Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman to the National Aviation Forum

Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri to the National Aviation Forum, Mayflower Hotel February 20, 1939 TO BE RELEASED ON DELIVERY. My subject this evening is rather a large one -- "The Tradition of American Security". Search for security was what caused the first settle- ment on the Atlantic coast of North America. Pilgrims and Puritans came that they might worship God to suit themselves, and as soon as they could do it, they immediately became persecutors of those among them who had other notions than theirs about worship, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations of Roger Williams was the result. Huguenots came to the Carolinas as a result of the Edict of Nantes so they could be secure in their rights of religion. Lord Baltimore brought his Catholic followers to Maryland for the same reason. Written in 1776, the Declaration of Independence states certain inalienable rights to which all people are entitled, among them security in person and property. The Colonists were in constant fear of attack by Red Men and were in almost continual argument with the mother country over certain rights and privileges, as well as with the French on the north and west. When the Colonies became the United States of America a foreign policy was inaugurated by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe -- "No entangling alliances. America for Americans." Mr. Jefferson stretched the Constitution until it cracked to make the young nation secure on its western frontier by making the Louisiana Purchase. That security was further enhanced by pushing the western boundary to the Pacific. After the War Between the States, we settled down to a policy of taking care of ourselves and a fancied isolation because we were fortified by two great oceans and the Monroe Poctrine. And then came the Spanish War, for which we were not prepared and from which we had to enter upon a Pacific (Ocean not peace) policy. No matter what we may say about it the Philippine Commonwealth TRUMAN NARA