State of the Union AddressesRoosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Were I today to deliver an Inaugural Address to the people of the United
States, I could not limit my comments on world affairs to one paragraph.
With much regret I should be compelled to devote the greater part to world
affairs. Since the summer of that same year of 1933, the temper and the
purposes of the rulers of many of the great populations in Europe and in
Asia have not pointed the way either to peace or to good-will among men.
Not only have peace and good-will among men grown more remote in those
areas of the earth during this period, but a point has been reached where
the people of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of
marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening
tempers--a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the
tragedy of general war.
On those other continents many Nations, principally the smaller peoples, if
left to themselves, would be content with their boundaries and willing to
solve within themselves and in cooperation with their neighbors their
individual problems, both economic and social. The rulers of those Nations,
deep in their hearts, follow these peaceful and reasonable aspirations of
their peoples. These rulers must remain ever vigilant against the
possibility today or tomorrow of invasion or attack by the rulers of other
peoples who fail to subscribe to the principles of bettering the human race
by peaceful means.
Within those other Nations--those which today must bear the primary,
definite responsibility for jeopardizing world peace--what hope lies? To
say the least, there are grounds for pessimism. It is idle for us or for
others to preach that the masses of the people who constitute those Nations
which are dominated by the twin spirits of autocracy and aggression, are
out of sympathy with their rulers, that they are allowed no opportunity to
express themselves, that they would change things if they could.
That, unfortunately, is not so clear. It might be true that the masses of
the people in those Nations would change the policies of their Governments
if they could be allowed full freedom and full access to the processes of
democratic government as we understand them. But they do not have that
access; lacking it they follow blindly and fervently the lead of those who
seek autocratic power.
Nations seeking expansion, seeking the rectification of injustices
springing from former wars, or seeking outlets for trade, for population or
even for their own peaceful contributions to the progress of civilization,
fail to demonstrate that patience necessary to attain reasonable and
legitimate objectives by peaceful negotiation or by an appeal to the finer
instincts of world justice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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