"In God we trust" was left out of Roosevelt speech at the WWII memorial

We have to write congress and have them correct this. We should write "the good press" in hopes that they will take up the cause. ---- But we have to spread the work and raise hell about the rewriting of history ---- again.

Re-writting history again

Here is the Snopes on it:

Claim: A display at the National World War II Memorial omits key words from a speech by President Roosevelt.

Status: False.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]

Origins: On 29 May 2004, as part of the annual U.S. Memorial Day observances honoring those who died in our nation's service, the long-awaited National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., was formally dedicated. (The memorial had opened for public viewing a month prior to its official dedication ceremonies.)

To most Americans — particularly those who lived through World War II itself — no words associated with that conflict are more familiar or more stirring than those delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he stood before Congress on 8 December 1941, the day after the surprise attack by Japanese forces on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and asked for a declaration of war against Japan. Accordingly, no American memorial to World War II would be complete without a reproduction of at least a portion of President Roosevelt's memorable speech.

The message quoted above (which, as far as we can tell, is a reworking of an item published in the Washington Times on 4 June 2004) claims that the portion of FDR's 8 December 1941 speech inscribed on the side of the memorial dedicated to the war in the Pacific deliberately omits the words 'so help us God,' as uttered by President Roosevelt that day, because 'We're not supposed to say things like that now.' Ironically, this claim appears to be based on a flawed recall of FDR's speech, the very sort of tampering with memory that the message warns us against.

Here is the complete text of President Roosevelt's 8 December 1941 address to Congress:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
Only a very short excerpt from President Roosevelt's speech is inscribed on the National World War II Memorial. The sentence that ends "so help us God" wasn't edited to remove those final four words — the phrase "so help us God" isn't there because the sentence that contains it doesn't appear on the memorial at all. The words inscribed on the memorial were taken from a completely different sentence delivered earlier in the speech, which is reproduced in its entirety:

Last updated: 8 June 2004

This was discussed last weekend.

The part of the speech on the monument was definitely edited for length. There are several lines missing from the middle, and there are several lines in the speech after the end of the passage quoted on the monument.

Other than the fact that the line is missing, is there and definite proof that the line was intentionally left out?

This alternate reality is the hell we have all feared so long, a day when the U.S. would sink to the level of nations our founders sought to escape from.

It pains me to ponder if Ronald Reagan was right when he said this nation would continue to be that bright and shining city on a hill. If this and other examples are any indicator, the legacy of our beloved President cannot stand.

Today portions of that legacy are swiss cheese. While it pains me to say it, pretending otherwise would be a far greater pain, for it would mean that we are willing to abandon that legacy.

No, we must fight for that legacy. Religion is an integral part of what this nation is. We cannot watch it's lights extinguished by the socialist hoards. To do so would be to say good-bye to that shining city.

Make the call. Write the letter. Disemble the socialist left every waking moment, for that is what they seek to do to your ideals.

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MEL's -PASSION- sparked by -WE WERE SOLDIERS-

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39081

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This is poorly titled. "In God we trust" has nothing to do with what's being discussed. It is so help us God. By the way the phrase "In God we trust" wasnt added to pledge of allegiance until the 50's.

This is a case of faulty memory.

The snopes article posted above shows the speech. This line, which some people assumed was FDR's final line ending with SO HELP US GOD is NOT that line, it is a line used several sentences before that last line.

Someone goofed, but the FDR library did not misquoe FDR, they just used a different line...maybe to leave out SO HELP US GOD...I dunno...

Thanks for the comments. Interesting...

Edited for length? It's just a small excerpt, two sentences total. The opening sentence and one from near the middle.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/graphics/speech.jpg

I assume that, since this story has been thoroughly debunked, you'll be cancelling your call to Congress, right?

That's my point

I need some assistance here to get this straight. (Two cups of coffee have yet to clear the fog from my head.)

From Post 1:

"But right there it was on page 58. Roosevelt's speech to the nation. It ends "so help us God."

The sentence above starts out with "It ends..." Does "it" refer to how the speech ends, or is "it" referring to how that particular sentence ends?

From the original post, I gather that the memorial reads:

"With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph."

Per snopes.com, the original Roosevelt speech reads:

"With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God."

I can see why the speech was edited for the monument, but why quote that one sentence and then not quote it accurately? What am I missing here?

