Our ultimate strength lies, not alone in arms, but in the sense of moral values and moral truths that give meaning and vitality to the purposes of free people.  These values are our faith, our inspiration, the source of our strength and our indomitable determination.

We face hard tasks, great dangers.  But we are Americans and we have faced hardships and uncertainty before, we have adjusted before to changing circumstances.  Our whole history has been a steady training for the work it is now ours to do.

No one can lose heart for the task, none can lose faith in our free ways, who stops to remember where we began, what we have sought, and what accomplished, all together as Americans.

I have lived a long time and seen much happen in our country.  And I know out of my own experience, that we can do what must be done.

When I think back to the country I grew up in—­and then look at what our country has become—­I am quite certain that having done so much, we can do more.

After all, it has been scarcely fifteen years since most Americans rejected out-of-hand the wise counsel that aggressors must be “quarantined”.  The very concept of collective security, the foundation-stone of all our actions now, was then strange doctrine, shunned and set aside.  Talk about adapting; talk about adjusting; talk about responding as a people to the challenge of changed times and circumstances—­there has never been a more spectacular example than this great change in America’s outlook on the world.

Let all of us pause now, think back, consider carefully the meaning of our national experience.  Let us draw comfort from it and faith, and confidence in our future as Americans.

The Nation’s business is never finished.  The basic questions we have been dealing with, these eight years past, present themselves anew.  That is the way of our society.  Circumstances change and current questions take on different forms, new complications, year by year.  But underneath, the great issues remain the same—­prosperity, welfare, human rights, effective democracy, and above all, peace.

Now we turn to the inaugural of our new President.  And in the great work he is called upon to do he will have need for the support of a united people, a confident people, with firm faith in one another and in our common cause.  I pledge him my support as a citizen of our Republic, and I ask you to give him yours.

To him, to you, to all my fellow citizens, I say, Godspeed.

May God bless our country and our cause.

*** End of the project gutenberg EBOOK of addresses by Harry S. Truman ***

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