Message Recorded for the United Community Fund Campaigns.

[Broadcast over all television and radio networks]

- My Fellow Americans:

I have spoken to you in recent months about some very big and serious problems--problems that have to do with our very life as a nation, and with the future peace and security of all free people.

These have been grim problems, involving clashing wills and conflicting purposes. Many of them have seemed to present a picture of man's inhumanity to man.

Tonight I am glad to talk to you informally about the other side of that picture--about man's humanity to man. Let us never forget that side of the picture. For it is part of the great religious and spiritual heritage that all men share as children of God. Our task is to release it and to put it to work in the world.

But first, let's put it to work in our hometown communities.

That is what we shall be doing next week when, in some 1700 cities and towns throughout the United States and Canada, the United Community Campaigns will get under way.

These campaigns will be called by different names--the Community Chest, the United Fund, the Good Neighbor Crusade-but they will have one common purpose. That purpose will be to raise, through one united campaign instead of many scattered appeals, the funds needed by the voluntary health, welfare, and recreation agencies of each community.

In every community of our land there are children who need help, adults who are sick in body and troubled in mind, handicapped people who want the chance to live normal, useful lives, lonely old folks who need comfort and kindness. These are the people who, in each town and city, are helped by the community campaigns.

National organizations also, fighting disease and misfortune, benefit from these campaigns. The United Defense Fund, with its USO and its Camp Shows, is another of the vitally important organizations which gain every time one of us contributes to a community fund.

But no cause gains more dramatically from these contributions than the cause of democracy itself. For every united campaign is an inspiring symbol of that great characteristic of democracy-the volunteer spirit. The true slogan of a true democracy is not "Let the government do it." The true slogan is, "Let's do it ourselves." In this spirit, citizens from all walks of life, of all religious faiths and racial backgrounds, unite annually to work and to give together. This is the spirit of a people dedicated to helping themselves--and to each other.

The united community campaigns hope to realize a total of 280 million dollars. This is a big undertaking--but it is not too big for this great nation. I am confident that you will give generously to the volunteer worker who visits you in your home or your place of business.

He will be speaking for man's humanity to man.

He will be speaking for America.