By Jeremy Dibbell

Our February Object of the Month is a 15 February 1939 letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to historian Roger Merriman, FDR’s former teacher at Harvard and in 1939 the vice president of the MHS. In this letter, Roosevelt bemoans what he calls the “We who are about to die, salute you” attitude exhibited by the British, recounting to Merriman a recent visit by the British ambassador, Lord Lothian which made him “mad clear through.” He ends his letter thus: “What the British need today is a good stiff grog, inducing not only the desire to save civilization but the continued belief that they can do it. In such an event they will have a lot more support from their American cousins — don’t you think so?”

You can see images of the letter, read a transcription, and get some more background here, in Tracy Potter’s Object of the Month essay.