Question

In January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt answered the "America First" of his day - and foresaw the "America First" of ours:

"We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests."

Answer 1

Yes, according to Archives.gov this is real. The longer quote is:

"As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the "ism" of appeasement.

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests."

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-franklin-roosevelts-annual-message-to-congress

Comments

Yes this is very much true. You added a great source that I would like to piggy-back off of from what the meaning of this speech meant. It's titled, "Four Freedoms Speech", in to which Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms in which he believed that all people should poses, some being in correlation/familiar with the bill of rights as well as adding some words of his own, which includes, "freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear."