Description
Transcript of radio show from August 6, 1950.
It is my belief that the greatest responsibility that ever came to one nation and with it the greatest opportunity has come to our great country, which united with other democracies is in a certain sense, making a united, and perhaps a last effort to preserve those values which are dear to all freedom-loving people throughout the world. And as we arm for this conflict, we have the inward assurance that right is on our side. And we should clear our minds of all confusion about this, for there is not, and never has been, any political or economic system that can equal democracy.
It is democracy that we are fighting for, a democracy which alone can give freedom to the world and make possible of realization the great hope of humanity. In this effort we should all unite. There is no sacrifice too great to make for it, and indeed, such sacrifices as we think we are called on to make should not be considered in the light of sacrifice at all, but rather, in the light of the opportunity that is placed before each one of us to join in this great aspiration.
But freedom is something that is won with difficulty and kept only through eternal vigilance. And what does freedom really mean as it works out through the only instruments that can maintain its purpose the instruments of government, conceived in the idea that all people are equal before God; that every man is an individual in his own right, and that each person should have the privilege of self-expression provided his desires do not infringe on the rights of others. Democracy is a great cooperative enterprise through which this is made possible.
Since time began and throughout the ages this has been the hope and the dream of mankind first finding expression in the Magna Charta, where the right to rule was seized from despotic rulers and coming full blossom in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, undoubtedly the two greatest human documents ever written.