There, in the deliberations of the United Nations, lies our hope that cruelty and aggression will yield to the spirit of firmness and justice. For ten years now we've gone from crisis to war and back to crisis. Nation after nation has fallen before the steady march of Communist aggression and tonight those of us who repeatedly warned that crises would follow continued appeasement, are using our every effort to maintain a firm but just position in the face of new threats. The business of statesmanship is to anticipate and solve international problems before they become crises, and to solve crises before they become wars. Statesmanship is the sum total of domestic and foreign policies which make a country strong enough, consistent enough and respected enough so that it can live at peace with the world.
Crises is the failure of statesmanship and war is the ultimate bankruptcy of statesmanship.
It wouldn't serve any useful purpose to recall tonight how the Soviet has conquered millions of people as a result of the failures of statesmanship. It does not advance our purpose to discuss the manner in which the Soviet has been able to pick the fruits of diplomatic victories that were yielded up at that long series of secret conferences culminating in Potsdam. In a series of easy victories, the Soviet achieved domination of the Baltic countries, the Balkans, Poland, Czechoslovakia. Now she's moved on to similar conquests in the Far East. It serves no purpose to review the concessions made by our own Government to the Soviet in Manchuria and in Northern China at the expense of the Chinese people and without even consulting them.