Man has learned long ago that it is impossible to live unto himself. This same basic principle applies today to nations. We were not isolated during the war; we dare not now become isolated in peace.

All will concede that in order to have good neighbors we must also be good neighbors. That applies to every field of human endeavor. For lasting security, men of good-will must unite and organize. Moreover, if our friendly policies should ever be considered by belligerent leaders as merely evidence of weakness, the Organization we establish must be adequately prepared to meet every challenge.

Differences between men, and between nations, will always remain. In fact, if held within reasonable limits, such disagreements are actually wholesome. All progress begins with differences of opinion and moves onward as the differences are adjusted through reason and mutual understanding.

In recent years our enemies have clearly demonstrated the disaster which follows when freedom of thought is no longer tolerated. Honest minds cannot long be regimented without protest.

The essence of our problem here is to provide sensible machinery for the settlement of disputes among nations. Without this, peace cannot exist. We can no longer permit any nation or group of nations to attempt to settle their arguments with bombs and bayonets.

If we continue to abide by such decisions, we will be forced to accept the fundamental philosophy of our enemies, namely, that "might makes right". To deny this premise, and we most certainly do deny it, we are obliged to provide the necessary means to refute it. Words are not enough.

We must once and for all reverse the order, and prove by our acts conclusively, that right has might.

If we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace.

With firm faith in our hearts to sustain us along the hard road to victory, we will find our way to secure peace for the ultimate benefit for all humanity.

We must build a new world-a far better world-one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.

As we are about to undertake our heavy duties, we beseech Almighty God to guide us in the building of a permanent monument to those who gave their lives that this moment might come.

May He lead our steps in His own righteous path of peace.

Mr. STETTINIUS: It is fitting, I believe, that we should undertake a task of world significance on the western shore of the United States where we can look eastward across the whole American Continent toward Europe and westward across the vast Pacific toward Asia. We meet as guests of the great State of California, whose traditional hospitality has never been more warmly or earnestly demonstrated. It is now my pleasure to present to you the Honorable Earl Warren, Governor of California.

Governor WARREN: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the people of California are highly honored by your presence. We are profoundly grateful to the United Nations for the unity which has pushed the war to a stage that makes timely such a Conference as is now being opened. We share with you the full realization of the importance and the solemnity of the occasion.

You are meeting in a State where the people have unshakable faith in the great purposes which have inspired your gathering. We look upon your presence as a great and necessary step toward world peace. It is our daily prayer that the bonds of understanding forged here will serve to benefit all humanity for generations to come.

We here on the Pacific Coast of the United States of America are fully aware of the special recognition you have given us. Ours is a young civilization, a civilization that has made its greatest development during the lifetimes of men now living. Many of you represent nations which are not only ages old, but which have for centuries been making the struggle for a better world, the struggle in which we are now all joined. It is a double compliment to us, therefore, to have our young and hopeful segment of the world chosen as the drafting room for a new era in international good-will.

We recognize that our future is linked with a world future in which the term "good neighbor" has become a global consideration. We have learned that understanding of one another's problems is the greatest assurance of peace and that true understanding comes only as a product of free consultation.

This Conference is proof in itself of the new conception of neighborliness and unity which must be recognized in world affairs. The plan to hold this Conference was announced at Yalta-half way around the world-only two and a half months ago. Yet, in spite of all the tragic events of the war, including the sad and untimely death of our own President, it opens today here in San Francisco on schedule and without the slightest interference with the greatest military undertaking in all history.

Unity has created the strength to win the war. It is bringing us ever closer to the end of world conflict. This same strength of unity, continued and cultivated here, can be made to develop a sound pattern of world affairs with a new measure of security for all nations.

It is in the spirit of neighborliness that we join you in advancing tolerance and understanding, the tools with which we are confident a better and happier world can be built. It is in expression of this spirit that I, as Governor of California, welcome you to our State.

Mr. STETTINIUS: Thank you, Governor Warren.

