I am very glad, indeed, to come to Westminster
College this afternoon, and I am complimented that you should give me a
degree from an institution whose reputation has been so solidly
accepted. It is the name Westminster, somehow or other, which seems
familiar to me. I feel as if I'd heard of it before. Indeed, now that I
come to think of it, it was at Westminster that I received a very large
part of my education in politics, dialectics, rhetoric, and one or two
other things. In fact, we have both been educated at the same, or
similar, or at an rate kindred, establishments.
It is also an honor, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps
almost unique, for a private visitor to be introduced to an academic
audience by the president of the United States. Amid his heavy burdens,
duties, and responsibilities--unsought but not recoiled from--the
president has traveled a thousand miles to dignify and magnify our
meeting here today, and to give me an opportunity of addressing this
kindred nation, as well as my own countrymen across the ocean, and
perhaps some other countries too.
The president has told you that it is his wish, as
I am sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to give my true
and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times. I shall
certainly avail myself of this freedom and feel the more right to do so
because any private ambitions I may have cherished in my younger days
have been satisfied beyond my wildest dreams.
Let me, however, make it clear that I have no
official mission or status of any kind, and that I speak only for
myself. There is nothing here but what you see. I can, therefore, allow
my mind, with the experience of a lifetime, to play over the problems
which beset us on the morrow of our absolute victory in arms, and try to
make sure, with what strength I have, that what has been gained with so
much sacrifice and suffering shall be preserved for the future glory and
safety of mankind.
Ladies and gentlemen, the United States stands at
this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the
American democracy, for with this primacy in power is also joined an
awe-inspiring accountability to the future. As you look around you, you
must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel
anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is
here now, clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject it or
ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches
of the aftertime.
It is necessary that constancy of mind,
persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule
and guide the conduct of the Englihs-speaking peoples in peace as they
did in war. We must--and I believe we shall--prove ourselves equal to
this severe requirement.
President McCluer, when American military men
approach some serious situation, they are wont to write at the head of
their directive the words "Overall Strategic Concept." There
is wisdom in this, as it leads to clarity of thought. What, then, is the
overall strategic concept which we should inscribe today? It is nothing
less than the safety and welfare, the freedom and progress, of all the
homes and families of all the men and women in all the lands. And here I
speak particularly of the myriad cottage or apartment homes where the
wage earner strives, amid the accidents and difficulties of life, to
guard his wife and children from privation and bring the family up in
the fear of the Lord, or upon ethical conceptions which often play their
potent part.
To give security to these countless homes they
must be shielded from the two gaunt marauders--war and tyranny. We all
know the frightful disturbance in which the ordinary family is plunged
when the cure of war swoops down upon the breadwinner, and those for
whom he works and contrives.
The awful ruin of Europe, with all its vanished
glories, and of large parts of Asia, glares us in the eyes.
When the designs of wicked men or the aggressive
urge of mighty states dissolve, over large ares, the frame of civilized
society, humble folk are confronted with difficulties with which they
cannot cope. For them all is distorted, all is broken or is even ground
to pulp.
When I stand here this quiet afternoon, I shudder
to visualize what is actually happening to millions now and what is
going to happen in this period when famine stalks the earth. None can
compute what has been called "the unestimated sum of human
pain." Our supreme task and duty is to guard the homes of the
common people from the horrors and miseries of another war. We are all
agreed on that.
Our American military colleagues, after having
proclaimed their "overall strategic concept" and computed
available resources, always proceed to the next step--namely, the
method. Here again there is widespread agreement.
A world organization has already been erected for
the prime purpoes of preventing war. UNO, the successor to the League of
Nations, with the decisive addition of the United States and all that
that means, is already at work.
We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that
it is a reality and not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true
temple of peace, in which the shields of many nations can someday be
hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a tower of Babel.
Before we cast away the solid assurances of our
national armaments for self-preservation, we must be certain that our
temple is built not upon shiftin sands or quagmires but upon the rock.
Anyone can see, with his eyes open, that our path will be difficult and
also long, but if we persevere together as we did in the two world
wars--but not, alas, in the interval between them--I cannot doubt that
we shall achieve our common purpose in the end.
I have, however, a definite and practical proposal
to make for action. Courts and magistrates may be set up, but they
cannot function without sheriffs and constables. The United Nations
Organization must immediately begin to be equipped with an international
armed force. In such a matter we can only go step by step; but we must
begin now.
I propose that each of the powers and states
should be invited to dedicate a certain number of air squadrons to the
service of the world organization. These squadrons would be trained and
prepared in their own countries but would move around in rotation from
one country to another. They would wear the uniform of their own nation
but in other respects they would be directed by the world organization.
This might be started on a modest scale, and it
would grow as confidence grew.
I wished to see this done after the First World
War, and I devoutly trust that it may be done forthwith.
It would, nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, be
wrong and imprudent to entrust the secret knowledge or experience of the
atomic bomb, which the United States, Great Britain, and Canada now
share, to the world organization while it is still in its infancy. It
would be criminal madness to cast it adrift in this still agitated and
un-united world.
No one in any country has slept less well in their
beds because this knowledge and the method and the raw materials to
apply it are at present largely retained in American hands.
