We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.

Desperate in mood, angry at failure, cunning in purpose, individuals and groups are seeking to make Communism an issue in an election where Communism is not a controversy between the two major parties.

The American people are infected with racism-that is the peril. Paradoxically, they are also infected with democratic ideals-that is the hope.

I say, this afternoon, that we cannot solve this problem by turning to Communism. Communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept.

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons.