Liveblogging History: January 14, 1946: State of the Union Message--Close
: State of the Union Message, January 14, 1946:
We have won a great war- we, the nations of plain people who hate war. In the test of that war we found a strength of unity that brought us through - a strength that crushed the power of those who sought by force to deny our faith in the dignity of man.
During this trial the voices of disunity among us were silent or were subdued to an occasional whine that warned us that they were still among us. Those voices are beginning to cry aloud again. We must learn constantly to turn deaf ears to them. Th ey are voices which foster fear and suspicion and intolerance and hate. Thy seek to destroy our harmony, our understanding of each other, our American tradition of 'live and let live.' They have become busy again, trying to set race against race, creed against creed, farmer against city dweller, worker against employer, people against their own governments. They seek only to do us mischief. They must not prevail.
It should be impossible for any man to contemplate without a sense of personal humility the tremendous events of the 12 months since the last annual Message, the great tasks that confront us, the new and huge problems of the coming months and years . Yet these very things justify the deepest confidence in the future of this Nation of free men and women. The plain people of this country found the courage and the strength, the self-discipline, and the mutual respect to fight and to win, with the help of our allies, under God. I doubt if the tasks of the future are more difficult. But if they are, then I say that our strength and our knowledge and our understanding will be equal to those tasks.
