portentous summer of 1941, when Germany invaded the U.S.S.R. and Britain struggled desperately to save Greece and North Africa from Nazi domination, U.S. aid proved crucial in preventing total victory by the Axis. America's function as the ‘great arsenal of democracy,’ first achieved by Roosevelt with passage of the Lend-Lease Act, would increase exponentially after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.