Mobilizing for War

The time had come, Roosevelt announced, for the prescriptions of “Dr. New Deal” to be re-placed by the stronger medicines of “Dr. Win-the-War.” Military and civilian leaders rushed to secure the nation against possible attacks, causing Americans with Japanese ancestry to be stigmatized and sent to internment camps. Roosevelt and his advisers lost no time enlisting millions of Americans in the armed forces to bring the isolationist-era military to fighting strength for a two-front war. The war emergency also required economic mobilization unparalleled in the nation’s history. As Dr. Win-the-War, Roosevelt set aside the New Deal goal of reform and plunged headlong into transforming the American economy into the world’s greatest military machine, thereby achieving full employment and economic recovery, goals that had eluded the New Deal.