President Roosevelt predicted today, by implication, the collapse of dictatorships when he declared in his message to Congress that “democracy will be restored or established in those countries which today know it not.”
The President, in the opening paragraphs of his address, which were devoted to foreign affairs, said that “disregard for treaty obligations seems to have followed the surface trend away from the democratic form of government” and held that “peace is most greatly Jeopardized in and by those nations where democracy has been discarded or has never developed.”
“I have used the words ‘surface trend,'” he asserted, “for I still believe that civilized men increasingly insists, and, in the long run, will insist on genuine participation in his own government. Our people believe that over the years democracies of the world will survive, and democracy will be restored or established in those nations which today know it not. In that faith lies the future peace of mankind.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
