Address in Miami at the American Legion Convention

Mr. Commander, members of the auxiliary, ladies and gentlemen:

This is an opportunity I have been looking forward to for 30 years, and I finally made it. I have chosen this occasion to discuss with you some very important matters, and, I am glad to be here today as a delegate from Missouri first, as a comrade-in-arms, and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States.Legionnaires have been meeting together for a long time. This makes the 30th year that the Legion has met to keep strong the ties that bind men together, who fought side by side for their country. In those years the Legion has been serving our country in peace as well as in war. And nobody knows that better than I do. I am happy to see the younger men of World War II joining and strengthening our organization, which has never failed to be vigilant for the welfare and security of this great country of ours.

I have looked forward to this opportunity of counseling with you as veterans. Among our countrymen, you understand best of all the tragic meaning of war. You learned the hard way how to hate it. Today, I want to share with you my views about the things that lie nearest to our hearts--peace and freedom in the world.

As President of the United States, it has been my duty to find men to staff our efforts for security and peace. It's an altogether different task to secure good men after the shooting stops than it is to secure them while the fighting is going on.

It has been my duty to initiate and approve the great proposals which have advanced both for our security and the recovery of the free nations of the world.

As your Chief Executive, I know of the patriotic efforts of men of both parties to support those policies.

The plain fact remains, however, that while the President of the United States can delegate authority, he has the responsibility, under the Constitution of the United States, for the conduct of our foreign affairs.

In that capacity, I want to stress something which I am sure every veteran and every real American will approve. So long as I am President, the United States will not carry a chip on its shoulder.

As I have said time and again, that I would rather see a lasting peace in the world than to be President of the United States.

In recent months, the trend of events has caused us deep concern. The great need today is for action to strengthen the United Nations in dealing with the disputes which now challenge its authority--action to create an improved atmosphere for all future negotiations looking toward peace.

Lately, in Europe and even here in the United States, there has been loose and irresponsible talk to the effect that the United States is deliberately following a course that leads to war. That is a plain and deliberate lie.

We have taken, and we will continue to take, a firm position, where our rights are threatened. But our firmness should not be mistaken for a warlike spirit. The world has learned that it is weakness and appeasement that invite aggression. A firm position on reasonable grounds offers the best hope of peace, and we have been open to reason at every point.

We recognize the principle of mutual conciliation as a basis for peaceful negotiation, but this is very different from appeasement. While we will always strive for peace, this country will never consent to any compromise of the principles of freedom and human rights. We will never be a party to the kind of compromise which the world sums up in the disgraced name of Munich.

Our purpose, from the end of the war to the present, has never changed. It has been to create a political and economic framework in which a lasting peace may be constructed.

Let me remind you how we have sought to carry out that purpose. In the past 2 years, the United States has made three major moves of foreign policy in the European area. Each move has been tied in with the work of the United Nations. Each move has been designated to reduce the dangers of chaos and war.

The first move was made in March 1947, when we offered economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey, then threatened by Communist aggression.

Three months later, we began our second major move--the great program for European economic recovery. With American help under this plan, 16 European nations are making a joint effort, unprecedented in history, to overcome heavy economic losses suffered in the great war.

A number of these countries have already increased their production and improved their financial stability. It is not too much to say that this plan holds the key for the economic future of Europe and the world.

Our third major move was the joint action of the United States, Great Britain, and France in establishing a working, but by no means final, economic organization for the Western Zones of Germany, under allied military control. This step was undertaken to encourage the economic revival of Germany, under proper safeguards, so as to aid the recovery of all Western Europe and promote stability.

We have also been giving support and encouragement to the organization of the Western European Union.

These moves in the field of foreign policy have had as their goal the peace of the world. Naturally, this country was at the same time protecting its own interests. No nation can afford to disregard self-interest.

I think it is fair to say that American policy has revealed an unusual degree of enlightenment. We have taken it as a first principle that our interest is bound up with the peace and economic recovery of the rest of the world. Accordingly, we have worked for all three together--world peace, world economic recovery, and the welfare of our own Nation.

