The Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1931-1952, 1940-05-31


attic for this meeting, as guest of
the Young Republicans, for two
reasons: first, because you are
young, and, second, because you
are Republicans. I want to talk
to you tonight, in your double
capacity as young Americans and
as Republicans. Older Republicans
and tolerant Democrats who may
be within hearing distance may
eavesdrop If they wish.
It is always an exciting exper-
fence to speak to youth. One has
the sense of speaking as kind of
ambassador to the future. If, out
of the experience of mature years,
one can but speak words worthy
to be made flesh in the lives and
careers of the young to whom
they are spoken! That is worth
doing beyond most tasks that
| come mems way.
In the years since 1929, with
the chill and shadow and arrest
that then fell upon American life
and enterprise, 1t has not been easy
to speak to youth in words winged
with authority and assurance. The
ballyhoo of professional optimists
has sounded strangely hollow and
insincere in these years. The winds
of economic disaster have slammed
shut too many doors of opportun-
ity that should be open and which,
by the grace of responsible leader
ship, can be reopened.
It is not the fault of youth that
so many of the old words of po-
litical leadership have lacked their
old appeal. Except where it has
been n1isled, youth has neither
lost its nerve nor gone sullen, but,
with a new insistence, 1t Is looking
for the reality back of the rhetoric
of its elders. 1t is to normal and
healthy-minded youth, demanding
reality and ready to face it, that
I want to speak tonight.
I want to be honest with you. I
don't want to minimize one whit
the uncertainties that infest the
economic affairs of your time. I
don't want to raise in your minds
any hopes that will be doomed to
die unfulfilled. But I do want, If
I can, to stir in you every hope
that can be fulfilled. So, with a
full sense of my responsibility to
be realistic with you, I beg you
to believe that life is still con-
querable for your generation both
in the field of public policy and
in the field of personal achieve
ment. The future belongs to you,
to your mind, to your mouth, if
you will but bring to the affairs of
your time the sensitive insight,
disciplined thought, and courage
Gus action for want of which so
many of your elders have stumbled
into blind alleys, and, in their
stumbling, needlessly complicated
the life of your generation.
When you remember the turmoil
and uncertainty into which the
political and economic affairs of
your time have fallen the world
around, can forgive you if, at the
outset, you suspect me of mere
cheer-leading when I beg you to
believe that the American future
holds something better for you
than the thin and unadventurous
security of political subsidy or a
place on the public payroll of an
all-absorbing government.
If I were attempting to gloss
over this turmoil and uncertainty,
if I were asking you to follow
blindly in the footsteps of the au-
thors Of this turmoil and uncer-
tainty, If were seeking to con-
vince you that the vast impersonal
forces of political policy and econ
omic practice will not affect your
lives, if I were telling you that in
dividual effort is everything and
the social arrangements of the ma
TONS life nothing, then would be
betraying you with cheap words.
But, even if I were dishonest
enough to make such appeal to
you, your ears would be closed to
my words. The facts of uncertain
ty and futility have been too evid-
emit in the affairs of recent years
to be smiled out of court by the
trumpet up optimism of any polit-
ical pep talk.
I speak hopefully of your and
your nations future tonight, with
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