Our supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way.
Reconstruction, readjustment, restoration all these must follow. I would
like to hasten them. If it will lighten the spirit and add to the
resolution with which we take up the task, let me repeat for our Nation,
we shall give no people just cause to make war upon us; we hold no
national prejudices; we entertain no spirit of revenge; we do not hate;
we do not covet; we dream of no conquest, nor boast of armed prowess.
If, despite this attitude, war is again forced upon us, I earnestly hope
a way may be found which will unify our individual and collective
strength and consecrate all America, materially and spiritually, body
and soul, to national defense. I can vision the ideal republic, where
every man and woman is called under the flag for assignment to duty for
whatever service, military or civic, the individual is best fitted;
where we may call to universal service every plant, agency, or facility,
all in the sublime sacrifice for country, and not one penny of war
profit shall inure to the benefit of private individual, corporation, or
combination, but all above the normal shall flow into the defense chest
of the Nation. There is something inherently wrong, something out of
accord with the ideals of representative democracy, when one portion of
our citizenship turns its activities to private gain amid defensive war
while another is fighting, sacrificing, or dying for national
preservation.
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