State Papers and Addresses

and to grow up under the American form of free government. From earliest
childhood their actions have been absolutely unhampered by government or
group dictation. Everyone lives where he wants, speaks and reads what he
pleases, goes wherever he will, and worships God in his own right, openly.
The American of today chooses his own sphere of education, determines for
himself what lines his life will take in the years to come. His government is
built on the principles of individual freedom and of equal rights for all. By
a system of free elections, the people of America have preserved these rights
and handed them down to their successors.

In America, government has been no group set apart, above and beyond
the reach of the governed. Rather"it has been truly government for the,
people and by the people. In every trying period of the Country's progress
its people have been absolutely free to voice opinions, and to help shape
national policies in accordance with what they considered to be their best
interests.

How differently government is ordered today throughout a great part of
the world. In Germany, in Italy, in Japan and Russia we see forms of govern-
ment not based upon recognition of individual rights. In these lands absolute
control of government's functions is concentrated in the hands of one man or
a small group, whose only claim to such power is the force they had mustered
to seize it, whose only purpose is to use that power for "their own misguided
ends.

How could normal human beings perpetrate the dastardly acts that have
been committed by those all-powerful rulers? If the invasion and destruction
of the governments and established way of life of Poland, Norway, Czecho-
slovakia, Belgium, Holland and other conquered countries were viewed in their
proper concept, no human being could ever undertake them.

The invaders have justified themselves, but considering the governments
of these conquered lands as man-made, and thus to be destroyed at will. Cer-
tainly they have not given consideration to the fact that the invasions con-
stituted a directed breach of the individual rights of each of the millions of
persons so vitally affected.

We have read and heard many times the expression, "That can't happen
here. " Possibly not, but the people of France and many of the other now
fallen countries once felt a similar security. Brought up as we have been in
the fullest enjoyment of every individual right, could we conceive of any
different type of life? Could the people of America, accustomed as they are
to going and coming and doing as they please, ever really visualize what it
would mean to live under such conditions that now obtain in occupied France,
or in Belgium?

Ostend, for instance, was once a great city. Today, its citizens must
obtain written permission from their German officials if they wish to go four
miles beyond the limits of the city. Their every private and group action is
scrutinized and restricted, and their wealth has been confiscated to the extent
that in many cases now they lack even the bare necessities of life.

After years of living on a scale that no other people in the world have