The snopes.com site should clarify everything, but I'll give you the information that you've requested.

The sentence that contains 'so help us God' is the second to last sentence, as such it was likely that 'it ends' referred specificaly to that sentence rather than the end of the speech. Then again, the person who wrote it might not have been paying attention to the last sentence.

To say that the speech was "edited" for the monument is an understatement. The monument quotes exactly two sentences, no more and no less. That's not editing, that's excerpting. I even provided the URL to the image of the monument that appears on snopes.com -- I would have linked it directly, but Snopes doesn't care for direct-linking. The two (and ONLY two) sentences that the monument quotes are quoted correctly. The full quote on the monument is

DECEMBER 7, 1941, A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY... NO MATTER HOW LONG IT MAY TAKE US TO OVERCOME THE PREDETERMINED INVASION, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, IN THEIR RIGHTEOUS MIGHT, WILL WIN TRHOUGH TO ABSOLUTE VICTORY. PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT

As you can see, the sentence that ends in 'so help us God', "With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God. " is not quoted in any way, shape or form. Also not quoted are "Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.", "It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago." or "Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. ". It's not an edited version of the speech, it's just a very short exceprt of two sentences.

Like I said, much ado about nothing. Someone either remembered incorrectly or (more likely, IMO) wanted to start trouble and spread this story and others, enraged by perceived PC-censorship and unfettered by concepts of "fact-checking" have been spreading it around the 'net and crying out for a letter-writing campaign to congress.

Thanks. I see where I was screwing up. My problem was that I misunderstood what was actually on the monument.

Personal update: I'm on my 4th cup of coffee now and not feeling quite as foggy-headed as before.

(I knew you'd probably wanna know that!) =;^)

What bothers me about bogus urban legends that have a political slant is that the slant is almost always conservative in nature, with the story written to either point out a silly mistake that some famous liberal supposedly made (but did not) or to point out some "outrageous" happening sparked by the action(s) of one or more liberals that never really happened. Moreover, urban legends that touch on religious issues almost always take the "pro-" side of religion, sometimes in the form of an inspirational story and sometimes about some smug and cocky nonreligious person getting their comeuppance. This particular urban legend has elemnts of both, pro-religious outrage over the actions of those who are presumably liberal.

You also hear stories about NASA finding a "missing day" in space, one about a little girl who says that Jesus held her the night that her parents died (a sickening piece of glurge that inspired a Country Western song), an atheist professor who just can't seem to break his chalk, another atheist professor humiliated by a Christian student who points out that the atheist's own "reasoning" proves that his brain does not exist (sometimes told as a parable, but more often recounted as a "true" story), a story about Al Gore citing John 16:3 as his favourite Bible verse, another about Gore calling Christians a "blight on the environment" in Earth in the Balance, and still another that reveals Gore to be the senator who derides Oliver North after North testifies that Osama bin Laden is a dangerous terrorist and that the US should swiftly eliminate him and one about Janet Reno referring to cultists as "someone who has a strong belief in the Bible..." on 60 Minutes.

Rarely do you hear about an urban legend that puts Bush in an unflattering light or where a religious person has what they thought was a miraculous event exposed as a perfectly normal, mundane happening. I'm not saying that such urban legends don't exist, but they're far outnumbered by legends making fun of liberals and atheists. Yes, there was a list of silly quotes supposedly uttered by Dan Quayle (I actually recognized a few as having come from an ancient issue of MAD Magazine, written there as "Quayle Quotes We're Likely to Hear Soon"), but then that exact list was later attributed to Al Gore (to be fair, it was then later attributed to Bush Jr.).

Why is this? Are people more likely to make up stories about liberals, are people more likely to believe stories about liberals, or are the people who would want to believe such stories just less likely to check the facts before spreading the garbage around when they're conservative rather than liberal? Perhaps it's an issue of religious people being more likely to believe an urban legend without investigating it rationally than a nonreligious person (and since conservatives tend to be, on average, more religious than liberals...). Whatever it is, it doesn't help our cause at all.

"so help us God." ?!?!?! oh noooo not that extreemist hate speech !?!

Do check further in this discussion. The story is false.

Something extremely important was INTENTIONALLY left out.

I thank Joyce for sending this. I have researched it, and this is true, sadly. I am writing my Congressman, immediately!

"so help us God."