President Roosevelt stood in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon to give the State of the Union Address to the 76th session of Congress. His remarks were centered firmly on national defense. This is a topic that has in recent months become one of great interest and urgency. Developments in the past year in Europe as well as in East Asia have indicated a need for nations to take it upon themselves to ensure their continued peace and prosperity.
On this, the President said "All about us rage undeclared war - military and economic... threats of new aggression - military and economic." He stated that these entities are attacking the "new philosophies of force" with their threats to liberty, religion and international good faith. He pledged the defense of the Western Hemisphere from these philosophies. These philosophies are fascism, nazism and with less urgency though no less significant, communism. All of them subscribe in some measure to a rabid nationalism. He went on to say that the demands of the future will demand a United Nation. He linked national defense with his New Deal and social welfare programs.
He concluded his address by quoting Abraham Lincoln's closing remarks to his own 1862 State of the Union address: "This generation will 'nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. The way is pain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.'"
With it's conclusion, the President and his cabinet exited the chamber and left Capital Hill.
