In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a
just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and
fight for total victory in war.
We can and we will achieve such a peace.
We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it
immediately--but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes--but
they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart
or abandonment of moral principle.
I remember that my old schoolmaster, Dr. Peabody, said, in days
that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled: "Things in
life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising
toward the heights--then all will seem to reverse itself and start
downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of
civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through
the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always
has an upward trend."
Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not
perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of
men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid
structure of democracy.
And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons--
at a fearful cost--and we shall profit by them.
We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own
well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far
away.
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