Harry S. Truman photo

Address Before the Governing Board of the Pan American Union.

April 15, 1946

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen:

I have long looked forward to this opportunity to meet with the members of the Governing Board of the Pan American Union.

No one can address a meeting of the representatives of the Republics of the Western Hemisphere without thinking of the men who did so much to strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation among them--my predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his great Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. The names of President Roosevelt and Mr. Hull will be revered in history for many accomplishments. A long line of inter-American conferences and inter-American agreements shows how successful has been their Good Neighbor Policy.

History will also record President Roosevelt's many efforts before 1939 toward preventing war and spreading this Good Neighbor Policy to the rest of the world. The madness and desire for world conquest on the part of the Axis dictators and aggressors prevented the spread of the Good Neighbor Policy. But even while the United Nations waged war to defeat the Nazis and Fascists, the United States began to lay the solid foundations for a Good Neighbor Policy for the whole world. I need not repeat to you the steps which were taken by our Government under Roosevelt's leadership. You are familiar with them, and you know how solidly the foundations were laid.

Based on those foundations, the United Nations has now been launched on its career. It must succeed. I know it will succeed.

Before us now lies a new era in which the power of atomic energy has been released. That age will either be one of complete devastation, or one in which new sources of power will lighten the labors of mankind and increase the standards of living all over the world.

It is a great and dangerous adventure we face. In it the people of all the American Republics will have to play their part. During the 1930's the special part which the American Republics played in world history was to perfect and strengthen their methods of consultation and cooperation. They did this primarily to meet the growing threat of war from overseas. And when war finally came, the weight of the Americas was overwhelmingly on the side of the forces which defeated the Axis powers.

In the years that lie ahead, it will be task of the American Republics to do their part to create and maintain a system of world peace which will eliminate the fear of war and establish in its place a rule of justice and world cooperation.

To maintain a lasting peace, the peoples of the world have now shown their willingness to use force, if necessary, to prevent aggression or the threat of aggression.

We all realize, however, that the exercise of this kind of force, while it may hold aggressors in check, will not eliminate the deep causes of unrest such as those responsible for World War II. Underneath the Nazi madness were the material distress and spiritual starvation born of poverty and despair. These evil forces were seized upon by evil men to launch their program of tyranny and aggression.

The danger of war will never be completely wiped out until the economic ills which constitute the roots of war are eliminated. To do that we must achieve the kind of life--material, cultural, and spiritual--to which the peoples of this world are entitled. To that objective we must all dedicate our energies and resources.

I know of no one word which more fully embodies this objective than the word "democracy." It was the symbol and the hope of democracy which liberated the world from Nazi and Japanese slavery. Democracy was the objective which gave strength to the brave men and women of the underground in the enslaved countries of Europe and Asia. Democracy is the rallying cry today for free men everywhere in their struggle for a better life.

We all appreciate that this word "democracy" carries different meanings in different languages. In different parts of the world it will have different connotations. It is fortunate that we of the Pan American Nations do have certain common, fundamental understandings of what the word "democracy" means. Despite our differences in language and cultures, we do have in common a love of liberty, a recognition of the dignity of man, and a desire to improve the material and spiritual well-being of our citizens.

Time and again the American Republics have met to reaffirm their devotion to those ideals of democracy. They have done this in the face of constant propaganda for Nazi and Fascist doctrines. In the postwar world these American Republics will reaffirm the bold stand for democracy with which they have resisted the forces of reaction from abroad during the last decade.

Only recently, at the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace, at Mexico City, they repeated "their fervent adherence to democratic principles, which they consider essential for the peace of the Americas."

Certain political rights are fundamental to freedom--free speech, a free press, the right of peaceable assembly, freedom of conscience, and the right of the people to choose their own form of government.

It is obvious that these goals require first of all the efforts of each nation within itself. But if we have learned anything in the last decade it is that no nation can stand alone. Only through a genuine cooperative effort can these goals be achieved in the world at large. They require international cooperation for expanded production, increased world trade, and development of natural resources so that all efforts to improve living standards may rest upon a solid basis.

That kind of cooperation is inherent in the principles which have guided the Pan American program in the past. We must translate those principles into effective action and tangible results in the future.

Our American tradition rests on the belief that the state exists for the benefit of man. The American Republics have overwhelmingly rejected the false doctrine that man exists for the benefit of the state. We must now prove that international cooperation, too, exists for the benefit of man. The peoples of the Americas have a right to expect of the Pan American system that it show its validity by promoting those liberties and principles which the word "democracy" implies to them. Pan American solidarity must prove itself to be in fact a bulwark of peace.

If we dedicate ourselves to this objective, we shall make the fullest contribution to the welfare of our own people, and of the world at large. By giving tangible expression to the meaning of democracy, we shall widen and strengthen its hold upon the imagination of the world. In that way we can revitalize, through our Pan American cooperation, the faith of the peoples everywhere in their ability to build a peaceful world upon a firm foundation.

Note: The President spoke at the Pan American Union Building at 12:15 p.m. The address was carried on a nationwide radio broadcast.

Harry S Truman, Address Before the Governing Board of the Pan American Union. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232786

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