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18. Radio Transcription made for Polish-American, Congress., Inc. Washington, D. C. September 2A, 1951 ' We are so accustomed to freedom and a high standard of living that it's next to impossible to envisage conditions as they exist in Poland today. Poland is becoming more and more isolated from the free world and from the West. Historically, the people of Poland have been freedom loving and Western. Even while dismembered and occupied by her three neighbors for msjiy long years, the people remained Western and freedom loving. After finally regaining their independence they enjoyed only a short period of freedom during which they worked very hard to restore their country to something near normal when a terribly devastating World War II destroyed not only many, many thousands upon thousands of her people but also destroyed practically all the Poles had rebuilt by hard work. And now again Poland is occupied by a foreign and Eastern economic philosophy, contrary to the wishes and desires of her people. Poland's situation - economic and social - is a tragedy. I repeat that we here are so strongly attached to freedom and so much a part of the idea that each of us has the right to develop freely that we cannot really understand how an entire people can be held in bonds, isolated from the rest of the world, as if condemned to death. This crime is too provocative to last. Let's analyze our situation first - for then we shall better understand Poland's situation. It is not possible to describe the economic situation of our country without using some figures. The figures that I use speak for themselves. Unlike statistics behind the Iron Curtain, our statistics cannot be falsified because, as you know, each citizen has access to the sources on which our computations are based. They are, besides official statistics, private returns which are published by banks, insurance companies, industrial, commercial, and agricultural organizations, labor unions, ^ad many many others. In 1950 our production reached the record figure of about 280 billion dollars. This is two and one-half times as much as-10 years ago and over 7 times as much as in 1910. 60 million Americans who were emPloyed in production last year worked an average of 4,0 l/2 hours a week. Their average wage amounted to $1.^6 an hour. These figures illustrate our production and the rate of our wages. Our economy is a highly successful attempt to organize our production the distribution of our wealth not only for the benefit of our entire nation and not a select group, but for that of peoples far beyond the frontiers of our country. This system has permitted us to build our Production on a colossal scale and to raise our standard of living. It has also allowed us to grant tremendous sums to countries devastated by v ar. Up to April 1st of this year, the United States spent about 31 and 1/2 billion dollars on aid to foreign countries for reconstruction purPoses. It is not our policy to take from others, but. rather to give to others. 19. Unlike Poland, a strong and independent trade union movement exists in the United States. I might mention that trade unions have been able to develop because our workers have freedom of organization in order to ,, defend their own interests. Agreements between employers and workers &re : based on collective bargaining guaranteed by law. Working conditions and wages are steadily improving. The standard of living of our workers is the highest in the world. Leave with pay,.-.medical care, life insurance and old age pensions are becoming an essential part of agreements negotiated between employers and wage earners. . :•-,.,/ -Communist propaganda about the corruption of our economic system will, in no way, change the fact that we are a very strong nation. Neither will it change our devotion to the principles to which we owe our . strength — respect of human dignity, respect of private initiative, the . . • principle of fair earnings, public information and education, objectivity .. ..in science, faith in God and freedom in religious worship. . r. On the other hand, Communists prefer to build, their future on the foundations of slave labor, promising happiness and. prosperity to future^ generations, bub knowing full well that they cannot allow the standard oi • ...living in countries behind the Iron Curtain to rise because the people would then insist on having freedom - political and. economic - freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Workers in Poland are, as it were, chained to their places of employment which they can neither leave nor change. Their system which forces, workers to exert themselves beyond their strength and endurance . u n d e rtyie..pretextof a pseudo-ideological mirage, . but actually because the program.of the East requires Polish goods but does not require healthy Poles'- healthy in mind and body. We are convinced that a system which takes away property from its rightful owners by force, stifles . .,. ..private initiative, produces economic wastefulness, is in hands of party officials who lack'competence but blindly follow instructions from a dis.•,•• r tant Eastern and foreign headquarters and is fundamentally opposed to faith in God, and opposed to: religion, can lead only to a disastrous end. : 1 49 n °t doubt for one moment that Poland will be free again. We .._?, did not Win the last war for the purpose of producing the present state , of affairs. Perhaps we believed too naively in human honesty and sincerity when we believed that the treaties we had concluded would be respected* , Today we know that we have been .deceived, but this'does not .'mean that we should accept the present state of affairs. .', . \ ' " : , Let me conclude by saying that we believe our well-being to be conditioned on the well-being of others. This has been illustrated by UNRHA* by President Truman1s Point Four; Program,'.and by the 31 and 1/2 billion .... dollars' we;have spent on aid to foreign countries.. It is a known truth often repeated that the. world cannot exist - part free and part slave. V As. for Poland's future, I think that when Poland; is free again and re" . . built on strong economic and political foundations, she,will take her do- , . . served place not only in Biurope, - but in the world - and that is as it shoU ' •' be. ' • ' '•'• ' .• . , i .-•. •. •'.".' ,"v'.','. '" •>•
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