I wonder if the pacifist letter from the Lafayette College faculty was due to isolationist attitudes or leftist support for the Hitler Stalin pact. In those days there were still conservative colleges
No doubt primarily isolationism, to which the vast majority of Americans still agreed. If some also supported Stalin, well, who would ever know?
However, here's what seems important about this:
Twice now that I have seen, the New York Times has printed articles opposing President Roosevelt's recent supposedly "pro-war" speech.
But I've seen no NY Times reports on FDR's speech itself, or any comments favorable to it.
If this was the consistent pattern of the "mainstream media" prior to Pearl Harbor, then is there any wonder that FDR's frequent efforts to arouse the nation had no appreciable results?
I've said before that it seemed the NY Times was essentially (then as now) the Democrat President's house organ.
But if this little story is representative, it makes me wonder if, possibly, the NY Times was actually marching to some other drummer?