If we do not, we
risk the real peril of inaction.
Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the
lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score years and
ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness
of the measure of its will to live.
There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy,
as a form of Government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a
kind of mystical and artificial fate that, for some unexplained reason,
tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future--and that
freedom is an ebbing tide.
But we Americans know that this is not true.
Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a
fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst
of shock--but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.
These later years have been living years--fruitful years for the people
of this democracy. For they have brought to us greater security and, I
hope, a better understanding that life's ideals are to be measured in
other than material things. Most vital to our present and our future is
this experience of a democracy which successfully survived crisis at
home; put away many evil things; built new structures on enduring lines;
and, through it all, maintained the fact of its democracy.
For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the
Constitution of the United States.
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