That is still the overriding question of our time.  We cannot know the answer yet; perhaps we will not know it finally for a long time to come.  But day and night, these past eight years, we have been building for peace, searching out the way that leads most surely to security and freedom and justice in the world for us and all mankind.

This, above all else, has been the task of our Republic since the end of World War II, and our accomplishment so far should give real pride to all Americans.  At the very least, a total war has been averted, each day up to this hour.  And at the most, we may already have succeeded in establishing conditions which can keep that kind of war from happening, for as far ahead as man can see.

The Second World War radically changed the power relationships of the world.  Nations once great were left shattered and weak, channels of communication, routes of trade, political and economic ties of many kinds were ripped apart.

And in this changed, disrupted, chaotic situation, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two strongest powers of the world.  Each had tremendous human and natural resources, actual or potential, on a scale unmatched by any other nation.

Nothing could make plainer why the world is in its present state—­and how that came to pass—­than an understanding of the diametrically opposite principles and policies of these two great powers in a war-ruined world.

For our part, we in this Republic were-and are—­free men, heirs of the American Revolution, dedicated to the truths of our Declaration of Independence: 

“...  That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Our post-war objective has been in keeping with this great idea.  The United States has sought to use its pre-eminent position of power to help other nations recover from the damage and dislocation of the war.  We held out a helping hand to enable them to restore their national lives and to regain their positions as independent, self-supporting members of the great family of nations.  This help was given without any attempt on our part to dominate or control any nation.  We did not want satellites but partners.

The Soviet Union, however, took exactly the opposite course.

Its rulers saw in the weakened condition of the world not an obligation to assist in the great work of reconstruction, but an opportunity to exploit misery and suffering for the extension of their power.  Instead of help, they brought subjugation.  They extinguished, blotted out, the national independence of the countries that the military operations of World War II had left within their grasp.

The difference stares at us from the map of Europe today.  To the west of the line that tragically divides Europe we see nations continuing to act and live in the light of their own traditions and principles.  On the other side, we see the dead uniformity of a tyrannical system imposed by the rulers of the Soviet Union.  Nothing could point up more clearly what the global struggle between the free world and the communists is all about.