I shall set my course to the end that no man need fear to speak the truth. I could not do less, for the opportunities for service my country has given me and the honors it has conferred upon me have imposed an obligation which is not discharged by the termination of public service.
Much that I have seen since my return to my native land after an absence of many years has filled me with immeasurable satisfaction and pride. Our material progress has been little short of phenomenal.
It has established an eminence in material strength so far in advance of any other nation or combination of nations that talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense.
It is not of any external threat that I concern myself but rather of insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions — those institutions which formerly we hailed as something beyond question or challenge — those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.
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