Liberalism is based upon bold assumptions. It is a political doctrine built upon confidence in the rationality and good will of men. Crisis might well be treated as endemic to any theory so premised. Hence, difficulties caused by the failure of men to act in a manner consistent with such assumptions could be easily anticipated and readily dismissed. The present difficulty seems to go much deeper and to rest upon a questioning of liberal assumptions as valid guides to action.

It is but a step from such pragmatic probings to a challenge of the essential philosophic value of liberalism. To lose faith today in the values of liberalism would, I think, be tragic. The liberal tradition is the strongest political heritage of western culture, and particularly of the United States and the British Commonwealth of Nations. What are the essentials of this heritage?

The essentials of liberalism are familiar to us all—civil rights, the tolerance of political differences, freedom of opportunity and a career open to talents, belief in the dignity and integrity of human personality, the acceptance of diversity and of compromise. These are the elements, and to many bred in the liberal faith they are taken as universal truths.