(Charlie Chaplin): I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor. That's
not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help
everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one
another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness,
not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In
this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can
provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have
lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has
goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we
have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our
knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too
much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than
cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will
be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us
closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness
in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of
despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men
torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do
not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed,
the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will
pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to
the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you;
who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel!
Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don't
give yourselves to these unnatural men---machine men with machine minds and
machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have
a love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the
unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth
chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one
man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the
power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the
people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life
a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.
Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give
men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By
the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do
not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they
enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to
free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with
hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science
and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
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