 that touchdown it was one by a team and every man on the team had a share in winning it. We're playing another kind of a game now only this one isn't for fun. It's for keeps. One by any single player either. It'll be one by a team. A team called the United Nations. The ball will be carried by the men in the backfield. Tough little guy from China. Big Joe Russia. John Britain and a guy called Yank. The four greatest backs in the world. So let's take a look at the men who carry the ball with us. Who are they? How do they live? What makes them tick? Let's start with the one that's toughest to understand. The one we know just enough about to confuse us. John Britain. Here's where he lives. A little island no larger than the state of Idaho. Half a million people live in Idaho. Ninety-six times that many live in Britain. The Natchez and the Japs scream about Laban's Ron. Living space. But there are more people on a square mile of Britain than a square mile of Germany or Italy or Japan. More congestion than practically any place on earth except the New York subway or a sardine can. And that's a clue that explains a lot about John Britain. We build front porches on our houses because we didn't want to miss the chance to see our neighbors. But John Britain hides himself in a little box and plants a hedge around that to make sure he doesn't. Living that close to neighbors privacy is part of the pursuit of happiness. And in the sardine can call Britain they learn to get on with their neighbors. They have to. He's too damn close. That's why they have so little crime in Britain. Believe it or not even in war time the British cop does not carry a gun nor does the professional cook. And in 1926 when the world heard of this stoppage of work in Britain that industry transportation the whole life of the country had been paralyzed by a general strike. It was still more surprised next day to learn that the strikers were playing football with the cops. You can only understand that if you live in a sardine can. The second clue to this guy on our team. No part of Britain is more than a hundred miles from the sea. Every day for hundreds of years years of peace and years of war. John Britain has seen ships sail from his island to the seven seas. That means that whenever John Britain wants to bust out of his sardine can it's the sea that gets him. He's been busting up for hundreds of years. And that led to Australia. South Africa. New Zealand. Canada. And for that matter the United States of America. How did John Britain get on. Remember 1938. The Yankees won the pen. Wrong way Corrigan. The last trains ran on the 6th Avenue L. Well John Britain got excited about the same sort of thing. The vet he had on the derby or as he would say the dog. His job. His kids getting his exercise on his day off. Best in North and taking the football. Only 300 miles away people were cheering another kind of event and in London and every other British city in town they read about what was going on in Europe and they got sore about it. But they were also pretty well determined to keep it none of their business. Then this looked bad. The checks had a mutual assistance pack with France. And France had one with Britain. This might mean war even though everyone was anxious to avoid it. They've been through one war perhaps been wounded hundreds of thousands of their brothers and friends had been killed. There was nothing beautiful to them about war and they had no desire for another. Last desperate effort to preserve peace the prime minister today flew to Munich. All was well. Britain France Italy and Germany were signing a pact at Munich. A pact in which the Germans agreed they had no further territorial claims to make. It was to be peace in our time. But it turned out to be a strange sort of peace. Hitler's first move was to break the pact he had signed. Wishful thinking was ended. Now they knew something had to be done about Germany. They approved the Conscription Act the first peacetime conscription in British history just as the Selective Service Act was the first in American history. The British had put their cards on the table. They had an effect said to Hitler that's enough. If you go into Poland we'll fight Hitler smile like other would be conquerors of Britain. Philip of Spain Napoleon Kaiser Wilhelm. He thought he understood the British. He didn't. Sleeping lion began to wake up. He was a pretty drowsy lion for the first six months of the war. He snapped and growled more leaflets and bombs. He hoped that common sense would return to the German people and that they would throw out Hitler and the German warlords. Instead rendered his armies of more than half a million men. Britain was alone. Czechoslovakia occupied Poland defeated Denmark gone. Norway gone. Holland Belgium France gone. Only Britain now. Britain was alone. Hitler considered the war over. Everybody considered the war over except the British. The eleventh hour the lion was finally around. We shall then we shall fight on beaches in views in streets and on the hills that the Nazis could throw at them. For one solid year from June 1940 to June of 