The Nome nugget., 1940-05-13
MEMBER OF ASSOCIATED PRESS

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 mon consent, to search for truth and by learning a little here and little there we allow normal ! processes and truths to keep growing. In our search and in our teaching we are part of a great adventure. 1 think in this we can take an even larger satisfaction than our forefathers had when they were in the midst of settling the Americas. We feel we are building human progress-remov ing barbarity. In contrast to that to that rather simple, rather fine picture of our ideals, in another world, teachers and scholars are not permitted to search for truth lest the truth when made known might not suit the desires of their masters, lest that truth might make men free. Yes, they be- come objects of suspicion. Their very tongues and minds are sup posed to be mobilized for other ends. This has not happened in the New World. God willing, it shall not happen in the New World.
 "A year ago at the Pan-Ameri- can Scientific Congress in Lima, Peru, we discussed a dim and un- pleasant possibility. We felt that other continents might become so involved in war that the Amer icas might have to become the guardians of culture and learning and protect the Western ciViliza tion. Today the fear has become fact. The peace we had hoped to share with every nation is in our keeping-to preserve for a world which must be born-re- born from the ashes of the pres ent disaster.
 We know, We admit, that un- til recent weeks, too many citi- zens of our American Republics believed themselves wholly safe, physically, economically and per haps this mistaken idea was bas ed on a false teaching of geo. graphy-the thought that a dis tance of several thodsand miles, in itself, gave to us some form of mystic immunity that could never be violated. Speaking in terms of timetables, every single acre, even hectare, in all the Am ericaS from the Arctic to the Ant arctic, is closer to the home of conquerors than was ever the case in those episodes of history, the efforts to dominate the whole world by conquest. It is a short CT distance from the center of Europe to Santiago, Chile, now than t was for Alexander the Great of Macedonia to conquer ASsyria shorter distance from Europe to San Francisco that it was for the ships and legions of Julius Caesar to move from Rome to Spain, or Rome to Brit ain. Today it is four or five hours travel from Africa to America.
 You who are scientists may have been told that you are in part responsible for the debacle of today, because of processes and inventions, but 1 assure you that it is not the scientists of the world who are responsible, because the objectives which you have looked to have been head ed toward closer and more peace full pursuits of knowledge. What has come about has been caused solely by those who use, and are using, your inventions not along lines of peace but using them in an entirely different cause. Those who seek to dominate who if they are successful in that cause will enlarge their wild dream to en- compass every human being and every mile of the earth's surface.
 We must apply common sense and above all act with unanimity and singleness of purpose. l am a pacifist. You, my fellow-citizens of 2l American republics, you are pacifsts too. But l believe that byr Oyna1,,t-Io o1y,ajYoo m a iOri+ipc in