SOURCE: "Inaugurating Peace: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Last Speech," in Speech Monographs, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, June, 1969, pp. 138-47.

In the following essay, Benson investigates various drafts of Roosevelt's final speech, which was to be delivered in April of 1945.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.

In the spring of 1945 it was evident to the nation that the war in Europe would soon end in victory for the Allies. It was also evident to some that Franklin Roosevelt was failing. In early April Roosevelt, weary from his recent trip to Yalta, went to his Warm Springs retreat. On Wednesday, April 11, working on a speech to be delivered by radio to Jefferson Day Dinners on Friday, April 13, Roosevelt added in his own handwriting a concluding sentence to a ghostwritten draft: "Let us move forward with...