196 e lusive v ictories
administration had backed in the First World War. Opposition to the
war scarcely existed after Pearl Harbor, sparing him one challenge that
had beset all of his wartime predecessors. Isolationists were immediately
silenced, sometimes vilifi ed. Readers of the anti-interventionist Chicago
Tribune , which had published key details of the Victory Program just
days before the Japanese struck, canceled their subscriptions by the
thousands. Most foes of American intervention fell into line behind
the war effort. A mere handful of dissidents faced government
repression.
“Remember Pearl Harbor!” might do for a start, but vengeance alone
would not suffi ce to sustain popular support for a war eff ort that prom-
ised to be long and costly. Early on, the president voiced certain core
principles as the moral basis for the Allied war eff ort. Th e 1941 Atlantic
Charter expressed an American commitment to a peaceful world order
based upon a commitment to self-determination, very much in the
Wilsonian spirit. Shortly after the United States entered the war, Roos-
evelt improved upon that initial statement of purposes by celebrating
what he denoted as the “Four Freedoms”—freedom of speech, freedom
to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Th e list was
part reiteration of basic civil liberties, part extension of the New Deal
principle of economic security, and part promise of protection against
aggression. Opinion polls suggested that Americans drew a broader
sense of purpose from the president’s words, though they more often
saw the war not as a noble struggle but as a dirty job that had to be
done.
Popular support for the war refl ected the unique manner in which
Americans experienced their participation in the global struggle. Not
only was it a good war in moral terms, but it was a good one in its eco-
nomic benefi ts. Alone among the citizens of the belligerent nations,
Americans enjoyed a rising standard of living, notwithstanding wartime
shortages. Further, building upon the president’s prewar “arsenal of
democracy” approach, political and military leaders continued to stress
the material contribution the United States would make to the Allied
war eff ort. Th is helped to limit American casualties, which Roosevelt
believed important in sustaining morale among a population that he
suspected still had strong isolationist impulses. Indeed, the approach
worked almost too well before 1944: Americans felt detached from the