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 legislators who enact laws.
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