In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the sun goes down they will still know hunger. They will see suffering in the eyes of their children. Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against disease. So long as this is so, peace and freedom will be in danger throughout our world. For wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict will be sown.

Many poor whites, however, were the derivative victims of slavery. As long as labor was cheapened by the involuntary servitude of the black man, the freedom of white labor, especially in the South, was little more than a myth.

It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

I wish all men to be free.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.