A vital element in the balanced operation of democracy is a strong, alert and watchful opposition. That is our task for the next four years. We must constitute ourselves a vigorous, loyal and public?spirited opposition party. It has been suggested that in order to present a united front to a threatening world, the minority should now surrender its convictions and join the majority. This would mean that in the United States of America, there would be only one dominant party, only one economic philosophy, only one political philosophy of life. This is a totalitarian idea, it is a slave idea, it must be rejected utterly. The British people are unified with a unity almost unexampled in history for its endurance and its valor, yet that unity co?exists with an unimpaired freedom of criticism and of suggestion. In the continued debates of the House of Commons, and the House of Lords, all of the government's policies, its taxation, its expenditure, its military and naval policies, its basic economic policies, are brought under steady friendly loyal, critical review. Britain survives free. Let us Americans choose no lesser freedom.
In Britain, some opposition party leaders are members of the government, and some say that a similar device should be adopted here. That is a false conception of our government. When the leader of the British Liberal party or a member of the British Labor party bes a member of the Churchill cab, he bes, from the British parliamentary point of view an equal of Mr. Churchill's. This is because the British cab is amittee of the Houses of Parliament. It is amittee of equals wherein the Prime Minister is Chairman, a lofty Chairman indeed, and yet but a Chairman. The other members are his colleagues. With us, the situation as you well know is different. Our executive branch is not amittee of our legislative branch. Our President is independent of our Congress. The members of his cab are not his colleagues, they are his administrative subordinates. They are subject to his orders. An American President could fill his whole cab with leaders of the opposition party and still our Administration would not be a two?party administration. It would be an administration of