684 State Papers and Addresses

It is to women like you, who have been singled out for leadership, that
America must look for particular help in times like these. Perhaps more than
other women, you realize what it is that America has that other countries and
other peoples lack. You can appreciate perhaps better than the average women
what Poland and the other ravaged countries have lost when they lost their
God-given right of self-determination.

Go forth to your responsibilities, therefore, as I know you will, firm in the
conviction that there is nothing so valuable in this world as American freedoms.
Be convinced that there is no sacrifice too great, no price too high, to pay for
the preservation of America. Not only is the fate of 130, 000, 000 Americans
at stake in this fight, but the whole future of civilization is in the balance.
America must win, America will win, because it is absolutely unthinkable that
Providence would permit the curse that has been visited upon so many countries
to be a permanent visitation upon the whole world. Just as you have a duty of
responsibility to your constituents, so America as leader among the free na-
tions of the world, has a responsibility that she can not shirk, and that no true
American would ever wish to shirk.

We are in this war because as decent, God-fearing people, we wish to pre-
serve those individual rights which our Constitution proclaimed to be God-given.
We are in this war to win because only through complete, smashing victory by
the United Nations can freedom and justice and humanity be restored to the
millions and millions of suffering peoples throughout the world, and preserved
for our children and for future generations.