Evening star., 1950-04-23

The tert of the address By Sec
retary OF State Acheson to the
American Society of Newspaper
Editors tolloDs::
Tonight would like to discuss
with you the thing that is most
important to all of us: the we'll
being and happiness and security
of the United States.
I ask you to put aside, for the
moment, all considerations that
are less important, to forget all
differences of opinion that are
less than vital, and to consider
with me this most important prob
lem of the security and well-being
of our country
We are faced with a threat-in
all sober truth I say this-we are
faced with a threat not only to
our country but to the civilization
in which we live and to the whole
physical environment in which
that civilization can exist. This
threat is the principal problem
that confronts the whole United
States in the world today.
To understand this threat to
our country and our civilization,
we have to go back two hundred
years and examine the ideas on
which the United States was
founded We could go back more
than two thousand years, to the
very beginning Of Western civili-
zation. For more than two thou
sand years the ideas we inherited,
and live by today, have been
fought over, have beer. suppressed
and have been reborn in the minds
Of men.
The adventurous people who
settled the Eastern shores of
North America in the 17th and
18th centuries brought with them
certain ideas which had come
down to them through the whole
stormy history of civilization. The
first of those ideas was freedom
freedom of the mind and spirit,
the most dynamic and adventur-
GUS idea ever to seize the mxd of
man. It drove men-and it con-
tinueS to drive men-to inquire
Into the relation between man and
God; to study the nature of the
universe; to explore the purpose
OF human society.
Every thought we have in our.
minds, every relationship we have
in our private lives, every institu-
ton under which we live, all of
modern science has been moulded,
and in many cases created, by the
exercise of the freedom of the
human mind.
Idea of Diversity.
The second principle on which
this country was built is the idea
Of diversity. If you have freedom
OF the mind. you are bound to
have diversity. and you are bound
to welcome it. We welcome people
who think differently from our
selves. We. welcome people with
new ideas. We will not be chained
to ideas Of the past. We resist,
conformity. We refuse. to be
crammed into a single narrow
pattern.
These ideas, freedom and diver
sity, have survived and f1ourished
here in the United States because
we accept and practice a third
tdea-and that is tolerance. We
say and we believe MY freedom,
my right to be different, depends
on yours. I can be free only to the
extent that you are free too."
The only limitation we put upon
the exercise Of freedom is that
each of us must use 1t so that
others can have the same right. I
must exercise my freedom in such
a way that it does not interfere
with your freedom.
So it is these great concepts
that have underlain the whole de-
velopment of our civilization, not
as mere abstract thoughts but as
the very life blood, the dynamic
push, which has created the civil
ization we know.
The threat we are facing is to
these great concepts. 1t comes
from a system which denies every
premise we hold valid.
Soviet communism deos not
permit diversity of ideas. Freedom,
this doctrine says, is an evil thing.
It says that people who exercise
freedom of thought, people who
dare to depart from the doctrine
laid down in the Kremlin in Mos