This is a solemn but a glorious hour. General Eisenhower
informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United
Nations. The flags of freedom fly over all Europe.
For this victory, we join in offering our thanks to
the Providence which has guided and sustained us through the dark days
of adversity.
Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme
consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of
Hitler and his evil band. Let us not forget, my fellow Americans, the
sorrow and the heartbreak which today abide in the homes of so many
of our neighbors-neighbors whose most priceless possession has been
rendered as a sacrifice to redeem our liberty.
We can repay the debt which we owe to our God, to
our dead, and to our children only by work-by ceaseless devotion to
the responsibilities which lie ahead of us. If I could give you a single
watchword for the coming months, that word is-work, work, work.
We must work to finish the war. Our victory is but
half won. The West is free, but the East is still in bondage to the
treacherous tyranny of the Japanese. When the last Japanese division
has surrendered unconditionally, then only will our fighting job be
done.
We must work to bind up the wounds of a suffering
world-to build an abiding peace, a peace rooted in justice and in law.
We can build such a peace only by hard, toilsome, painstaking work-by
understanding and working with our Allies in peace as we have in war.
The job ahead is no less important, no less urgent,
no less difficult than the task which now happily is done.
I call upon every American to stick to his post until
the last battle is won. Until that day, let no man abandon his post
or slacken his efforts.
And now, I want to read to you my formal proclamation
of this occasion:
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The Allied Armies, through sacrifice and devotion
and with God's help, have wrung from Germany a final and unconditional
surrender. The western world has been freed of the evil forces which
for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the
lives of millions upon millions of free-born men. They have violated
their churches, destroyed their homes, corrupted their children, and
murdered their loved ones. Our Armies of Liberation have restored freedom
to these suffering peoples, whose spirit and will the oppressors could
never enslave.
Much remains to be done. The victory won in the West
must now be won in the East. The whole world must be cleansed of the
evil from which half the world has been freed. United, the peace-loving
nations have demonstrated in the West that their arms are stronger by
far than the might of dictators or the tyranny of military cliques that
once called us soft and weak. The power of our peoples to defend themselves
against all enemies will be proved in the Pacific war as it has been
proved in Europe.
For the triumph of spirit and of arms which we have
won, and for its promise to peoples everywhere who join us in the love
of freedom, it is fitting that we, as a nation, give thanks to Almighty
God, who has strengthened us and given us the victory.
Now, THEREFORE, I, HARRY S. TRUMAN, President of the
United States of America, do hereby appoint Sunday, May 13, 1945, to
be a day of prayer.
I call upon the people of the United States, whatever
their faith, to unite in offering joyful thanks to God for the victory
we have won and to pray that He will support us to the end of our present
struggle and guide us into the way of peace.
I also call upon my countrymen to dedicate this day
of prayer to the memory of those who have given their lives to make
possible our victory.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and
caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the City of Washington this eighth day of
May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-five, and of
the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and
sixty-ninth.
[SEAL]
HARRY S. TRUMAN
By the President:
JOSEPH C. GREW
Acting Secretary of State