 Strict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and the sharpest fears of all ages. We can turn rivers in their courses, level mountains to the plains, ocean and land and sky are avenues for our colossal commerce. Disease diminishes and life lengthens. Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations of mass wealth, labor sweats to create and turns out devices to level not only mountains, but also cities, seems ready to confer upon us as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet. At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our fathers. It is our faith in the deathless dignity of man governed by eternal moral and natural laws. This faith defines our full view of life, any magic of free labor and capital. Nothing lies safely beyond the reach of this struggle. Freedom is pitted against slavery, likeness against the dark. The faith we hold belongs not to us alone, but to the free of all the world. This common bond binds the grower of rice in Burma and the platter of wheat in Iowa, the shepherd in southern Italy and the mountaineer in the Andes. It confers a common dignity upon the French soldier who dies in Indochina, the British soldier killed in Malaya, the American life given in Korea. We know beyond this that we are linked to all free peoples, not merely by a noble idea, but by a simple need. No free people can for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any safety in economic solitude. For all our own material might, even we, need markets in the world for the surpluses of our farms and our factories. Equally, we need for these same farms and factories vital materials and products of distant lands. This basic law of interdependence, so manifest in the commerce of peace, applies with thousandfold intensity in the event of war. So are we persuaded by necessity and by belief that the strength of all free peoples lies in unity. They are danger in discord. To produce this unity, to meet the challenge of our time, destiny has laid upon our country the responsibility of the free world's leadership. So it is proper that we assure our friends once again that in the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know, and we observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism, between firmness and truculence, between a thoughtfully calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the stimulus of emergencies. We wish our friends the world over to know this by which every participating nation will prove good faith in carrying out his pledge. Number two, realizing that common sense and common decency alike dictate the futility of appeasement, we shall never try to placate an aggressor by the false and wicked bargain of trading honor for security. For Americans, indeed all free men remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains. Number three, an economic institution. Assessing realistically the needs and capacities of proven friends of freedom, we shall strive to help them to achieve their own security and well-being. Likewise, we shall count upon them to assume within the limits of their resources their full and just burdens in the common defense of freedom. For some of the palm reachmen of any single people in the world means danger to the well-being of all other peoples. Number seven, appreciating that economic need with the different problems of different areas. In the Western Hemisphere, we enthusiastically join with all our neighbors in the work of perfecting a community of fraternal trust and common purpose. In Europe, we ask that enlightened and inspired leaders of the Western nations strive with renewed vigor to make the unity of their peoples a reality. Only as free Europe unitedly marshals its strength can it effectively safeguard, even with our help, its spiritual and cultural heritage. Number eight, conceiving the defense of freedom like freedom itself to be one and indivisible. We hold all continents and peoples in equal regard and honor. We reject any insinuation at one race or another. One people or another is in any sense inferior or expendable. By these rules of conduct, we hope to be known to all peoples. By their observance and earth of peace, nation must rule the way we live. We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose. We must be willing, individually and as a nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both these basic priests and the wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists. And so each citizen plays an indispensable role. The productivity of our heads, our hands and our echo hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. The peace we seek then is nothing less than the practice and the fulfillment of our whole faith among ourselves and in our dealings with others. It signifies more than the stealing of guns, easing the sorrow of war. More than escape from death, it is a way of life. More than a haven for the weary, it is a hope for the brave. This is the hope that beckons us onward in this century of trial. This is the work that awaits us all to be done with bravery, with charity and with prayer to Almighty God. My citizens, I thank you.