Evening star., 1939-04-14

together to remove or obviate
that threat. Yet in no case did
any American nation regard any
of these understandings as max
ing any one Of them a prisoner"
or as "encircling" any American
country, or as threat Of any
sort or kind.
Measures Are Taken
As Guarantees.
Measures of this kind taken in
this hemisphere are taken as
guarantees, not of war, but of
peace. for the simple reason that
no nation on this hemisphere has
any will to aggression, or any
desire to establish dominance or
mastery. Equally, because we are
lnterdependent, and because we
know 1t, no Amrican nation seeks
to deny any neighbor access to
the economic and other resources
which it must have to live in
prosperity.
In these circumstances dreams
OF conquest appear to us as
ridiculous as they are criminal.
Pledges designed to prevent ag-
gression, accompanied by the
open doors of trade and inter-
course. and bound together by
common will to Cooperate peace
fully, make warfare between us
as outWorn and useless as the
weapons of the Stone Age. We
may proudly boast that we have
begun to realize in pan-Ameri-
can relations what civilization in
intercourse between countries
really means.
II that process can be success
ful here, is it too much to hope
that a similar intellectual and
spiritual process may succeed
elsewhere? Do we really have to
assume that nations can find no
better method of realizing their
destinies than those which were
used by the Huns and vandals
1900 years ago?
Prepared to Match
Force With Force.
The American peace which we
celebrate today has no quality of
weakness in it. We are prepared
to maintain it. and to defend it
to the fullest extent of our
strength, matching force to force
If any attempt is made to subvert
our institutions or to impair the
independence of any one of our
group.
Should the method of attack
be that of economic pressure, I
pledge that my own country will
also give economic support, so
that no American nation need
surrender any fraction of its
sovereign freedom to maintain its
economic welfare. This is the
spirit and intent of the decla-
ration of Lima: The solidarity of
the continent.
The American family of ma
tions may also rightfully claim
now to speak to the rest of the
world. We have an interest,
wider than that of the mere de-
fense of our sea -ringed continent.
We know that the development
OF the next generation will so
narrow the oceans separating us
from the old world that our
customs and our actions are nee
essarily involved with hers.
Beyond question, within a scant
few years air fleets will cross the
ocean as easily as today they
cross the closed European seas.
Economic functioning of the
world becomes increasingly a
unit; no interruption of it any,
where can fail. in the future, to
disrupt economic life every
where.
Concerned With Methods
OF Living Together.
The past generation in pan
American matters was concerned
with constructing the principles
and the mechanisms through
which this hemisphere would
work together. But the next
generation will be concerned with
the methods by which the new
world can live together with the
old.
The issue is really whether our
civilization is to be dragged into
the tragic vortex of unending
militarism punctuated by periodic
wars, or whether we shall be
able to maintain the ideal of
peace, individuality and civiliza-
tion as the fabric of our lives.
We have the right to say that
there shall not be an organiza-
ton of world affairs which per-
mits us no choice but to turn our
countries into barracks, unless
we are to be vassals of some
conquering empire.
The truest defense of the peace
Of our hemisphere must always
lie in the hope that our sister
nations beyond the seas will break
the bonds of the ideas which
constrain them toward perpetual
warfare. BY example we can at
lease show them the possibility.
We, too, have a stake in world
affairs.
Our will to peace can be as
powerful as our will to mutual
defense; it can command greater
loyalty, devotion and discipline
than that enlisted elsewhere for
temporary conquest or equally
futile glory. It will have its voice
in determining the order of world
affairs.
This is the living message which
the new world can send to the
old. It can be light opening
on dark waters. 1t shows the
Dath of neace