The municipal authorities and the people of this historic city have spared no effort and no sacrifice to provide to this Conference every facility to accomplish its labors.

I present to you a man who eminently deserves the gratitude of all of us-my friend, the Honorable Roger D. Lapham, Mayor of San Francisco.

Mr. LAPHAM: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, President Truman has spoken a welcome to you in behalf of the entire United States of America. Governor Warren has greeted you in behalf of the people of California. I greet you in the name of the people who dwell on the shores of the Bay of San Francisco. We welcome you to the gateway of the Pacific.

Cosmopolitan San Francisco is well fitted to act as host to our many guest nations. She has gone forward under the flags of six nations. She now stands on the threshold of her greatest role, welcoming the Conference whose objective is an International Organization, an organization so implemented that it will take us far along the road of civilization and on toward the goal of world peace.

Almost one hundred years ago, our port was thronged with vessels and with men of all nations seeking gold. Today we are still seeking, but we seek a different treasure; for here in this War Memorial Opera House, raised to those who died in the first World War, and to all intents and purposes they died in vain, we look to you, thinking men and women, for the foundation of a just and lasting peace. This being so, it is altogether proper that San Francisco here and now begins. its contribution to a peacetime world. If we can help, we stand ready to serve; but we have no intention of making demands upon your time and energy while you face this solemn and all-important task. As the main gateway to the front lines of the Pacific war, San Francisco has borne and still bears a heavy wartime responsibility. You delegates bear the brunt of what lies before us in the post-war world. May we help you in creating the framework of a world security Organization, an organization built not on the shifting sands of distrust but on the rock of mutual understanding.

Like good soldiers, soldiers of peace, we of San Francisco are yours to command. In the past few years, hundreds of thousands of men and women devoted to war have passed through our city. With hopeful hearts we welcome you men and women devoted to peace.

Mr. STETTINIUS: Thank you, Mayor Lapham.

Fellow Delegates of the United Nations Conference, President Truman has spoken of the grievous loss which came to America and to the world two weeks ago. This Conference of the United Nations to prepare the Charter of a world Organization owes much to the vision and the courage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Many of his last hours were spent in preparation for this moment, for a moment which, in the wisdom of God, he could not live to see.

We are met here at a time and at a place which he proposed. We have met to carry forward the great purpose for which he spent his strength to build the structure of lasting peace after victory in this war. We have lost a wise and a valiant leader, but the purpose lives on. In this purpose the United States is more resolute than ever.

All America spoke through Franklin D. Roosevelt when he said:

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation. It cannot be an American peace, or a British, or a French, or a Russian, or a Chinese peace. It cannot be a peace of large nations or of small nations. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative efforts of the whole world. There can be no middle ground here. We shall have to take the responsibility for world collaboration, or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict.

All America also spoke through President Truman just now, when he said:

With ever-increasing brutality and destruction, modern warfare, if unchecked, would ultimately crush all civilization. We still have a choice between the alternatives: the continuation of international chaos—or the establishment of a world Organization for the enforcement of peace.

In their purpose to build an enduring world structure of world. peace, the people of the United States believe that they are firmly united with all the other United Nations. They are united with the large countries which, of necessity, have had to bear the main burden of winning victory over our common enemy. They are united with. the smaller countries, so many of which have suffered the agony and the destruction of conquest all because of the failure of the peace

665605-46-17

loving peoples to unite in time against aggression before this war. The vital national interests of each of the United Nations require that all the United Nations work together to make peace and freedom secure. No one of the large nations, no one of the small nations, can afford anything less than success in this endeavor. Each of them knows too well what the consequences of failure would be. It is, therefore, with this strong bond of compelling mutual interest that this Conference of the United Nations begins. It is with this clear understanding of what the realities demand of us that we fortify our high vision of a permanent structure of organized peace.

A great American, Cordell Hull, who has devoted many years of his life to the task before us, expressed to me only last Sunday his profound faith that, whatever the difficulties, the labors of this Conference would be crowned with success. We all hope that Cordell Hull's improving health will permit him to take part in this Conference later on.

