604 State Papers and Addresses

courageous and able defender of America's outpost in the Philippines today,
Douglas MacArthur.

Our people have thrilled to the cry: "Remember Pearl Harbor. " They
thrill likewise to the day-to-day newspaper accounts of MacArthur's campaign
on Luzon Island. For truly he typifies, to the superlative degree, all those
heroic virtues which we like to think of as peculiarly American.

Courageous, far-seeking, efficient, resourceful, he possesses, above all, a
determination never to yield while there is life and opportunity for further
action. The defense of the Islands of Luzon will go down in the annals of
history as a masterpiece of strategy. The name of MacArthur will be revered
as that of a man who, in doing the job at hand, and with limitless courage for
the doing, nevertheless left nothing undone in advance that could possibly help
him to final victory. The whole world is amazed at his strategy. The whole
liberty-loving world is praying for his ultimate success.

We of America are standing before the judgment seat of prosperity. We
have been blessed by Providence above all the peoples of the earth. Our stores
of natural resources have been unlimited. Our individual freedom has been such
as no other people on the earth has en j eyed. Never have we been subject to
foreign domination. Never have we been forced to yield to any dictator among
us. Rights and privileges that other countries have dreamed and hoped for we
have possessed by the simple law of inheritance. All those blessings have been
ours, and now we stand in solemn trial to be tested on our right to retain them.

Have we deserved them? Do we value them as we should? Are we
willing to work, to sacrifice, to suffer without limit, rather than to see the
system of free Government that is ours pass from the earth If those mar-
velous gifts we have enjoyed have made us soft, then assuredly we shall suffer
now. If we are not willing and determined to harness all our strength, all our
skills, to the great task ahead, why, then, all our happy yesterdays shall be-
come the dreadful nightmare of tomorrow.

Time was when America took its liberities for granted. That time has
passed, doubtless never to return. Our generation of Americans knows better
now. We have learned that no nation of free men, even our own, can depend
upon the breadth of the oceans or the nobility of its beliefs for safety.

When international gangsters are abroad, honest men must rally to the
defense of their possessions. The marauders of today seek to capture and
destroy the most priceless thing we or any nation could possess, the right to
call our individual souls our own. That we could submit to such aggression is
unthinkable—that we resist to the utmost is the only possible course for men
bred in the American tradition.

In setting out to destroy once and for all the threat of world bondage
launched by Hitler and his satellites, we not only are seeking to save our own
system of Government, but we are intent on preserving the most sacred material
thing in all the world today.