Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark.
The faith we hold belongs not to us alone but to the free of all
the world. This common bond binds the grower of rice in Burma and
the planter of wheat in Iowa, the shepherd in southern Italy and
the mountaineer in the Andes. It confers a common dignity upon the
French soldier who dies in Indo-China, the British soldier killed
in Malaya, the American life given in Korea.
We know, beyond this, that we are linked to all free peoples not
merely by a noble idea but by a simple need. No free people can
for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any safety in economic
solitude. For all our own material might, even we need markets in
the world for the surpluses of our farms and our factories.
Equally, we need for these same farms and factories vital
materials and products of distant lands. This basic law of
interdependence, so manifest in the commerce of peace, applies
with thousand-fold intensity in the event of war.
So we are persuaded by necessity and by belief that the strength
of all free peoples lies in unity; their danger, in discord.
To produce this unity, to meet the challenge of our time, destiny
has laid upon our country the responsibility of the free world's
leadership.
So it is proper that we assure our friends once again that, in the
discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know and we observe
the difference between world leadership and imperialism; between
firmness and truculence; between a thoughtfully calculated goal
and spasmodic reaction to the stimulus of emergencies.
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