"I have heard it often- that if the conquered peoples of Europe do not like our democracy the way it is, they can go fly a kite. It is absolutely true that a great majority of us found the old life very comfortable and would like to go back to the "normality" that produced it; but... we destroyed that "normality" trying to save our lives and cannot now go back to it any more than we can turn 1943 back into 1938. Nor can we tell the conquered peoples of Europe to go fly a kite if they do not like our democracy, because we need their help and will need it desperately before the war is over, and in order to get it we shall have to remove the doubts that are in their minds. That means that the people of America must look forward and not backward. That means that we must prove that our democracy is just as efficient as the totalitarian creed of our enemies. That means that we must make democracy live up to its promises. "Most governments," said Abraham Lincoln, "have been based on the denial of the equal rights of men; ours began by affirming those rights. We made the experiment, and the fruit is before us. Look at it- think of it." The democracy of Lincoln is not dead. It has not lost its revolutionary fervor. It has not lost its appeal to the men of the world. Our problem is to prove that we really believe in it."
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Journalists from the United StatesColumnists from the United StatesEditors from the United StatesImmigrants to the United StatesJournalists from Scotland
Original Language: English
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pp. 214–215
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Reston
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James Reston
James Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995), nicknamed "Scotty", was a prominent American journalist whose career spanned the mid 1930s to the early 1990s. Associated for many years with The New York Times, he became perhaps the most powerful, influential, and widely-read journalist of his era.
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