White House Press Release, Address of President Harry S. Truman at the 35th Division Reunion Memorial Service

June 6, 1947 #1163 HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE 214 CONFIDENTIAL: The following address by the President, to be delivered at the Thirty-fifth Division Reunion Memorial Service in the Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday, June 7, MUST BE HELD IN CONFIDENCE UNTIL RELEASED. NOTE: Release is automatic at 9:00 o'clock P.M., Central Standard Time (11:00 P.M., Eastern Daylight Time) Saturday, June 7, 1947. The same hour of release applies to all newspapers, radio announcers and news broadcasters. PLEASE GUARD AGAINST PREMATURE PUBLICATION OR RADIO ANNOUNCEMENT. CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President We have come together tonight to honor the memory of the men of the 35th Division who died in the defense of their country and, in honoring them, we pay tribute also to the memory of all those who have lost their lives in the wars in which our Nation has been engaged. Men of the 35th Division have twice fulfilled the obligation of every American citizen to serve in the defense of his homeland. More NARA than 300 years ago the first settlers in the North American colonies established a tradition of military training and service. Service in the defense of the new colonies was, to them, an essential and unques- tioned duty of citizenship. We owe our existence as a Nation to the tradition of service by our citizens, for it was an army of citizen soldiers which George Washington led to victory in the American Revolu- tion. At the end of that war, the Congress asked General Washington to give his views on what the military policy of the new nation should be. Washington replied: "It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it * * *11 The responsibility, described by Washington, of the citizens of the new Nation to maintain the security of their homes has become, in our time, responsibility to serve in the cause of world security. The only security for the United States, or for any other nation, when the alternative to peace is death and destruction, lies in the abolition of war. Our obligation, as citizens of the strongest nation in the world, is to lead the peoples of the earth toward the goal of lasting peace. Our hopes for peace based on justice and international cooperation are embodied in the United Nations. We shall continue every effort to attain the ideal of a United Nations which can banish war for all time. In supporting the United Nations, we must always sustain the principle on which world peace must rest. That principle is that all people should have the right to live free from fear of aggression under institutions of their own free choice. Our responsibility to lead the peoples of the world in the search for peace takes the form of helping less fortunate peoples who are earnestly striving to improve or reconstruct the institutions of free and independent nations. We can fulfill our obligation of service in the cause of peace only by maintaining our strength. The will for peace without the strength for peace is of no avail. The disintegration of our military forces since the surrender of Germany and Japan is an encouragement to nations who regard weakness on the part of peace-loving nations as an invitation to aggression. And the countries whose people share our ideals, and who look to us for leadership, but who are weak in resources or manpower, lose faith in our ability to support the principles for which we stand. (OVER)