To us who are Americans, it is a hopeful symbol that this Conference is met in San Francisco. In our history, the West has always meant the future. San Francisco is a place toward which many generations of Americans have turned their eyes. With faith, American pioneers opened a new path westward across a wilderness. With courage they met and conquered every danger along the way until they reached the promised land that they sought. Since then, Americans have always thought of California, and of San Francisco, as a place where hopes come true, where all purposes can be accomplished. Now, the deepest hope, the highest purpose of all mankind-enduring peace is here committed to our hands. We too are pioneers on a new road. There will be many obstacles and many dangers. We too must call upon the courage and the faith of those who came to California before us across a wilderness to the shores of this great ocean named for peace.

We approach our task humbly, but with united resolution. The prayers of the people of the world are with us. They are spoken in many tongues, and in the words of many creeds. But they are as one voice, rising from the tragedy and the suffering of war, in prayer for lasting peace.

Thus fortified, and with the guidance of Almighty God, we must and we shall fulfil the purpose for which we have come together. Thank you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to present to you Mr. Alger Hiss, the temporary Secretary-General of the Conference, who has two announcements to make concerning our procedure for tomorrow. Mr. Alger Hiss.

Mr. HISS: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, there will be a meeting of the chairmen of all delegations tomorrow morning at 10:30 in the Veterans Building, and tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 the first official plenary session of the Conference will be held here in this place. Mr. STETTINIUS: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Opening Session of the United Nations Conference on International Organization is now adjourned.

Verbatim Minutes of the First Plenary Session,

Doc. 15, April 27

April 26

Mr. STETTINIUS: Ladies and Gentlemen, the First Plenary Session of the United Nations Conference on International Organization is hereby convened. The Chairman of the Delegation of Chile has asked permission to speak for a moment on a very special purpose.

His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile.

Mr. FERNÁNDEZ (speaking in Spanish; English version as delivered by interpreter follows): The Delegation of Chile has received the highest honor-that of representing the sister republics of LatinAmerica-to request of this assembly an homage in memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The life of a great man is like the seed of an unknown tree. During his days on this earth we see its branches and flowers that may be splendid and modestly fragrant. The waters of death sometimes enhance this splendor into glory and season its fruits with intense flavor and beauty. Roosevelt has been a powerful tree of magnanimous and firm fruits and flowers, strong within the heart of this great people, and his foliage extends over the entire world. His death has been only a streak of lightning that has destroyed the mere form, the mortal form. Although sorrow weighs upon us for his apparent disappearance, we affirm that Roosevelt goes on in all parts of the earth. His death is as a strong light that sheds its light always with greater clarity-the light of a great statesman and a great leader of peoples. His spiritual work begins to grow and to spread throughout the earth. It is we, the United Nations, who have the solemn duty to be faithful to this noble heritage.

Roosevelt, the humanitarian, asks us to give humanity peace. It is we, the countries of this continent, who are his spiritual sons directly, must carry this heritage, maintaining firmly his creed of good neighborliness in this continent, as well as through the concert of

nations.

It is therefore fitting that the American republics present at this occasion to the Conference the following declaration:

The Latin American republics invite all the other United Nations represented at this Conference, in homage to the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to express the aim of bringing to a fitting and perfect consummation his work as a leader of democracy, as the initiator of the good-neighbor policy, and as the inspirer of a world Organization for the maintenance of peace through the rule of justice.

I beg the assembly to express its approval by standing and remaining silent for one moment.

(Standing; silent meditation.)

Mr. STETTINIUS: May I, on behalf of the Government and the people of the United States, express to you our very deep appreciation and our profound gratitude for this tribute to President Roosevelt.

I know that the spirit of this great man will always be an inspiration to our united efforts now and in the days to come to establish and maintain lasting peace.

The heads of the delegations met this morning for the purpose of recommending the organization of the Conference. The meeting has not yet completed its work and will convene again tomorrow morning at 10:30. Tomorrow's plenary session that was scheduled will there