1941 they were the only major power fighting the greatest war machine in the world. They took body blow after body blow. Solid punches before they even had their guard up. All they did was take it on the chin and hang on to the ropes. They never went down. They prepared grimly and defiantly for the day when they could strike back. There were no victories to cheer them on. Just defeat after defeat. Some heroic like the beaches of Dunkirk. Or like the hills of Greece where British soldiers landed to keep their pledge of honor to the Greek people. Landed knowing they were facing overwhelming odds. But some less glorious. Hong Kong and Singapore. These long months the British people were thinking and planning and working only for the day when they themselves could take the offensive. And that day came news in greater and greater strength. That's in the air. And on the ground. Fifteen hundred miles away in North Africa. A hundred miles in one hundred and twenty two days. Seventeen hundred miles of sand and wind and the enemy. Once more the people of Britain heard their church bells ring earlier they had been warned that this would be the signal of invasion. But long since the nightmare of the threat of invasion had passed. Now the bells rang out a song of thanksgiving. A song of victory. There's the plain and simple truth about Britain. But the fellow that calls the signals on the Axis team knows his only chance of winning is to split our team up. So his team plays a game at which they've had a lot of practice. A game which has conquered half a dozen countries for them. Again called divide and conquer. Men like these tell the British we aren't taking the war seriously. They tell the Russians we are letting them down. They tell the British the Russians will sell them out. And they tell us it is manifestly ridiculous for the warmonger Roosevelt to tell the American people that they have anything in common with the British. On the contrary they are different in every respect. Well there are differences that's true. For instance we drive on the right side of the road but in Britain we go for baseball. A little number called cricket whoever drank coffee over there knows why there'll always be an England coffee all right sir. Small opinion of what works up here. Are they kidding Jack why the cockamani sprinklers from Schmaltz mixed with celery tonic. Why are they all much so much with cornpone in their mouth. You all can't understand a word they say. Yes there are differences but there are a few things that Britain and America do have in common. And these are the important things of life. A little thing called a free representative government we call it Congress they call it parliament. A little thing called freedom of speech. In the next one you've got to go to it. They bring the water to you. And the thing is if you take a tip from me going to the door chest because the trenches are just outside. This meeting is called on the office of the American Workers Party an organization that it kept organizing in the working class of America freedom of the press freedom of religion. They may not be important to Hitler but all these things are the common heritage of John Q. Public and John. Seven hundred years ago their ancestors fought for the Magna Cod. No one will we deny or delay right or justice. Three hundred years ago the petition of right. No man shall be compelled to yield any tax without act of parliament. These principles came to our own country with the earliest settlers and from them developed Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. We may make gags about each other's accents but we speak the same language of freedom. Even during the American Revolution when we were at each other's soaps the early chatting was free to say about us to the British Parliament. You cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. And that is why in the heart of London alongside his great naval hero Nelson John Britain has put George Washington and in Parliament Square the most sacred spot in the British Commonwealth of Nations Abraham Lincoln. Of course Hitler doesn't like this kind of talk. His job is to sell the British that we are a nation of money grubbers. And gangsters. While in the next studio he is selling us the idea that the British are gutless and dull. The John Q. Public and John Britain are entirely different. These steelworkers Sheffield or Pittsburgh. These children American or British they live in lands which share the same hopes the same ideals and unlike the poor children of Germany in lands where the truth is free. But let's not kid ourselves. Britain is not the United States and the United States is not Britain. For instance we don't go in for this kind of thing. They do. But there's no mystery about that. Remember our grandmother's house. He was old fashioned out of date attached to knowledge to suit each new generation and filled with family relics even grandmother couldn't explain. Well John Britain has been living in his house for a long time. And that's why to us who live in a modern house that we built ourselves to suit ourselves. John Britain seems