‘The Christmas Box of 1942 is shared with the newly-elected Faculty Regent of the University of the Philippines System and the NSTP instructors for their edification and application.’
THE Christmas Box of 1942 contained the following:
- Shortwave radio address of President Quezon to the Philippines (delivered on December 7, 1942): “The Government of the United States, in its political relations with the Government of the Commonwealth has practically given us recognition as a self-governing nation. I am a signatory to the United Nations Pact in the name of the Philippines; I am a full-fledged member of the Pacific War Council; and President Roosevelt and I have already agreed to create a joint commission that is studying the problems of the economic and financial rehabilitation of the Philippines as well as the means of insuring our future security.”
- Benito Mussolini’s speech to the Chamber Of Fasci And Corporations (Rome, December 2, 1942): “War cannot be waged without hating the enemy from morning to night, in all the hours of the day and night, without spreading hatred and without making it an intrinsic part of one’s self. We must rid ourselves once and for all of false sentimentality.”
- British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speech at Bradford Town Hall (England, December 6, 1942): “We are all of us defending something which is, I won’t say dearer but greater than country–namely, a cause. That cause is the cause of freedom and of justice, of the weak against the strong, of law against violence, of mercy and tolerance against brutality and ironbound tyranny. That is the cause we are fighting for–the cause which is moving slowly, painfully, but surely, inevitably, inexorably forward to victory.”
- Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s speech to Falangist Party Council praising German, Italian, and Spanish Fascism (Madrid, December 8, 1942): “For three years of war and for three years of what we wrongly called peace we have had to struggle on in concerted endeavor. No one will be astonished if now, when this phase may be considered overcome, we throw off whatever and whoever would like to deflect us from marching toward fulfillment of our movement…The moment of disillusionment is not far distant. When the war ends and demobilization begins the moment will arrive to settle accounts and to fulfill promises.”
- Statement by the United States Navy Department on the attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (Washington, D. C., December 5, 1942): “The enemy lost 28 aircraft due to Navy action, and the Army pursuit planes that were able to take off shot down more than 20 Japanese planes. In addition, three submarines, of 45 tons each, were accounted for. The damage suffered by the United States Pacific Fleet as result of the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, was most serious, but the repair job now is nearly completed, and thanks to the inspired and unceasing efforts of the naval and civilian personnel attached to the various repair yards, especially at Pearl Harbor itself, this initial handicap soon will be erased forever.”
- Letter of President Quezon to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (December 11, 1942): “From our past conversations, I am sure you and I agree that, in the profoundest sense of the word, the Philippines became independent on the day when – of their own free will – the whole Filipino people sprang to the side of their American comrades to fight the Japanese invaders. For this reason, only the formal proclamation of our independence remains to be issued… There is only one cause the service of which I believe the Filipino people would be willing to place above the cause of Philippine independence. That cause is victory for all the United Nations in the name of the Four Freedoms…There is a way, however, whereby both the cause of the United Nations and the desire of the Filipino people for full independence may be served by a planned move in the grand strategy of the war. This can be done by making the Proclamation of Philippine Independence the great opening salvo of the coming United Nations offensive in the Far East.” [https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1942/12/11/letter-of-president-quezon-to-us-president-franklin-d-roosevelt-december-11-1942/]
The most important item in the Christmas Box of 1942 was the United Nations Declaration of 17 December 1942: “The attention of the Governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Yugoslavia, and of the French National Committee has been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler’s oft repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported, in conditions of appalling horror and brutality, to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi slaughterhouse, the ghettoes established by the German invaders are being systematically emptied of all Jews except a few highly skilled workers required for war industries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labour camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children.”
“The above mentioned Governments and the French National Committee condemn in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such events can only strengthen the resolve of all freedom loving peoples to overthrow the barbarous Hitlerite tyranny. They re-affirm their solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end.” [https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1942/dec/17/united-nations-declaration]
The Christmas Box of 1942 is shared with the newly-elected Faculty Regent of the University of the Philippines System and the NSTP instructors for their edification and application.
“He cannot come to share with us the joys of Christmas Day; The flag has called to him, and he is serving far away. Undaunted, unafraid, and fine he stands to duty grim, And so this Christmas we have tried to ship ourselves to him.” [Edgar A. Guest. “The Christmas Box.” Poems of Patriotism. Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., 1942]
