Remarks Upon Presenting the Wendell Willkie Awards for Journalism

THESE AWARDS are in recognition of journalistic endeavor of a high order. The idea of a free press is fundamental to the freedoms that we cherish as Americans. While there are limitations on all our freedoms, including the freedom of the press, we can say without fear of challenge that we have a press that is freer than any other in the world today.

Our press in general has outgrown the provincialism, the narrow isolationism, of another era. It has accepted. as its province Wendell Willkie's "One World." It is doing a valiant service in educating us to understand that we must live in that "one world." As they did during the war, reporters go to distant and perilous parts of the earth to bring us the news. The news-gathering apparatus of our press is far-flung and highly efficient.

The more than 60 Negro newspapers in our country form an important part of that press. These newspapers show an understandable concern with the problems of relationship between the races. From the columns of the Negro press example after example can be cited of reporting and editorial writing which deal with these problems in the courageous and constructive manner that we expect of the best of our journalism.

One of the newspapers given an award tonight prepared the way for a much-needed improvement in the Negro schools of its community. Still another accepted the challenge of equal rights in citizenship and urged Negro citizens to assume their responsibilities. A third exposed an example of intolerable discrimination. The entries considered by the awards committee covered a wide range, including reporting both at home and overseas. They maintained, I am told by the committee, a very high standard.

We are living in a time of profound and swiftly moving change. We see colonial peoples moving toward their independence. It is a process that we, as Americans, can understand and sympathize with, since it parallels our own struggle for independence. We, as Americans, will want to supply guidance and help wherever we can. One way in which we can help is to set an example of a nation in which people with different backgrounds, with different origins work peacefully and successfully alongside one another. That is one meaning of this meeting here tonight and I congratulate those of you who are responsible for our coming together on this occasion.

More and more we are learning, and in no small measure through the medium of the press, how closely our democracy is under observation. We are learning what loud echoes both our successes and our failures have in every corner of the world. That is one of the pressing reasons why we cannot afford failures. When we fail to live together in peace, the failure touches not us, as Americans, alone, but the cause of democracy itself in the whole world. That we must never forget.

I thank you very much.