D Roosevelt%27s Fir

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. My friends, yesterday on June 4, 1944, Rome fell to American and Allied troops. The first of the Axis capitals is now in our hands. One up and two to go.

It is perhaps significant that the first of these capitals to fall should have the longest history of all of them. The area of Rome goes back to the time of the foundations of our civilization.

We can still see there monuments of the time when Rome and the Romans control the whole of the then known world. That too was significant. For the United Nations are determined that in the future no one city and no one race will be able to control the whole of the world.

In addition to the monuments of the older times we also see in Rome the great symbol of Christianity which has reached into almost every part of the world. There are other shrines and other churches in many places, but the churches in the shrines of Rome are visible symbols of the faith and determination of the early Saints and martyrs

that Christianity should live and become universal. And tonight it will be a source of deep satisfaction that the freedom of the Pope and a Vatican City is assured by the armies of the United Nations. It is also significant that Rome has been liberated by the armed forces of many generations, many nations. The American and

British armies who bore the chief burdens of battle found that their side are our own North American neighbors, the gallant Canadians, the fighting New Zealanders from the far south Pacific, the courageous French and the French Moroccans, the South Africans, the Poles and the East Indians from fought with us on the bloody approaches to the city of Rome. The