Evening star., 1939-04-14
Pon-Americon Speech Text
President Says American Peace
Has No Quality Of Weakness
Continued From First Page.)

share that view. There are not
wanting here all of the usual
rivalries, all of the normal hui
man desires for power and ex-
pansion, all of the commercial
problems. The Americas are suf-
f1ciently rich to have been them
selves the object Of desire on the
part of overseas governments;
our traditions in history are as
deeply rooted in the Old World
as are those of Europe
1t was not accident that pre-
vented South America, and our
own West, from sharing the fate
OF other great areas of the world
in the 10th century. We have
here diversities of race, of Ian
guage, of custom, of natural re-
sources and of intellectual forces
at least as great as those which
prevailed in Europe.
Cites Growth of New
And Powerful Ideal.
What was it that has pro-
tected us from the tragic involve
ments which are today making
the Old World a new cockpit of
old struggles? The answer Is
easily found. A new and power
full ideal-that of the community
OF nations-sprang up at the
same time that the Americas be-
came free and independent. 1t
was nurtured by statesmen,
thinkers and plain people for de-
cades. Gradually it brought to-
gether the Pan-American group
of governments: today It has
fused the thinking of the peoples
and the desires of their respons-
ible representatives toward
common objective.
The result of this thinking has
been to shape a typically Amer
lean institution. This is the Pam
American group, which works in
open conference, by open agree
ment. We hold our conferences
not as result of wars, but as the
result of our will to peace.
Elsewhere in the world, to hold
conferences such as ours, which
meet every five years, it is neces-
sary to fight a major war, until
exhaustion or defeat at length
brings governments together to
reconstruct their shattered fab
RIGS.
Greeting a conference at
Buenos Aires in 1886, I took oc-
casion to say:
The madness of a great
war in another part of the
world would affect us and
threaten our good in hum
dred ways. And the eco
nomic collapse of any ma
ton or nations must of
necessity harm our own
prosperity. Can we. the
republics of the New World.
help the Old World to
avert the catastrophe
which impends? Yes, am
confident that we can"
I still have that confidence.
There is no fatality which forces
the Old World towards new
catastrophe. Men are not pris-
oners of fate, but only prisoners
of their own minds. They have
within themselves the power to
become free at any moment.
No Peaceful Nation
Encircled on Continent.
Only a few days ago the head
Of a great nation referred to his
country as q prisoner" of the
Mediterranean. A little later,
another chief Of state, on learn
ing that a neighbor country had
agreed to defend the indepen-
dence of another neighbor, char
acterized that agreement as a
threat" and an "encirclement."
Yet there is no such thing as
encircling, or threatening, or
imprisoning any peaceful nation
by other peaceful nations. We
have reason to know this in our
own experience.
For instance, on the occasion
Of visit to the neighboring Do
minion of Canda last summer,
stated that the United States
would join in defending Canada
were she ever attacked from over
seas. Again at Lima, in Decem-
ber, the 81 American nations
joined in a declaration that they
would coordinate their common