Nbc-Protect America-Clarence John Mcleodspeech

Instead of the program originally scheduled for this time, from our studios in the nation's capital, the National Broadcasting Company brings you an address for Representative Clarence J. McLeod, Republican of Michigan. Representative McLeod, the author of a resolution which would bar the Communist Party from state election ballots, tonight speaks on the general topic, Protect America, Representative McLeod.

To their consternation, the people of America have awakened to the fact, and it is a fact, that our democracy is imperiled. Modern wars are waged in two ways simultaneously. We know now that the enemy strikes not only with military forces at the border, but that he likewise strikes inside the border with vast and highly trained fifth columnists.

No nation alert to its swell being can neglect either of these attacking forces. The resolution which I am sponsoring is one in which means that we may subdue some of these elements within our population, which would lay bare our breast for the stroke of enemies without.

It will do us little good to build up our armed forces to reasonable strength after years of neglect if we continue to permit saboteurs, fifth columnists, and other subversive elements so to weaken our moral fiber as to bring about our disintegration at the moment of trial.

It was Federation and Unity a purpose that carried the original thirteen colonies through the Revolutionary War. It was to preserve this unity, this Federation of States, that the Civil War was fought. This unity must ever be protected, but now we are warned, and in no uncertain terms, that the even tenor of our national way may be seriously disturbed.

There have been many trying periods in the history of America. There were the dark days between the Declaration of Independence and the ratification of the Constitution, when even the most ardent patriot was pessimistic that there would ever be a United States of America.