Quote of the Day (Stephen Vincent Benet, on War and Peace)

“Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace—that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make.” ATTRIBUTION: STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT, Prayer, concluding sentences (1942).

(Today, on the anniversary of the surprise, unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, I think it’s useful to recall the spirit that animated the all-out American war effort and sacrifice in World War II.

The two transatlantic partners at the heart of the “special relationship,” Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, were, after all, two of the major architects not just of national security in their country but, before the war, of economic security—FDR, with his New Deal, and Churchill, as junior partner with David Lloyd George in creating the British program of social insurance before WWI. The world the two leaders envisioned might be best described in FDR’s “Four Freedoms,” which I briefly described in this earlier post.

Archibald MacLeish, poet and Librarian of Congress, asked Benét to write “The United Nations Prayer” to be used in the celebration of Flag Day, 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used it to close his radio address on Flag Day, June 14, 1942. Adlai E. Stevenson used this final section of the prayer on his Christmas cards in 1964.)