slow moving and put it up with ancient traditions. Kings for instance. The present king rode to his coronation in the same coach to the same church for the same ceremony as his ancestors did. But the job he took on is very different from theirs. They've been some changes. But the British King can no longer make laws or impose taxes or interfere with government. He and his family work as hard as any other citizen doing the job that the people expect of them. Today the king is the servant of the people and not its ruler. When an American is arrested and brought to trial the bail of Carl's case. The people versus John Doe. But if such a case were called in Britain it would be the king versus John Doe. It means the same thing. Today the British King is the symbol of the people. The British are great fans of the fellow in Buckingham Palace. But when they sing God saved the king. They're not worrying about his health. They mean God blessed the British people. And the dukes and the earls. But in 1911 the people took away the last remaining power of the Lords to block the action of the people's representatives. Dukes and earls don't run the country anymore. Today there are only two people who do that. John Bitten and his wife. They go to the polls just as Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public do here and elect their representatives to the House of Commons. And there they fix the taxes and make the laws. And if John wanted to get rid of the Lords his representatives in Commons can at any time vote them out of existence. But John doesn't want to get rid of them. So he confuses us by keeping Dukes and Lords in a country where unions have long been accepted as an essential part of the democratic system where the Labour Party controlled by the unions is one of the two great political parties where Longshoremen and railroad engineers have been ministers of the Crown and where for 30 years he has had a system of social security even more extensive than our own. So when you read about Lord Lewis Mountbatten or Lord Beaverbrook former head of aircraft production don't think they got their jobs because of their titles. They got them because they were the best man for the jobs just as Ernest Devon formerly a Labour leader and now a member of the Royal Cabinet Herbert Morrison who started life as an errand boy and is now a Minister of Home Security got their important jobs because they were the best man for them. With the things on the surface the unimportant things they're John Britton and our John Q. Public Dipper but the important part of their lives they run the same way. The democratic way the freeway but this gentleman never bothered about the truth. And when John Britton started carrying the war to Germany he tried a new line. Let's take a look at that one. Here's the British Empire and here's where the Germans were headed when Britain declared war. Does that look like trying to save the Empire? Tackling Germany when it was headed into Poland and toward Russia the one direction in which there were no British possessions after Poland fell Hitler hinted at peace with the British. This was the perfect chance to save the Empire but it wasn't saving the Empire that the British were thinking about. The position of his military government in respect of any peace offer by Hitler. We are not in any circumstances prepared to negotiate with him at any time on any subject. And after Britain had been on the losing end month after month it had another chance to save the Empire. Even now Hitler thought John Britton would make a deal. We heard the British answer. What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget. And let's take a look at this British Empire. The freedom we fought for in 1776. Britton has since really given to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. These are independent nations with their own parliaments, their own laws, even their own money systems, their own tariffs, which often worked to Britton's disadvantage, their own armies and navies. Britton couldn't even take them into war if she wanted to. That's a problem they settle for themselves. Each one of the British Commonwealth of Nations declared war on Germany of its own free will. Of course no one ever talks about the British Empire today without mentioning India. And men of goodwill in Britain as well as other countries have been outspoken in their demands for Indian freedom. For no man who believes in democracy can support foreign rule of any people. But there are things that many of us do not know about India. For instance, that India pays no taxes to Britain either directly or indirectly, that the Indians fix their own tariff laws frequently to Britton's disadvantage, that of the Vice-Droy's Executive Council, 11 of the 15 members are Indians. And in the courts, 10 of every 11 judges. Furthermore, that no Indian is ever conscripted for service in the Army and Navy. It was voluntary enlistment that raised the Indian Army from 170,000 at the outbreak of war to a million and a quarter today. And on the subject of India, listened to the words of Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts. He