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United Nations

SHORTLY AFTER WAR came to the United States this Government proposed that the nations arrayed against the Axis powers join together in a declaration pledging cooperation in the prosecution of the war and agreeing not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies. As a result, there was signed at Washington such a declaration, dated January 1, 1942, by representatives of the following Governments: United States of America, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, and Yugoslavia. It is open to adherence by "other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism". During 1942 it was adhered to by Mexico, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, and Ethiopia.

This document, "Declaration by United Nations", states that the signatory Governments subscribe to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the Atlantic Charter and are "convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world". Each signatory pledges itself "to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which such government is at war"; and "to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies". (274)

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