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our immediate business prospects should lead to the optimism which comes
from the present short-range prospect. On the foundation of our victory we
can build a lasting peace, with greater freedom and security for mankind in
our country and throughout the world. We will more certainly do this if we
are constantly aware of the fact that we face crucial issues and prepare
now to meet them.
To achieve success will require both boldness in setting our sights and
caution in steering our way on an uncharted course. But we have no luxury
of choice. We must move ahead. No return to the past is possible.
Our Nation has always been a land of great opportunities for those people
of the world who sought to become part of us. Now we have become a land of
great responsibilities to all the people of all the world. We must squarely
recognize and face the fact of those responsibilities. Advances in science,
in communication, in transportation, have compressed the world into a
community. The economic and political health of each member of the world
community bears directly on the economic and political health of each other
member.
The evolution of centuries has brought us to a new era in world history in
which manifold relationships between nations must be formalized and
developed in new and intricate ways.
The United Nations Organization now being established represents a minimum
essential beginning. It must be developed rapidly and steadily. Its work
must be amplified to fill in the whole pattern that has been outlined.
Economic collaboration, for example, already charted, now must be carried
on as carefully and as comprehensively as the political and security
measures.
It is important that the nations come together as States in the Assembly
and in the Security Council and in the other specialized assemblies and
councils that have been and will be arranged. But this is not enough. Our
ultimate security requires more than a process of consultation and
compromise.
It requires that we begin now to develop the United Nations Organization as
the representative of the world as one society. The United Nations
Organization, if we have the will adequately to staff it and to make it
work as it should, will provide a great voice to speak constantly and
responsibly in terms of world collaboration and world well-being.
There are many new responsibilities for us as we enter into this new
international era. The whole power and will and wisdom of our Government
and of our people should be focused to contribute to and to influence
international action. It is intricate, continuing business. Many
concessions and adjustments will be required.
The spectacular progress of science in recent years makes these necessities
more vivid and urgent. That progress has speeded internal development and
has changed world relationships so fast that we must realize the fact of a
new era. It is an era in which affairs have become complex and rich in
promise. Delicate and intricate relationships, involving us all in
countless ways, must be carefully considered.
On the domestic scene, as well as on the international scene, we must lay a
new and better foundation for cooperation. We face a great peacetime
venture; the challenging venture of a free enterprise economy making full
and effective use of its rich resources and technical advances. This is a
venture in which business, agriculture, and labor have vastly greater
opportunities than heretofore. But they all also have vastly greater
responsibilities. We will not measure up to those responsibilities by the
simple return to "normalcy" that was tried after the last war.
The general objective, on the contrary, is to move forward to find the way
in time of peace to the full utilization and development of our physical
and human resources that were demonstrated so effectively in the war.
To accomplish this, it is not intended that the Federal Government should
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