 During the 1930s, however, American public opinion turned strongly against such themes, and was wary of, if not actively hostile to, idealistic visions of remaking the world through a "just war".Roosevelt, therefore, chose to make an appeal aimed more at the gut level—in effect, an appeal to patriotism, rather than to idealism.Nonetheless, he took pains to draw a symbolic link with the April 1917 declaration of war