Robert Menzies: Greatness

“Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.”

Robert Menzies

Declaration of War Broadcast, on the outbreak of the Second World War, 3 September 1939
First Term as Prime Minister (1939-1941)
Context: Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement. Great Britain and France, with the cooperation of the British Dominions, have struggled to avoid this tragedy. They have, as I firmly believe, been patient; they have kept the door of negotiation open; they have given no cause for aggression. But in the result their efforts have failed and we are, therefore, as a great family of nations, involved in a struggle which we must at all costs win, and which we believe in our hearts we will win...

War

“The country has great and imperative obligations to the weak, the sick, the unfortunate. It must give to them all the sustenance and support it can. We look forward to social and unemployment insurances, to improved health services, to a wiser control of our economy to avert if possible all booms and slumps which tend to convert labour into a commodity, to a better distribution of wealth, to a keener sense of social justice and social responsibility. We not only look forward to these things, we shall demand and obtain them.”

Robert Menzies

Freedom from Want radio talk, July 10, 1942 (the fifth of "The Forgotten People" series)
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)
Source: http://menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au/transcripts/the-forgotten-people/63-chapter-5-freedom-from-want

Health , Justice , Support , Sense

“If we want to make our contribution to the pacification of the world, it is our duty to present to the world the spectacle of a rich country with a great people, with an adequate population - with a population which may justly say to the rest of the world: 'We are here; we propose to maintain our integrity as a nation; and our warrant for that is that we are using the resources which God has given into our hands.' The case for immigration on a grand scale is, indeed, an irresistible one.”

Robert Menzies

Citizenship Convention, Canberra, 23 January, 1950.
Second Term as Prime Minister (1949-1966)
Source: http://www.australianquotes.com/quotes_1950-present.php

God , People , World , Country

“In the whole of recorded modern history, this was, I believe, the one occasion when one man, with one soaring imagination, with one fire burning in him, and with one unrivalled capacity for conveying it to others, won a crucial victory not only for the forces (for there were many heroes in those days) but for the very spirit of human freedom. And so, on this great day, we thank him, and we thank God for him.”

Robert Menzies

Second Term as Prime Minister (1949-1966)

God , Imagination , History , Freedom

“I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.”

Robert Menzies

Radio talk, 22 May, 1942
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)

Home , Fashion , Life , Children