I do not believe that we should have all slept so
soundly had the positions been reversed and some Communist or
neo-Fascist state monopolized, for the time being, these dread agents.
The fear of them alone might easily have been used to enforce
totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world, with consequences
appalling to human imagination.
God has willed that this shall not be, and we have
at least a breathing space to set our house in order, before this peril
has to be encountered, and even then, if no effort is spared, we shall
still possess so formidable a superiority as to impose effective
deterrents upon its employment or threat of employment by others.
Ultimately, when the essential brotherhood of man
is truly embodied and expressed in the world organization, with all the
necessary practical safeguards to make it effective, these powers would
naturally be confided to that organization.
Now I come to the second of the two marauders, to
the second danger which threatens the cottage home and ordinary
people--namely tyranny. We cannot be blind to the fact that the
liberties enjoyed by individual citizens throughout the United States
and throughout the British Empire are not valid in a considerable number
of countries, some of which are very powerful.
In these states, control is enforced upon the
common people by various kinds of all-embracing police governments, to a
degree which is overwhelming and contrary to every principle of
democracy. The power of the state is exercised without restraint, either
by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged
party and a political police.
It is not our duty at this time, when difficulties
are so numerous, to interfere forcibly in the internal affairs of
countries which we have not conquered in war, but we must never cease to
proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the
rights of man, which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking
world and which, through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the habeas
corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law, find their most
famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
All this means that the people of every country
have the right and should have the power by constitutional action, by
free, unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the
character of or form of government under which they dwell, that freedom
of speech and thought should reign, that courts of justice independent
of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which
have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by
time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom, which should lie
in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American
peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice; let us practice what
we preach.
I have stated the two great dangers which menace
the homes of the people: war and tyranny. I have not yet spoken of
poverty and privation, which are in many casese the prevailing anxiety.
But if the dangers of war and tyranny are removed, there is no doubt
that science and cooperation can bring in the next few years, certainly
in the next few decades, to the world, new-taught in the sharpening
school of war, an expansion of material well-being beyond anything that
has yet occurred in human experience.
Now, at this sad and breathless moment, we are
plunged in the hunger and distress which are the aftermath of our
stupendous struggle; but this will pass and may pass quickly, and there
is no reason except human folly or subhuman crime which should deny to
all the nations the inauguration and enjoyment of an age of plenty.
I have often used words which I learned fifty
years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend of mine, Mr.
Bourke Cochran, "There is enough for all. The earth is a generous
mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food or all her children
if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace." So
far I feel that we are in full agreement.
Now, while still pursuing the method of realizing
our overall strategic concept, I come to the crux of what I have
travelled here to say.
Neither the sure prevention of war nor the
continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have
called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This
means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire
and the United States of America.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is no time for
generalities, and I will venture to be precise.
Fraternal association requires not only the
growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast but
kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate
relationships between our military advisers, leading to common study of
potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instruction,
and the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges.
It should carry with it the continuance of the
present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all naval and
air force bses in the possession of either country all over the world.
This would perhaps double the mobility of the
American navy and air force. It would greatly expand that of the British
Empire forces, and it might well lead, if and as the world calms down,
to important financial savings.
Already we use together a large number of islands,
more may well be entrusted to our joint care in the near future. The
United States has already a permanent defense agreement with the
Dominion of Canada, which is so devotedly attached to the British
commonwealth and Empire. This agreement is more effective than many of
thoe which have often been made under formal alliances. This principle
should be extended to all the British Commonwealths with full
reciprocity.
Thus, whatever happens, and thus only, shall we be
secure ourselves and able to work together for the high and simple
causes that are dear to us and bode no ill to any. Eventually there may
come, I feel eventually there will come, the principle of common
citizenship, but that we may be content to leave to destiny, whose
outstretched arm so many of us can already clearly see.
There is, however, an important question we must
ask ourselves. Would a special relationship between the United States
and the British Commonwealth be inconsistent with our overriding
loyalties to the world organization? I reply that, on the contrary, it
is probably the only means by which that organization will achieve its
full stature and strength. There are already the special United States
relations with Canada, which I just mentioned, and there are the
relations between the United States and the South American republics.
We British have also our twenty years' treaty of
collaboration and mutual assistance with Soviet Russia. I agree with Mr.
Bevin, the foreign secretary of GReat Britain, that it might well be a
fifty years' treaty so far as we are concerned. We aim at nothing but
mutual assistance and collaboration with Russia. We have an alliance,
the British, with Portugal, unbroken since the year 1384 and which
produced fruitful results at a critical moment in the recent war. None
of these clash with the general interest of a world organization. On the
contrary, they help it.
"In my father's house there are many
mansions." Special associations between members of the United
Nations which have no aggressive point against any other country, which
harbor no design against the Charter of the United Nations, far from
being harmful, are beneficial, and, as I believe, indispensable.
I spoke earlier, ladies and gentlemen, of the
temple of peace. Workmen from all countries must build that temple. If
two of the workmen know each other particularly well and are old
friends, if their families are intermingled and if they have faith in
each other's purpose, hope in each other's future, and charity toward
each other's shortcomings, to quote some good words I read here the
other day, why cannot
