The Wilmington Morning Star

NEW ART GALLERY ACCEPTED BY F.R.
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measure of the earnestness of our intention that the freedom of the human spirit shall go on.

Before him was a distinguished gathering of 6,000 invited guests, including diplomats, art connoisseurs and government officials. His speech went out on the major radio networks.

Housed in the gallery are paintings and sculptures valued at $50,000,000 to $80,000,000. Mr. Roosevelt noted in his address, that the treasures included the work of German painters, such as Holbein and Durer, of Italians, like Botticelli and Raphael, and of painters of the low countries, of France and Spain.

To accept this work today on behalf of the people of this democratic nation," the chief executive said, "is to assert the belief of the people of this nation in a human spirit which now is everywhere endangered, and which, in many countries, where it first found form and meaning, has been rooted out and broken and destroyed.

"To accept this work today is to assert the purpose of the people of America that the freedom of the human spirit and human mind which has produced the world's great art and all its science- shall not be utterly destroyed."

Mr. Roosevelt recalled that during the Civil War, the dome of the national capitol was completed, and the bronze Goddess of Liberty placed on its top. Money and labor were diverted from prosecution of the war and some citizens found much to criticize. He said,

But Abraham Lincoln answered the criticisms, Mr. Roosevelt asserted, with this statement: "If people see the capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the union shall go on."