To
proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain it,
we must be aware of its full meaning--and ready to pay its full
price.
We know clearly what we seek, and why.
We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And
now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned,
by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate
possible for human life itself.
Yet this peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be
rooted in the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and
shared by all peoples, for, without justice the world can know
only a tense and unstable truce. There must be law, steadily
invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world
promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon
the weak. But the law of which we speak, comprehending the values
of freedom, affirms the equality of all nations, great and small.
Splendid as can be the blessings of such a peace, high will be its
cost: in toil patiently sustained, in help honorably given, in
sacrifice calmly borne.
We are called to meet the price of this peace.
To counter the threat of those who seek to rule by force, we must
pay the costs of our own needed military strength, and help to
build the security of others.
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