It is plain that world peace and economic recovery cannot be achieved in an atmosphere of political disorder and revolution. We have, therefore, felt it essential to help stabilize nations which welcomed our aid, and whose democratic traditions or aspirations invited our friendship.

At the same time, we can maintain our own economic stability and keep up a military establishment commensurate with our leadership for peace.

As President, I have inaugurated economic and military operations which will enable this great Nation to meet its obligations. This policy must be carried to success.

Our policy is not now and never has been directed against the Soviet Union. On the contrary, we recognize that the peace of the world depends on increasing understanding and better working relationship between the Soviet Union and the democratic nations.

The problem which now confronts this country and the world reduces itself to one basic question: Can we so reconcile the interests of the Western powers and the interests of the Soviet Union as to bring about an enduring peace?

Let me say here again, and as plainly as I can, that the Government of this country, like the American people as a whole, detests the thought of war. We are shocked by its brutality and sickened by its waste of life and wealth. And we know from experience that war creates many more problems than it solves. We know that all the world, and especially the continent of Europe, has nothing to gain from war and everything to lose.

The horrors that modern war inflicts on innocent people are known to all Americans. The use of atomic weapons and bacteriological warfare, in particular, might unleash new forces of destruction which would spare no nation. All of us are well acquainted with that fact. We know, too, that if war should come upon us again, the loss in life, the strain on our physical resources and even on our democratic institutions might be greater than we care to contemplate.

The Government of the United States rejects the concept of war as a means of solving international differences.

However, I think we are realistic about the alternative to war. In international politics, new and serious difficulties are continually arising. It will be a long while before the great powers constitute the friendly family of nations which is so often described as "one world."

Our need is to work out with cool detachment a practical adjustment of our troubles with other nations as they may arise. That is the attitude in which we have been trying to find reasonable solutions of the critical problems which now confront us.

Unfortunately--and I say that advisedly-unfortunately, a dark fog of distrust has risen between the Soviet Union and the West, distorting and confusing our relations. It is clear that little progress is likely to be made in settling disputes between the Western Powers and Soviet Russia, so long as there is so much distrust.

If that distrust is to be dispelled, there needs to be evidence of long-range peaceful purposes--evidence that will enable the world to shake off the fear of war, reduce the burden of armaments, and concentrate on useful economic activities.

In recently considering sending a special emissary to Moscow, my purpose was to ask Premier Stalin's cooperation in dispelling the present poisonous atmosphere of distrust which now surrounds the negotiations between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union. My emissary was to convey the seriousness and sincerity of the people of the United States in their desire for peace.

This proposal had no relation to existing negotiations within the scope of the United Nations or the Council of Foreign Ministers. Far from cutting across these negotiations, the purpose of this mission was to improve the atmosphere in which they must take place and so help in producing fruitful and peaceful results.

At this time, I want to make it perfectly clear that I have not departed one step from my determination to utilize every opportunity to work for peace. Whenever an appropriate opportunity arises, I shall act to further the interests of peace within the framework of our relations with our allies and the work of the United Nations.

I am working for peace, and I shall continue to work for peace.

Both we and the Soviet Union have a fundamental job to do--the job of raising the living standards of our peoples.

We must remember that many a serious crisis has in the past been resolved without war. We must remember that the struggle for existence among nations, as among individual men, goes on all the time, and expresses itself in many ways other than war. We must remember that rivalry among nations is an old story. History shows that rival powers can exist peacefully in the world.

Patience must be our watchword. When the destiny of all mankind is at stake, we need to exercise all the patience we can muster. We should utilize every opportunity to strengthen the United Nations for the great undertakings which lie ahead.

The people of the world are looking to their leaders to dispel the fog of distrust which now confuses the approach to peace. At the present moment, I would only add that our Nation has never failed to meet the great crises of its history with honor and devotion to its ideals.

My friends, and fellow Legionnaires, we shall spare no effort to achieve the peace on which the entire destiny of the human race depends.