s
history. Seeking to secure peace in the world, we have had to fight
through the forests of the Argonne, to the shores of Iwo Jima, and to
the cold mountains of Korea.

In the swift rush of great events, we find ourselves groping to know the
full sense and meaning of these times in which we live. In our quest of
understanding, we beseech God's guidance. We summon all our knowledge of
the past and we scan all signs of the future. We bring all our wit and
all our will to meet the question:

How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness toward
light? Are we nearing the light--a day of freedom and of peace for all
mankind? Or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us?

Great as are the preoccupations absorbing us at home, concerned as we
are with matters that deeply affect our livelihood today and our vision
of the future, each of these domestic problems is dwarfed by, and often
even created by, this question that involves all humankind.

This trial comes at a moment when man's power to achieve good or to
inflict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and the sharpest fears of
all ages. We can turn rivers in their courses, level mountains to the
plains. Oceans 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 amass wealth. Labor sweats to create--and
turns out devices to level not only mountains but also cities. Science
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. It establishes, beyond debate,
those gifts of the Creator that are man's inalienable rights, and that
make all men equal in His sight.

In the light of this equality, we know that the virtues most cherished
by free people--love of truth, pride of work, devotion to country--all
are treasures equally precious in the lives of the most humble and of
the most exalted. The men who mine coal and fire furnaces and balance
ledgers and turn lathes and pick cotton and heal the sick and plant
corn--all serve as proudly, and as profitably, for America as the
statesmen who draft treaties and the legislat