766 State Papers and Addresses

KIWANIS CLUB OF BALTIMORE—LUNCHEON, EMERSON HOTEL

October 15, 1942.
Baltimore

The people of America today face a two-fold struggle, upon the outcome of
which definitely depends the freedom and well being of every man, woman, and
child, not only of this generation but of many generations to come.

Of the dangers, and the world-wide implications, of the first phase of this
two-fold struggle, there is general awareness among the people of America.
After years of doubt an lingering hopes that America's war fears were un-
founded, our people finally on last December 7th saw the Axis threat for what
it was—a treacherous, brutal attempt to overthrow the freedoms and the
humane principles upon which so many nations were founded, and to replace
them with the shackless of slavery and military despotism.

To the defeat of these Axis threats, the people of America are united as
never before in a determination that, come what may, cost what it may, this war
will. not be ended until the miliatry ambitions of the Nazi and Japanese leaders
are once and for all shattered.

Concerning the second present-day problem, there is not as much general
interest, for the understandable reason that the primary objective of our people
is to win the war. The second phase of this two-fold struggle is the absolute
necessity of maintaining our dual form of Government, with the States and the
Federal Union as respective sovereign powers, according to the pattern so wisely
decreed by the founders of this Country.

All of you know what our fundamental guarantees are. Liberty of speech
and press, of peace assembly, of religious worship; freedom from condemna-
tion except after fair and impartial trial—all those basic rights which are in-
cluded within our concept of due process of law—rights which we regard as so
precious, so fundamental that, in the words of Justice Cardozo, they are "of the
very essence of a scheme of ordered liberty". They lie at the base of all our
civil and political institutions, "rooted in the traditions and conscience of our
people. " We have enshrined them in our Constitutions, State and Federal, and
there they constitute, not merely a declaration of National policy, but a constant
bar against all branches of our Government to the end that freedom of the in-
dividual under law may forever continue.

These are the very rights that today are threatened with destruction from
without, for our Axis enemies would replace them by a cold and brutal philos-
ophy which accords no liberties to the individual, but rather makes him a slave
to Government by despots.

We are at war to preserve those rights for all mankind. But business and