Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (130 page)

On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable—still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our hands, in our own hands, and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and opportunity to do so.

I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.

But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement.

What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.

From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.

For that, for that reason, the old doctrine of a balance of power is
unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength.

If the Western democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter, their influence for furthering those principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest them. If, however, they become divided or falter in their duty, and if these all-important years are allowed to slip away, then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.

Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her, and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind.

There never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented, in my belief, without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous, and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool.

We surely, ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you, but surely we must not let that happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1946, this year 1946, by reaching a good understanding on all points with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations Organization and by the maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful years, by the world instrument, supported by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections.

There is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in this address to which I have given the title “The Sinews of Peace.”

Let no man underrate the abiding power of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Because you see, because you see the forty-six millions in our island harassed about their food supply, of which they only grow one-half, even in wartime, or because we have difficulty in restarting our industries and export trade after six years of passionate war effort, do not suppose that we shall not come through these dark years of privation as we have come through the glorious years of agony, or that half a century from now, you will not see seventy or eighty millions of Britons spread about the world and united in defense of our traditions, and our way of life, and of the world causes which you and we espouse.

If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be added to that of the United States, with all such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science and in industry, and in moral
force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary, there will be an overwhelming assurance of security.

If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one’s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.

In their 1948 national convention in Philadelphia, the Democrats under President Harry Truman were in particular disarray: Henry Wallace had taken the extreme left wing with him to form the Progressive party, and Strom Thurmond threatened to take the old “solid South” into a Dixiecrat offshoot if a civil rights plank appeared in the platform. As a result, Republican Thomas E. Dewey was considered a shoo-in.

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, mayor of Minneapolis and candidate for the U.S. Senate, in what later came to be known as a defining moment in his career, called for confrontation rather than compromise on the issue of civil rights. His opening profession that the plank had no region or racial group in mind was disingenuous—the controversy was about abuse of black people’s rights in the southern states, and everyone in the convention hall knew it—but the sincerity of his passionate appeal was undeniable: “There are those who say to you—we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.”

Humphrey carried the day; the liberals’ plank was adopted, the Dixiecrats bolted, and Truman went on to win in a startling upset. The exuberant Humphrey served sixteen years in the Senate and an uncomfortable term as Lyndon Johnson’s vice-president; he returned to the Senate after losing a close presidential race to Richard Nixon in 1968.

His speaking style was unmistakable: it bubbled and crackled with enthusiasm. Where other speakers would dutifully say, “It’s a pleasure to be here today,” he would pop up with “Golly, I’m just as pleased as Punch to be here,” and go on and on with verve and good feeling—in FDR’s Wordsworth-based characterization of Al Smith, a “happy warrior” in the liberal cause.

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…I REALIZE THAT I
am dealing with a charged issue—with an issue which has been confused by emotionalism on all sides. I realize that there are those here—friends and colleagues of mine, many of them—who feel as deeply as I do about this issue and who are yet in complete disagreement with me.

My respect and admiration for these men and their views was great when I came here.

It is now far greater because of the sincerity, the courtesy, and the forthrightness with which they have argued in our discussions.

Because of this very respect—because of my profound belief that we have a challenging task to do here—because good conscience demands it—I feel I must rise at this time to support this report—a report that spells out our democracy, a report that the people will understand and enthusiastically acclaim.

Let me say at the outset that this proposal is made with no single region, no single class, no single racial or religious group in mind.

All regions and all states have shared in the precious heritage of American freedom. All states and all regions have at least some infringements of that freedom—all people, all groups have been the victims of discrimination.

The masterly statement of our keynote speaker, the distinguished United States senator from Kentucky, Alben Barkley, made that point with great force. Speaking of the founder of our party, Thomas Jefferson, he said:

We are here as Democrats. But more important, as Americans—and I firmly believe that as men concerned with our country’s future, we must specify in our platform the guarantees which I have mentioned.

Yes, this is far more than a party matter. Every citizen has a stake in the emergence of the United States as the leader of the free world. That world is being challenged by the world of slavery. For us to play our part effectively, we must be in a morally sound position.

We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people’s policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.

We are God-fearing men and women. We place our faith in the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God.

I do not believe that there can be any compromise of the guarantees of civil rights which I have mentioned.

In spite of my desire for unanimous agreement on the platform, there are some matters which I think must be stated without qualification. There can be no hedging—no watering down.

There are those who say to you—we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.

There are those who say—this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states’ rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

People—human beings—this is the issue of the twentieth century. People—all kinds and all sorts of people—look to America for leadership, for help, for guidance.

My friends—my fellow Democrats—I ask you for a calm consideration of our historic opportunity. Let us forget the evil passions, the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual—above all, spiritual—crisis, we cannot—we must not—turn from the path so plainly before us.

That path has already led us through many valleys of the shadow of death. Now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom.

For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two billion members of the human family—our land is now, more than ever, the last best hope on earth. I know that we can—I know that we shall—begin here the fuller and richer realization of that hope—that promise of a land where all men are free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely and well.

“You have a stake in this election,” the underdog to Thomas E. Dewey said to the individuals who made up a small crowd in Massachusetts in 1948. “It will affect your job, your chance to get a raise, your chance to get a better home…. It will mean the difference between moving ahead and going backward.” Simple, direct, unaffected, personal—that was the Truman style, in contrast to the formal presentations of his opponent. The “accidental president,” who stepped into FDR’s shoes with “Who, me?” as his reported comment, had the ability to identify with the man in the street and the woman in the grocery store.

Harry Truman’s White House addresses, from the announcement of
the destruction of Hiroshima to the Truman Doctrine and the Fair Deal, were prepared by writers including George Elsey, Clark Clifford, and William Hillman. They were solid and workmanlike speeches, fact-filled and frank, delivered in a stilted, hurried way that made it seem as if the speaker wanted it over with.

All that changed when he went on the stump. “My first formal experience at extemporaneous speaking,” he wrote later, “had come just a few weeks before I opened the whistle-stop tour in June. After reading an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April, I decided to talk ‘off the cuff’ on American relations with Russia. When I finished my remarks about thirty minutes later, I was surprised to get the most enthusiastic reaction.” Instead of reading on the stump, he spoke up and out; instead of reacting to charges that he had caused the high cost of living, he went on the offensive. Like Demosthenes, he focused on a villain, but in this case a collective villain: the “do-nothing” Eightieth Congress (which he may have picked up from FDR’s “do-nothing policy of Hoover”). Between Labor Day and election day, Truman perfected the whistle-stop campaign, giving 275 short speeches. Here is a typical one, delivered in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 7, 1948:

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…YOU ARE HERE
because you are interested in the issues of this campaign. You know, as all the citizens of this great country know, that the election is not all over but the shouting. That is what they would like to have you believe, but it isn’t so—it isn’t so at all. The Republicans are trying to hide the truth from you in a great many ways. They don’t want you to know the truth about the issues in this campaign. The big fundamental issue in this campaign is the people against the special interests. The Democratic party stands for the people. The Republican party stands, and always has stood, for special interests. They have proved that conclusively in the record that they made in this “do-nothing” Congress.