fought against the British 40 years ago, was defeated in his fight and still became the leader of one of the British Commonwealth of Nations, Prime Minister of South Africa. India, if she will, can be free in the same way and by the same means as Canada, Australia, New Zealand are today free sovereign states. Their peoples worked out a constitution for themselves. The same course is open to India. If the peoples of India will agree about the terms of a free constitution. Freedom isn't a thing that can be imposed from without. It can only be created from within. The Indians have a responsibility to reconcile the differences that exist in the vast Indian population with its hundred different languages, its dozens of different religions. And on March the 11th, 1942, the British government placed itself on record and promised full self-government to India if India will work out a constitution that will satisfy its people after the war is over. But during this war, military leaders agree allied troops are needed in India as an effective block by the democratic world to keep the Nazis and Japs from uniting. Further, India provides the bases for United Nations bombers to get at the Japs in Burma. In other parts of the Empire too, democracy stands on guard. If it wasn't for the British at Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Suez, Alexandria, and they're hanging on to them regardless of the cost and their drive across Libya to Tripoli, there would have been no American landing in North Africa. Another tune the Nazis play about the British Empire. The British are sitting back, letting others fight the war for them. We know that tune very well. Britain will fight to the last Australian or Canadian or New Zealanders. The truth that thousands of Canadians and Australians and New Zealanders have gallantly fought and gallantly died in Crete, in Greece, in Libya. But there's something the Nazi mouthpiece leaves out, something pretty important. Out of every 10 inhabitants of the British Empire, one comes from Britain. But of the casualties suffered so far in this war, seven out of 10 were born and raised in Britain. One of 10 in population, seven of 10 in casualties. And in the air of the planes flying with the RAF in Britain, two out of three are manned by crew from the island. And at the planes on the overseas fronts, the western desert in Africa and the west, four out of five are manned by boys from Britain. And then there's a little thing called the British Navy. From 1588, when it lit the Spanish Armada to 1940, when we got moving on a two ocean navy, the greatest battle fleet in the world, that too is manned almost entirely by men of Britain. The little island in the Atlantic, an island of seafarers. And the British merchant navy, still the greatest merchant navy in the world, in spite of all that Hitler can do. Men from every British town and village in the stoke holes of 10,000 ships, on ice-coated decks, in grimy engine rooms, men who have been torpedoed twice three times. A sailor who's been torpedoed six times and still signed on again. But we never hear about these things because of a curious character whose ways will never be completely understandable to an American. John Britton himself. He has an idea he shouldn't talk about himself, what he does. He calls it bad form. We call it damn silly. He'd say of a spitfire. Oh, she's not bad, little kite. But this man, the boss of the German Air Force, can tell us that the spitfire has been the most deadly fighter in the world. And we certainly need an interpreter when this happens. Hello, Bob. Any good trip? All right. All right. Except that he spent two days in the icy waters of the North Atlantic after being torpedoed on the way to Mermansk. See this man? His name is Witten Brown. And this man, believe it or not, is the first man who flew the Atlantic nonstop. In nineteen hundred and nineteen, eight years before anyone else, he and John Alcock flew nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland. But as usual, the British let it go with that. And Witten Brown went back into obscurity. There's nothing wrong with John Britton that a correspondence course in showmanship wouldn't cure. For a moment, imagine that you're not American, but British. You'd still be in uniform, for in Britain, every man between the age of eighteen and forty-one, unless he cannot be replaced at a vital workbench, is already in uniform. Your old man, too. He's had to quit gassing about the last war, for they're now starting to graft men up to fifty-one. Dependents are no dependents. If you've got yourself into this mess, your draft board will say, rightfully sorry, old chap, but you're in the army anyway. And your kid's sister, if she isn't a sailor, or in the air force, or the land army, or a ferry pilot, or in the fire brigade, she's probably in the army. Well, they drafted unmarried women up to thirty. And even if she's married, every woman up to forty-one can be drafted to work in war plans. And it's a real draft for eight million workers, men and women, can't quit their jobs or be fired without