And if the security of the individual citizen, or the family, should become
a subject of national debate, the country knows where I stand.
I say this now to this Seventy-eighth Congress, because it is wholly
possible that freedom from want--the right of employment, the right of
assurance against life's hazards--will loom very large as a task of America
during the coming two years.
I trust it will not be regarded as an issue--but rather as a task for all of
us to study sympathetically, to work out with a constant regard for the
attainment of the objective, with fairness to all and with injustice to
none.
In this war of survival we must keep before our minds not only the evil
things we fight against but the good things we are fighting for. We fight
to retain a great past--and we fight to gain a greater future.
Let us remember, too, that economic safety for the America of the future is
threatened unless a greater economic stability comes to the rest of the
world. We cannot make America an island in either a military or an economic
sense. Hitlerism, like any other form of crime or disease, can grow from
the evil seeds of economic as well as military feudalism.
Victory in this war is the first and greatest goal before us. Victory in
the peace is the next. That means striving toward the enlargement of the
security of man here and throughout the world--and, finally, striving for
the fourth freedom--freedom from fear.
It is of little account for any of us to talk of essential human needs, of
attaining security, if we run the risk of another World War in ten or
twenty or fifty years. That is just plain common sense. Wars grow in size,
in death and destruction, and in the inevitability of engulfing all
Nations, in inverse ratio to the shrinking size of the world as a result of
the conquest of the air. I shudder to think of what will happen to
humanity, including ourselves, if this war ends in an inconclusive peace,
and another war breaks out when the babies of today have grown to fighting
age.
Every normal American prays that neither he nor his sons nor his grandsons
will be compelled to go through this horror again.
Undoubtedly a few Americans, even now, think that this Nation can end this
war comfortably and then climb back into an American hole and pull the hole
in after them.
But we have learned that we can never dig a hole so deep that it would be
safe against predatory animals. We have also learned that if we do not pull
the fangs of the predatory animals of this world, they will multiply and
grow in strength--and they will be at our throats again once more in a
short generation.
Most Americans realize more clearly than ever before that modern war
equipment in the hands of aggressor Nations can bring danger overnight to
our own national existence or to that of any other Nation--or island--or
continent.
It is clear to us that if Germany and Italy and Japan--or any one of them--
remain armed at the end of this war, or are permitted to rearm, they will
again, and inevitably, embark upon an ambitious career of world conquest.
They must be disarmed and kept disarmed, and they must abandon the
philosophy, and the teaching of that philosophy, which has brought so much
suffering to the world.
After the first World War we tried to achieve a formula for permanent
peace, based on a magnificent idealism. We failed. But, by our failure, we
have learned that we cannot maintain peace at this stage of human
development by good intentions alone.
Today the United Nations are the mightiest military coalition in all
history. They represent an overwhelming majority of the population of the
world. Bound together in solemn agreement that they themselves will not
commit acts of aggression or conquest against any of their neighbors, the
United Nations can and must remain united for the maintenance of peace by
preventing any attempt to rearm in Germany, in Japan, in Italy, or in any
other Nation which seeks to violate the Tenth Commandment--"Thou shalt not
covet."
There are cynics, there are skeptics who say it cannot be done. The
American people and all the freedom-loving peoples of this earth are now
demanding that it must be done. And the will of these people shall
prevail.
The very philosophy of the Axis powers is based on a profound contempt for
the human race. If, in the formation of our future policy, we were guided
by the same cynical contempt, then we should be surrendering to the
philosophy of our enemies, and our victory would turn to defeat.
The issue of this war is the basic issue between those who believe in
mankind and those who do not--the ancient issue between those who put their
faith in the people and those who put their faith in dictators and tyrants.
There have always been those who did not believe in the people, who
attempted to block their forward movement across history, to force them
back to servility and suffering and silence.
The people have now gathered their strength. They are moving forward in
their might and power--and no force, no combination of forces, no trickery,
deceit, or violence, can stop them now. They see before them the hope of
the world--a decent, secure, peaceful life for men everywhere.