A Light for the People

To a nation which was shaking off its isolationism and turning its eyes toward the outer world, yet could see only dimly the path to the future, Wendell Willkie last week made a pregnant speech:

"It will be a new idea to many Americans that the United States may in the future need help from other nations. But we do need help if our ideas of personal liberty, of justice, of equality, of hope and growth and expansion, are to survive. We can keep America to ourselves, though I doubt if the America we keep to ourselves would be free. But we cannot keep freedom to ourselves. If we are to have freedom, we must share freedom. . . .

"On Bataan the Filipinos and Americans, fighting side by side, learned the real meaning of equality. We know now, in a way that we could never have known before, the real equality between races. We know, too, that in that idea of equality lies the hope, and the only sure hope, of the future.

"The day is gone when men and women, of whatever color or creed, can consider themselves the superiors of other creeds or colors.

"The day of vast empire is past. The day of equal peoples is at hand.

"Let us keep that aim shining before us like a light--a light for the people of Europe, for the people of Africa, for the people of Asia, for the people of South America and for the people of our own beloved land."

Seldom before had any U.S. leader said, in such clean, earthy words, that the freedom on which his nation was founded meant freedom and dignity for all people of all lands.

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