State of the Union AddressesRoosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
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State of the Union Addresses
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Pending action by the Congress on the broader aspects of national service,
I recommend that the Congress immediately enact legislation which will be
effective in using the services of the 4,000,000 men now classified as IV-F
in whatever capacity is best for the war effort.
In the field of foreign policy, we propose to stand together with the
United Nations not for the war alone but for the victory for which the war
is fought.
It is not only a common danger which unites us but a common hope. Ours is
an association not of Governments but of peoples--and the peoples' hope is
peace. Here, as in England; in England, as in Russia; in Russia, as in
China; in France, and through the continent of Europe, and throughout the
world; wherever men love freedom, the hope and purpose of the people are
for peace--a peace that is durable and secure.
It will not be easy to create this peoples' peace. We delude ourselves if
we believe that the surrender of the armies of our enemies will make the
peace we long for. The unconditional surrender of the armies of our enemies
is the first and necessary step--but the first step only.
We have seen already, in areas liberated from the Nazi and the Fascist
tyranny, what problems peace will bring. And we delude ourselves if we
attempt to believe wishfully that all these problems can be solved
overnight.
The firm foundation can be built--and it will be built. But the continuance
and assurance of a living peace must, in the long run, be the work of the
people themselves.
We ourselves, like all peoples who have gone through the difficult
processes of liberation and adjustment, know of our own experience how
great the difficulties can be. We know that they are not difficulties
peculiar to any continent or any Nation. Our own Revolutionary War left
behind it, in the words of one American historian, "an eddy of lawlessness
and disregard of human life." There were separatist movements of one kind
or another in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and
Maine. There were insurrections, open or threatened, in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire. These difficulties we worked out for ourselves as the
peoples of the liberated areas of Europe, faced with complex problems of
adjustment, will work out their difficulties for themselves.
Peace can be made and kept only by the united determination of free and
peace-loving peoples who are willing to work together--willing to help one
another--willing to respect and tolerate and try to understand one another's
opinions and feelings.
The nearer we come to vanquishing our enemies the more we inevitably become
conscious of differences among the victors.
We must not let those differences divide us and blind us to our more
important common and continuing interests in winning the war and building
the peace.
International cooperation on which enduring peace must be based is not a
one-way street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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