Seven years after the liberation of Holland, and four years after her inauguration as monarch of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Queen Juliana addressed the U.S. Congress. This is the beginning and end of her speech on April 2, 1952.
I AM grateful to be invited to speak to you, as once my mother did to you, the elected Representatives of the American people, and I do so, first of all, because of the gratitude my husband and I and all of the Netherlands people feel for the wonderful welcome given to us by your country, which calls itself rightfully the land of the free and the home of the brave, in this, its very sanctuary.
We feel we appear here in the name of a nation of your comrades in the recent war – that crusade against evil – in which each performed his particular part. A brotherhood was born there in the depth of distress and in the height of joy. The Dutch people hold in deep respect and grateful memory your brave men, who sacrificed their lives wherever we have been fighting side by side.
Before you came to our aid we already had a comradeship, consisting of a close kinship of descent and of a similarity in our national history and growth as independent and democratic nations. We even also seem to share some of our virtues and vices. But, nevertheless, there is still always need to deepen our understanding for each other. Because it is this we need more than anything else, as contact among mankind is growing ever closer, we have never before been so keenly aware that in this world of ours we need cooperation as intimate as that among the cells of one body.
THE PUBLIC-minded spirit of service to the world at large originates in the United States of America if anywhere. If this spirit gets its chance, it will lead to good will among nations and men and good will leads to understanding and understanding leads to confidence. And confidence is the only workable basis for international cooperation. Without confidence it has no base, no efficiency, no success. It is a sheer waste of time and money, paper and ink, and, worse, of hope.
If it gets its chance, it will grow into a Pax Atlantica – Atlantic Peace. I do not think that in a Pax Atlantica the Atlantic community could ever become an isolated group. Much less could it ever be a threat to other parts of the world, for even as an Atlantic community we cannot permit ourselves to withdraw in splendid isolation and give up our links with the rest of the world community.
The stones of the Atlantic structure which we are building together are cemented by our affinity for one another, for otherwise they might easily fall apart once more. It is true that a sea connects, but only when people want it to. The uninhabited space of the water by nature separates.
FOR WHAT purpose are we pulling together but to save freedom, the Atlantic freedoms? Freedom is not only the absence of tyranny in whatever form; it is life itself. Life is the positive pole, as opposed to the negative one, which is slavery and death.
To accept freedom means to carry responsibility. Wherever this is recognized as a right and a duty for everybody, we call it democracy. It is the only form of fair government. In no other regime is human dignity respected so absolutely and an equal opportunity given to everybody regardless of his convictions. Democracies will naturally be inclined to be peaceful, as they represent the people. These principles were laid down in a matchless way in your Declaration of Independence. All these things are what we, as democratic peoples, have in common. This is our unity.
We all want the Atlantic peace to pioneer the peace of the world. We cannot hope for better times unless mankind as a whole throws off its shackles—shackles of every kind—not only those of tyranny and totalitarianism but also those of self-interest, prejudice, lack of understanding, and lack of confidence.
IT STANDS to reason that when those are abolished humanity might radiate the well-being of freedom, justice, and security, and might make a start for a better world and a full communal life. Mankind in its distress has to trust largely to your good judgment for its deliverance.
Let us all do the best we can. Leave the rest to God. He will not forsake this poor world, for the sake of all the good-willing and bravely striving souls living in it.
* Queen Juliana was Dutch monarch from 1948 to 1980. Her speech was printed in its entirety two days later in the New York Times.
