568

State Papers and Addresses

This broadcast has been termed a "call to arms. " So it is, a call to all who
believe that the rights of an individual are sacred, to rally in defense of that
Democracy that has given us all that we prize in life.

Now is the time to prove that Democracy can wage war as successfully as
it can survive peace. The severest charge which dictatorship brings against
Democracy is that of weakness. It has been represented that a free Govern-
ment is a loose Government, which will fall to pieces when shaken by attack.

Our belief is exactly the opposite. We know that our form, of liberty is
the most unifying force known to human society. We know that to be true
because liberty is not a mere figure of speech, not a mere convention of national
society. Liberty is—an emotion. It is a quick and sensitive nerve-center,
which radiates its message throughout the entire body of the American people.

Touch this chord and you touched a people's heartstring. Say this
word, and you have found the watchword by which all Americans pledge eternal
unity. Dictatorships are only as strong as the one man who rules. De-
mocracies like ours are as strong as the united strength of all the people,
bound to one another not by force, not by fear, but by the burning passion for
freedom, by the emotion which we call the love of liberty.

That is why, in spite of setbacks that have occurred, in spite of disasters
that may lie ahead, we know that America will live, that it will carry this
fight for Democracy's survival to a final successful conclusion. The American
people, responding unitedly to the call for concerted action, will find new values
to re-awaken and crystalize their appreciation of America's free institutions, to
point that nothing—no power on earth—will wrest it from us.

It must be borne in mind, in this connection, that you are the American
people—'you are the ones to whom America must look for the complete civilian
effort so urgently needed at this moment. Whether your efforts can be utilized
best as a member of the Air Raid Precaution Service, 'in First Aid or Rescue
work, as! a Fire Watcher or in the Driver Corps, as a member of the Nurses
Unit, or for Emergency Food and Housing—whatever your capabilities may be
the important thing is that you must give first call upon your services to this
important duty.

In a moment, you will hear from a war correspondent who lived through
the Blitz period in London, a vivid word picture of the tragedy and of the
spiritual uplift of a great people under terrible strain. His story is intensely
valuable to us in Maryland because it brings to us for our guidance and protec-
tion, the benefits of the experiences won by the heroic English people in their
hour of travail.