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<br />MARCH 25; 1944
<br />
<br />After the fall of France, a Nazi cabinet minister
<br />visited Prague and there collected his trusted lieu.
<br />t.enant&-the hangmen of the'secret police, the sye-
<br />,tematic plunderers of the economic administration,
<br />'the dark men 'who profaned the name of education
<br />'by endeavoring to train the Czech nation into a
<br />popuiation of illiterate slaves, With certainty of
<br />success he proclaimed that the Nazi Government
<br />already had plans in preparation, backed by ade.
<br />, !juate force, sufficient to conquer Britain in 1940,
<br />Soviet Russia thereafter, and, in good time, to deal
<br />with the United States, " Indeed, nothing but the
<br />thin ribbon of the English Channel stood between
<br />the greatest army in the world and the only wcst-
<br />ern .nation then seriously resisting. So sure w.ere
<br />these dark men of victory that they had built the
<br />'arches and prepared the festoons for the celebra-
<br />tion of triumph in Berliu in that fateful fall of
<br />1940. '
<br />
<br />. We in the United States had greater good for-
<br />tune then than has befallen any nation. Stout
<br />English hearts manned the, Royal Air, Force' the
<br />beginning of the trickle of lend-lease frorr: the
<br />United States assisted in supplying them with
<br />coast defense; ahd the German arms wel"e turned
<br />back in the autumn air from their onslaught on
<br />the British Isles, By that narrow margin, time
<br />and understanding were vouchsafed us to use our
<br />energy in produCing weapons, equipping, an' army,
<br />putting an air force into action. Bllt. it, is not t.oo
<br />, much to say that from th'e summer of 1940 t~ the
<br />slimmer of 1941 only the bravery of one nation
<br />aided, it is true, by colossal strategic mistakes o~
<br />the Nazi side, saved the Western world from
<br />disaster. '
<br />
<br />Clearly, although the situation was saved some-
<br />, '
<br />thmg was vastly wrong or else it would not
<br />have arisen at all. The Nazis had no hesitation
<br />about pointing this out. They said that the de-
<br />,mocracies were fat and foolish, that they had for'
<br />gotten how to believe 'passionately or to sacrifice
<br />for their beliefs. They said that anyone on the
<br />democratic side would consider his comfort and
<br />his profit ahead of, the welfare of his country
<br />and his kind. Particularly they said that any
<br />country could be bought off for a time by promise
<br />of profit or, by hope of .temporary immunity from
<br />'attack, and that by this simple device they could
<br />'attack nations one by one, defeat them'individ-
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<br />ually, enslilve them and their resources as they
<br />went along, and so emerge dominant throughout
<br />the world, They were wrong, as it proved; but
<br />'they were ,closer to being right than' we like to
<br />remember. For thilt reason it is plainly our task
<br />'to 'convince the generation which now, struggles,
<br />and the generation which you are training, that
<br />citizenship in' general, and American citizenship
<br />,in particular, is not merely a privilege and a bene-
<br />,fit, It is also a collection of obligations and du~
<br />ties, many of them difficult, some dangel'ous and
<br />tragic. On the fulfilment of these duties today
<br />and tomorrow depends the place o'f our country, or
<br />any country, in the 'world to come. '
<br />Consider for a moment the burden which the
<br />United States must shoulder as the necessary price
<br />of her continued safety and her continued proud
<br />position. She has the greatest developed land
<br />mass in the world. This was originally a protec-
<br />tion in itself, as the greater land mass of the Soviet
<br />Union still is, in a sense, the greatest defense of
<br />that country. ' In addition she has an ocean east
<br />'and west. Yet the oceans no longer guarantee im-
<br />'mlmity j i>lanes Can cross t.hem in a few hours. In
<br />the not-distant future it will be possible to do from
<br />the other side of the Atlantic to the United States
<br />what Allied air forces are today doing to 'Ger-
<br />many across the English Channel. And our t,ighly
<br />,developed mechanical progress carries with it a
<br />certain weakness: 'destruction of key plants and
<br />resources. can "derange the entire mechanism of
<br />,defense, A bridgehead anywhere on the West-
<br />ern Hemisphere could mean, all too easily, a strug-
<br />gle of extreme danger. Should the post-war world
<br />break up into states devoted to power politics, this
<br />country would have its work cut out for it. Un-
<br />less we were to know war in our own borders as
<br />Europe is learning it today, we should have to
<br />maintain a defense system capable of dealing with
<br />a threat from the far side ofthe Pacific and the far
<br />side of the Atlantic alike. This sounds' fantastic,
<br />Yet it is not so long ago that a Japanese attack
<br />based on the Marshall Islands crippled the Amer-
<br />ican defense ,at Pear! Harbor, two thousand miles
<br />a way; and the art of destruction has developed
<br />vastly since then.
<br />If we were to put our only trust in our isolated
<br />national force, the tasks .of Americans would be
<br />heavy indeed. We shan not wholly escape those
<br />tasks in any event. ' '
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