Remarks at the 91st Annual National Convention of the Augustana Lutheran Church.

Mr. President, and members of the Synod:

It is a very, very great honor to have the privilege of appearing before you this afternoon. I appreciated most highly what your president had to say.

Never in the history of the country has a servant of the people--and that is what the President is--needed your support and your prayers as does the present occupant of the White House.

We are faced with tremendous responsibilities. We have become the leaders of the moral forces of the world, the leaders who believe that the Sermon on the Mount means what it says, the leaders of that part of the world which believes that the law is the Godgiven law under which we live, that all our traditions have come from Moses at Sinai, and Jesus on the Mount.

We are endeavoring to live by that law. We are endeavoring to act by that law.

We have forces in the world that do not believe in a moral code, that even go so far as to say that there is no Supreme Being, that material things are all that count.

Material things are ashes, if there is no spiritual background for the support of those material things.

We are endeavoring now to obtain peace in the world based on the moral code in which we all believe.

On April 12, 1945, a terrible thing happened to this country, we lost the President of the United States. And the Vice President took his place. In my first message to the Congress, after that event took place, I asked that all believers help me to attain that which Solomon asked when he was made King of Israel, wisdom to do a job-the greatest job in the world--as it should be done.

No man, no matter how great or how informed he may be, is capable of filling the Presidency of the United States in the manner in which it ought to be done. All any man can do is to do as best he can in the interests of all the people of the United States. He is a servant of all the people of the United States, and the United States is a servant of all the people in the world.

You, in your prayers, in your teachings of the moral code, are the greatest support that a free government can have, a government of and by and for the people, a government in which the rights of the individual come first, a government which is a servant of the people.

The power to rule is in the people, according to the Constitution of the United States under which this Government acts--the greatest government that the sun has ever shown upon.

I hope that we may continue to improve in grace. I hope we may continue to carry out those principles on which this Government is rounded. I hope we in the end may have a world founded on that same basis.

There is no reason in the world for disagreements between peoples. There is room enough, there are resources enough for everybody to live at peace with everybody else.

That's all I am working for. That's all I hope to attain.

I can't tell you how very much I appreciate the privilege of appearing before this wonderful gathering.

Keep up the good work. Thank you very much.