Text Version


 
            DRAFT OF PROPOSED MESSAGE TO BE SENT BY 
             PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TO CHIANG KAI-SHEK
 
     A year ago this day Prime Minister Churchill and I, as representatives of two free peoples,
set down certain, principles which all free people hold in common -- principles upon which we
have firmly anchored our hopes for a better future for human beings everywhere.
 
     This [compact,][declaration of principles,] because it was signed [at sea,] [on board ship
in the Atlantic,] has become known as the Atlantic Charter. But in solemn truth it was then, and
since has increasingly become, a world-wide charter, an Atlantic and Pacific and Mediterranean
and Indian Ocean [and Coral Sea] charter. It is a promise to all men that they will have the right
to work out their own destinies under such form of government as they may choose, free from
fear and want, free from tyranny and oppression. This compact [charter] [has become embodied
in the Declaration of the United Nations,] has now been accepted by the twenty-eight [nations.]
[countries subscribing to the declaration of United Nations of January one, 1942.]
 
     The year since the signing of the charter has seen the horrors and tragedies of war spread
like the waves of a hurricane-sea to the farthest corners of the globe. The Pacific, all these now
know war.  Neither time nor distance nor even indifference itself can insulate regions or
communities from the common foe.
 
     Yet out of the suffering forced upon us during this difficult year, out of the fighting and
dying, out of the striving and starving, there has been born a united brotherhood of nations which
transcends the barriers of geography and race, and represents man's greatest hope that the world
of the future will be one of freedom, security and peace. This unity of nations against evil, this
unity of purpose and program, will bring us the victory however long the struggle.
 
     I think it is fitting today that we of the United Nations should join in rededicating
ourselves to the high principles we have espoused. Let us redouble our efforts to ensure the
approach of a time when the life of men and women everywhere will be more than "a dark night
and an ill guide, a boisterous sea and a broken cable, a hard rock and an ill wind."
 
                                        FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
 
 
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