The Vice President Speaks

For the first time since he became Vice President, Henry Agard Wallace last week put on the toga of statesmanship to speak.

His audience--the Foreign Policy Association and worldwide radio listeners--gave attentive heed. For his speech was the best statement yet made, in other than Rooseveltian idiom, of the official U.S.

position on World War II, and it came from the man who might some day have to take the reins of U.S. policy. Excerpts: "The responsibility which was offered to us following World War No. 1 we declined. We didn't realize . . . the time would inevitably come when our growing power and position in the world would force us to accept the responsibility of such power and position. . . . We of the United States can no more evade shouldering our responsibility than a boy of 18 can avoid becoming a man by wearing short pants. The word 'isolation' means short pants for a grown-up United States.

"The United States now has her second opportunity to make the world safe for democracy. . ."

The New Danger. ". . . The greatest likelihood of remaining at peace is to make these ruthless . . . nations understand that the American people are ready to go to war if their rights are transgressed at any vital point. . . .

"It is my belief and hope that the United States will not be forced into this war in a military sense. But in a psychological and economic sense, we would be foolish not to realize that we have been the object of fierce German attacks for several years. ..."

U.S. Counter-Attack. "In strengthening our youth against the Nazi lie, we must make their faith glow in the truth which is that the essence of democracy is belief in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the dignity of the individual soul. . . . This we can do if, in addition to holding firmly to our Bill of Rights ... we formulate a Bill of Duties. . . .

"Without such a Bill of Duties, I fear peace will mean world chaos. With such a bill we can help build a Pax Democratica which will bless us and the whole world...."

The Next Peace. "The battle of the peace will be more difficult to win than the battle of the war. All Europe will be a mad swirl of chaotic forces. . . . Our help must be of such a nature that neither a mad man nor a mad nation will ever again have the opportunity to kill millions of people and destroy tens of billions of dollars of property. . . .

"We must not let the next peace be such as to force the defeated nations to engage in economic warfare by the use of controlled currency, impossibly high tariffs and bilateral trade agreements. The victor nations must also refrain from economic warfare. . . .

"Here in the United States we have tremendous reserves of unused capital, technical understanding and trained labor eager to cooperate with our brothers to the south in the development of a hemisphere. ... I am sure that a real peace will unleash such an expansion as the world has never seen. . . ."

War Before Peace. "Before we have the right to talk . . . about the foundations of a just and democratic peace, we must put our backs under the job of defeating the forces of evil. These forces are immensely stronger than most of us realize. Jesus, recognizing the devilish efficiency of the dark forces, said: 'The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.' At the-moment, most of us in the United States are overconfident. We are not working hard enough. ... I myself am confident of the final outcome because I know in the long run that that which is good will triumph over that which is evil. .

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