Evening star., 1940-06-11
By the Associated rress.

by tNS hSSOClhleu acSS.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va, June
11.-President Roosepelt's ad-
dress yesterday at graduation
exercises OF the University of Vir-
ginia:
Every generation of young men
and women in America has ques-
tions to ask the world. Most of the
time they are the simple but never
theless difficult questions of work
to do, opportunities to find, ambi-
tions to satisfy.
BuG every now and again in the
history of the republic a different
kind Of question presents itself-a
question which asks, not about the
future of an individual or even of
a generation, but about the future
of the country, the future of the
American people.
There was such time at the be-
ginning of our history as nation.
Young people asked themselves in
those days what lay ahead, not for
themselves, but for the new United
States.
There was such time again In
the seemingly endless years of the
War Between the States. Young men
and young women on both sides of
the line asked themselves not what
trades or professions they would
enter, what lives they would make,
but what was to become of the coun-
try they had known.
There is such a time again today.
Again today the young men and the
young women of America ask them
selves with earneStneSS and with
deep concern this same question:
What is to become of the country
we know"
Now they ask it with even greater
anxiety than before. They ask, not
only what the future holds for this
Republic, but what the future holds
for all peoples and all nations that
have been living under democratic
forms of government-under the
free institutions of free people.
1t is understandable that they
should ask this question. They read
the words of those who are telling
them that the ideal of individual
liberty, the ideal of free franchise,
the ideal of peace through justice
is a decadent ideal.
They read the word and hear the
boast of those who say that belief
in force-force directed by self
chosen leaders-is the new and
vigorous system which will over
run the earth. They have seen the
ascendancy of this philosophy OF
force in country after country
where free institutions and in
dividual liberties were once main
tanned.
1t is natural and understandable,
therefore. that the younger gen.
Grafton should first ask itself what
the extension of the philosophy Of
force to all the world would lead
to ultimately. We see today in stark
reality some of the consequences of
the machine age.
Where control of machines has
been retained in the hands of man.
hlllo NllolCs OllbOlo OVllSAlto
have accrued to mankind. For man.
kind was then the master; the ma
chine was the servant.
But, in this new system of force
the mastery of the machine is not
in the hands of mankind. 1t is in
the control of infinitely small groups
of individuals who rule without
single one of the democratic sane
tions.
Mankind the Victim.
The machine in hands of ire
sponsible conquerors becomes the
master; mankind is not only the
servant, but the victim. Such
mastery abandons with deliberate
contempt all of the moral values
to which even this young continent
for more than 300 years has been
accustomed and dedicated
Surely the new philosophy proves
from month to month that it could
have no concept of the way of life
or the way of thought of a nation
whose origins go back to James
town and Plymouth Rock.
Conversely, neither those who
spring from that stock nor those
who have come hither in later years
can be indifferent to the destruc-
ton of freedom in their ancestral
lands across the sea.
Perception of danger to our insti-
tutions may come slowly or it may
come with a rush and shock as it