FOR BOTH DEFENSE AND FREEDOM
For Both Defense and Freedom [From The NEW YORK POST] THE president's speech was reassuring. This is a measure of the size of the man who uttered it. An easy political trump lay ready to be used....
...He outlined a way of life in which it would be possible to build sufficient defenses, to preserve civil liberties while doing so, and to continue meanwhile our steady liberal economic progress...
...We believe the majority of Americans, as they listened, had the grace to be grateful that they could participate in such an attempt...
...There need be "no breakdown or cancellation of any of our social gains," he said, and he refuted decisively what he called "the pincers movement" of those who would use the needs of defense to destroy "our offensive against social Inequality " So thc gage has been laid down, and the most successful liberal leader in the history of modern democracy embarks on his attempt to meet totalitarian thrusts with democratic defenses, carried forward in the light of democratic institutions...
...And he evaded no major domestic issue, no matter how troublesome, in his able tour of our home problems...
...It was not built on easy optimism...
...The fires of despair are not hard to light these days...
...Before a nation which has shown marked signs of hysteria (the behavior of the slock market is indication enough) he could have developed the theme of emergency, he could have enlivened our fears, he could have played upon the idea of our military and naval weaknesses, he could have magnified the threat from abroad...
...Our way of life has small validity if its values must be extinguished when a moment of stress arrives...
...THE president's speech was a calming speech, a hope-giving speech...
...The president chose to do something much more difficult...
...This was no Improvisation which he gave to the country, but a thoughtful plan...
...The tone of his voice as he appealed for contributions to the Red Cross revealed his appreciation of the perils abroad...
...It was a great relief...
...He has met a large moment with one o( the largest efforts of his career...
...Having lighted them, he could have gone on to win quavering acceptance of his leadership and of almost any extension of his emergency powers...
...he denounced the stirrers of racial hate and political hate...
...These were sensitive points that he touched upon, but they will trouble no one who has a genuine national view...
...But if we can continue to enjoy our democratic boons while we assume our democratic burdens of defense, then we shall have made a contribution to the chancy history of human freedom...
...he promised business and labor participation in defense planning, but warned the first against excess profit-taking and the second against irresponsible action...
...We have been building a free society," he said, and he indicated his intention to continue building it, with specific reference to use of our natural resources, our development of agriculture, our promotion of good housing...
...He found space for a due warning against "fifth column" and "Trojan horse" activity...
...WITH a touch of that audacity which is no small part of his popularity, he chose this moment (in which a number of ready-tn-cut-and-run liberals have expected a successful assault on social legislation) actually to ask for higher wages in industries paying less than standard rates...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 24
