the Americas is no longer a hope, no longer an objective remaining to be accomplished.  It is a fact, active, present, pertinent and effective.  In this achievement, every American Nation takes an understanding part.  There is neither war, nor rumor of war, nor desire for war.  The inhabitants of this vast area, two hundred and fifty million strong, spreading more than eight thousand miles from the Arctic to the Antarctic, believe in, and propose to follow, the policy of the good neighbor.  They wish with all their heart that the rest of the world might do likewise.

The rest of the world—­Ah! there is the rub.

Were I today to deliver an Inaugural Address to the people of the United States, I could not limit my comments on world affairs to one paragraph.  With much regret I should be compelled to devote the greater part to world affairs.  Since the summer of that same year of 1933, the temper and the purposes of the rulers of many of the great populations in Europe and in Asia have not pointed the way either to peace or to good-will among men.  Not only have peace and good-will among men grown more remote in those areas of the earth during this period, but a point has been reached where the people of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers—­a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war.

On those other continents many Nations, principally the smaller peoples, if left to themselves, would be content with their boundaries and willing to solve within themselves and in cooperation with their neighbors their individual problems, both economic and social.  The rulers of those Nations, deep in their hearts, follow these peaceful and reasonable aspirations of their peoples.  These rulers must remain ever vigilant against the possibility today or tomorrow of invasion or attack by the rulers of other peoples who fail to subscribe to the principles of bettering the human race by peaceful means.

Within those other Nations—­those which today must bear the primary, definite responsibility for jeopardizing world peace—­what hope lies?  To say the least, there are grounds for pessimism.  It is idle for us or for others to preach that the masses of the people who constitute those Nations which are dominated by the twin spirits of autocracy and aggression, are out of sympathy with their rulers, that they are allowed no opportunity to express themselves, that they would change things if they could.

That, unfortunately, is not so clear.  It might be true that the masses of the people in those Nations would change the policies of their Governments if they could be allowed full freedom and full access to the processes of democratic government as we understand them.  But they do not have that access; lacking it they follow blindly and fervently the lead of those who seek autocratic power.