government permission. Britain is only twenty miles from German guns and German planes. Everybody, man or woman, young or old, is in the front line. This isn't your idea of Britain. The ads were different, and you wondered whether they still made bows and arrows at the village forge. The ads kept quiet about industry. Just as this one leaves out the aircraft plants and the oil fields. Well, they have the rich green fields you've read about, the quiet country lanes. But they also have the steel mills of Sheffield, the Pittsburgh of Britain. They have the picturesque little villages, the gently flowing streams, the lovely old castles. But they also have the shipyards of the River Clyde, not as modern as Henry Kaiser's, but still one of the greatest in the world. They have the old cathedrals, deathless reminders of a rich tradition. But they also have the great industrial cities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds. They seldom have ever saw an American tourist, but they made Britain, even in peacetime, one of the greatest industrial powers in the world. And in wartime, even as late as July 1942, this little island, no larger than the state of Idaho, was making more war goods than we were. Maybe you thought John Britain sat there and waited for us to send him planes and guns and tanks. Well, he's deeply grateful for what our lend least did for him. It saved his skin when he was in a tough spot. But today, lend least works in more ways than one. For today, John Britain himself furnishes planes and guns and tanks through the same lend least, to us, to Russia and his other allies all over the world. In Britain alone, our forces have received free from the British a million and a half tons of food, clothing and munitions and two and a half million tons of other materials. There's another thing you ought to know about Britain. If your unit gets sent there, you probably won't be invited out for supper or for a drink. That's not because the British don't want to entertain you. They haven't anything to entertain you with. Britain is mobilized for war, total war. And that means an end to civilian supplies. If you were a British, you wouldn't expect your girl to use lipstick. There isn't any except what we bring over as bait. She wouldn't be smartly dressed for clothes or rationed, severely rationed. It's very unlikely she wears stockings. But if she bought a pair of stockings a month, that would be all the clothes of any kind she could buy. That's some rationing. We think our gas rationing is tough. But John Britain gets no gas at all. He goes to a pub to buy a bottle of whiskey. The pubkeeper laughs in his face. Grain is needed for industrial alcohol. Industrial alcohol is needed for munitions. And nearly all the reserve stock of British whiskey is kept for sale to America to pay for the goods Britain buys here. But don't forget, besides lend lease, Britain buys and pays for vast quantities of goods. And it was the cash purchases that Britain made before we entered the war that gave our munitions industry its start and enabled us to build it up in record time. He goes to buy a pack of cigarettes. There probably aren't any. But if there are two cities, please that's 40 cents for a pack of cigarettes. 12 cents represent the cost of the cigarettes. The other 28 the tax paid to the government for Britain is going all out in taxation. Nobody is making any money out of this war. Industry is paying excess profits tax is 100% labor is paying the man who earns $33 a week pays 29% income tax and the rich man there are any of them left pays an income tax of no less than 97.5% and then there's the little matter of food. There are not many fat men in England nowadays. But John Britain isn't kicking. He knows one egg a week is helping him to win the war. The British rations are the rations of a free people. They could get food as they did in peacetime from Canada. Australia. But that would take ships. And the British prefer to use the ships for supplies to Russia. Plains from America troops to the Mediterranean. To win the war every Britisher is on short rations and has been on short rations for two years. Everybody except the children. They get four times the eggs that grown ups do. They get all the oranges that arrive in Britain. And practically all of the extra milk. John Britain is thinking of after the war. Of the new world that his children and ours will inherit. A world where there will not only be freedom of speech and freedom of worship but also freedom from what and freedom from fear. This is not given to us. The pure into the space of the future. I allow my hope and faith. Sure and inviolate. But in the days to come the British and American people. Will for their own safety and for the good of all. Work together in majesty in justice and in peace. This is what the British are fighting for. They are unknown. A stubborn people and sometimes they have moved slowly. But in three years of blood and sweat and tears John Britain has found his soul. Now he is determined and now he knows where he is marching to victory and to a new world. He's a good man to have on our team.