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
An ordering of society which relegates religion, democracy and good faith
among nations to the background can find no place within it for the ideals
of the Prince of Peace. The United States rejects such an ordering, and
retains its ancient faith.
There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend,
not their homes alone, but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their
churches, their governments and their very civilization are founded. The
defense of religion, of democracy and of good faith among nations is all
the same fight. To save one we must now make up our minds to save all.
We know what might happen to us of the United States if the new
philosophies of force were to encompass the other continents and invade our
own. We, no more than other nations, can afford to be surrounded by the
enemies of our faith and our humanity. Fortunate it is, therefore, that in
this Western Hemisphere we have, under a common ideal of democratic
government, a rich diversity of resources and of peoples functioning
together in mutual respect and peace.
That Hemisphere, that peace, and that ideal we propose to do our share in
protecting against storms from any quarter. Our people and our resources
are pledged to secure that protection. From that determination no American
flinches.
This by no means implies that the American Republics disassociate
themselves from the nations of other continents. It does not mean the
Americas against the rest of the world. We as one of the Republics
reiterate our willingness to help the cause of world peace. We stand on our
historic offer to take counsel with all other nations of the world to the
end that aggression among them be terminated, that the race of armaments
cease and that commerce be renewed.
But the world has grown so small and weapons of attack so swift that no
nation can be safe in its will to peace so long as any other powerful
nation refuses to settle its grievances at the council table.
For if any government bristling with implements of war insists on policies
of force, weapons of defense give the only safety.
In our foreign relations we have learned from the past what not to do. From
new wars we have learned what we must do.
We have learned that effective timing of defense, and the distant points
from which attacks may be launched are completely different from what they
were twenty years ago.
We have learned that survival cannot be guaranteed by arming after the
attack begins--for there is new range and speed to offense.
We have learned that long before any overt military act, aggression begins
with preliminaries of propaganda, subsidized penetration, the loosening of
ties of good will, the stirring of prejudice and the incitement to
disunion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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