We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people.

We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.

I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace.

Day in and day out we shall heap tons upon tons of high explosives on their war factories and utilities and seaports.

Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war.