234 State Papers and Addresses

will insure for America unmatched fighting forces, but other provisions have
been made to strengthen and reinforce these provisions. You have read, I am
sure, statements that were given wide publicity to the effect that the Eastern
Shore of Maryland was particularly open to foreign attack. It must have been
reassuring to you in the extreme, therefore, to learn of the acquisition by this
government of naval bases in the Atlantic, through the use of which the shore-
line and the entire Eastern Seaboard is rendered absolutely safe from any con-
certed hostile movement.

Tonight, what we have seen is just a reminder that America is ready and
that never again will we be caught unprepared when dire disaster threatens.
We have, in our Constitution and in our tremendously powerful nation, posses-
sions that are the envy of every other nation in the world. Now, too, we are
on the threshold of, a preparedness that will hold for us, for all times, those
things which we value so highly. Tonight, it is good to be in America, and
to know that while, unfortunately, millions of human beings abroad are bur-
rowing in the earth like moles to safeguard themselves against attack, here
in this Country, as always in the past, we are free to act, to gather, to speak,
to live exactly as we wish.

Today, there is more reason than ever why America should be a living
thing in the hearts and minds of every citizen. No other country on the face
of the earth has so much that is definitely worth being proud of and definitely
worth protecting. Our priceless liberty, our prestige among the nations of the
earth, our spiritual leadership, all combine to make the United States the fore-
most in the entire world.

However, America will continue to function just as long as you, its citizens,
are on guard. You are the government and America will continue to be the
"land of the free" as long as the people safeguard the principles upon which
this government was founded.

As we leave here tonight let us thank God that he has given us the great
opportunity to live in a land where a citizen can be truly free in mind, in
spirit and in action. Thank God for all this and let us resolve tonight as
possibly never before to do whatever may be necessary to sacrifice whatever
we may be called upon to sacrifice rather than yield one iota of the friendly
institutions that have been inherited from our forefathers and which we hope
to pass on to our children and our children's children as bright and clean and
effective as they were handed to us. And let us offer, also, a prayer that
under the Great Fatherhood a lasting brotherhood of men may manifest it-
self so that international peace and good-will may reign again throughout the
world.

LEVINDALE GOLDEN JUBILEE

September 29, 1940
Baltimore

THIS occasion marks the completion of fifty years of service to the com-
munity of a kind and quality of which you can indeed be proud. This is
not only because of the care which you have extended to countless aged and