 security, justice. Everybody's talking or thinking about the problems of peace, total in every sense. The distinction between civilian and soldier was completely erased, but the war is over. Or is it? America was left virtually untouched by enemy bombs. Our strength as a nation today is greater than ever. Powerful as we are, we dare not allow ourselves the luxury of feeling secure. In this age of the atomic bomb, no single nation can be secure until the whole world is committed to a way of international life that outlaws war. It behooves us then to understand the post-war problems of other nations and how they affect the welfare of the world as a whole. In Europe, there is an extreme concentration of problems. The numerous nations of Europe, despite their sharp cultural differences, are all bound together in a tight geographical and economic mesh. At the center of the mesh is Germany. Defeated and demoralized, Germany must have help to reconstruct her life as a nation, or she will degenerate into a political and economic cancer, blocking the reconstruction of Europe and dangering the peace of the world. German industry in normal times was always the big gear in Europe's economy. In addition to her advanced technology, Germany also had the number one ingredient of industrial power, coal, right in her own backyard. Lots of it. Her mammoth industrial plants were fed coal practically on conveyor belts from mine to factory. The entire economy of Europe begins with coal. No coal, no iron and steel, no locomotives or railroad cars to replace those destroyed by war, no rails, no trucks, no farm machinery, no synthetic fertilizer, no food. It's a vicious cycle. In normal times, England exported coal to the continent. Today, she produces little more than enough for her own needs. German coal production, if stepped up to pre-war levels, could be the keystone in rebuilding Europe's whole economy. But coal miners require a substantial food ration, insufficient food, low production, or no production. Another vicious cycle, which is made more acute by the fact that Germany's bread basket, her agricultural area, is cut off from her industrial area by an iron curtain. Until the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union come to agreement about the fundamentals of a German feast treaty, such as boundaries, reparations, and the political and economic structure of the future Germany, there can be no overall European recovery soundly enough balance to ensure peace. This must never again be allowed to grow in Germany. Everyone has agreed about that. But a new crisis is riding Europe. Communism. What are the underlying causes of this bitter turmoil among people who are on the brink of mass starvation? Why aren't these people bending their efforts wholeheartedly to a common sense program of reconstruction? One cause is undoubtedly the overwhelming chaos which faces them on all sides. The peoples of Europe are tired, disillusioned, bitter. The frictions of their daily lives press against raw nerves. They seem to have lost faith in themselves. And faith, some faith, is what they need above all else. A perfect setup for ruthless demagogues. He's selling a kind of faith. Communism. What the communists of Europe want first and foremost is to form a power bloc that will be strong enough to defy the rest of the world. Accusing everybody else in the world of warmongering is a kind of psychological aggression we are all painfully familiar with. The countries in which communists are in control usually work in close alliance with Russia. Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Albania, Czechoslovakia. Add to them the Russian zones of occupation in Austria and Eastern Germany. Then add the countries in which communist leaders are bidding for dominance. Italy, France, Greece, Finland. The map tells its own story. We have given much aid to the impoverished peoples of Europe on simple humanitarian grounds. But as a countermeasure against the attempt by the Soviet Union to communize Europe, the American people saw the necessity for cooperating with the non-communist countries in a comprehensive bipartisan European recovery program passed by Congress and here being signed by President Truman. This program, known also as the Marshall Plan, is designed to afford eligible nations that margin of help in credit and materials which they need to bring their overall economy back to health. Secretary of State Marshall in placing the plan before Congress stated, why must the United States carry so great a load in helping Europe? The answer is simple. The United States is the only country in the world today which has the economic power and productivity to furnish the needed decisions. The 6th and 8th billion proposed for the first 15 months is less than a single month's charge of the war. To be quite clear, this unprecedented endeavor of the New World to help the old is neither sure nor easy. It is a calculated risk. It is a difficult program and you know far better than I do the political difficulties involved in this program. But there's no doubt whatever in my mind that if we decide to do this thing we can do it successfully and there's also no doubt in my mind that the whole world hangs in the balance as to what it is to be. Senator Vandenberg also speaks in favor of the program. I come only to plead that you do not make indirect use of the appropriating function to veto these declared policies of Congress and thus to brand these policies before the world as capricious, unreliable, and impotent. We cannot build leadership for peace upon any such shifting sands.