The American people want peace. They have long since ceased to talk of a hard or a soft peace for Germany.

Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them.

The German people were not denied, however, the possibility of improving their lot by hard work over the years. Industrial growth and progress were not denied them.

Most of the victims of Nazi aggression were before the war less well off than Germany. They should not be expected by Germany to bear, unaided, the major costs of Nazi aggression.

German militarism and Nazism have devastated twice in our generation the lands of German neighbors.

What we want is a lasting peace. We will oppose soft measures which invite the breaking of the peace.

The conditions which now exist in Germany make it impossible for industrial production to reach the levels which the occupying powers agreed were essential for a minimum German peacetime economy.