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
They have therefore impatiently reverted to the old belief in the law of
the sword, or to the fantastic conception that they, and they alone, are
chosen to fulfill a mission and that all the others among the billion and a
half of human beings in the world must and shall learn from and be subject
to them.
I recognize and you will recognize that these words which I have chosen
with deliberation will not prove popular in any Nation that chooses to fit
this shoe to its foot. Such sentiments, however, will find sympathy and
understanding in those Nations where the people themselves are honestly
desirous of peace but must constantly align themselves on one side or the
other in the kaleidoscopic jockeying for position which is characteristic
of European and Asiatic relations today. For the peace-loving Nations, and
there are many of them, find that their very identity depends on their
moving and moving again on the chess board of international politics.
I suggested in the spring of 1933 that 85 or 90 percent of all the people
in the world were content with the territorial limits of their respective
Nations and were willing further to reduce their armed forces if every
other Nation in the world would agree to do likewise.
That is equally true today, and it is even more true today that world peace
and world good-will are blocked by only 10 or 15 percent of the world's
population. That is why efforts to reduce armies have thus far not only
failed, but have been met by vastly increased armaments on land and in the
air. That is why even efforts to continue the existing limits on naval
armaments into the years to come show such little current success.
But the policy of the United States has been clear and consistent. We have
sought with earnestness in every possible way to limit world armaments and
to attain the peaceful solution of disputes among all Nations.
We have sought by every legitimate means to exert our moral influence
against repression, against intolerance, against autocracy and in favor of
freedom of expression, equality before the law, religious tolerance and
popular rule.
In the field of commerce we have undertaken to encourage a more reasonable
interchange of the world's goods. In the field of international finance we
have, so far as we are concerned, put an end to dollar diplomacy, to money
grabbing, to speculation for the benefit of the powerful and the rich, at
the expense of the small and the poor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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