Page 96

Now we turn to the great tasks of reconstruction
and restoration. I am confident that we will be able
to apply the same skill, resourcefulness, and keen
thinking to these problems as were applied to the
problems of winning the victory.
"A great tragedy has ended. A great
victory has been won."
Address by GENERAL MAC ARTHUR after the signing of the
Surrender Instrument by Japan.
Tokyo Bay. Aboard the battleship  Missouri.
September 2, 1915.16
My fellow countrymen, today the guns are silent.
A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been
won. The skies no longer rain death-the seas bear
only commerce-men everywhere walk upright in
the sunlight. The entire World is quietly at peace.
The holy mission has been completed, and in report-
ing this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands
of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and
the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific
which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed
brave millions homeward bound to take up the chal.
lenge of that future which they did so much to sal-
vage from the brink of disaster.
As I look back on the long tortuous trail from those
grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire
world lived in fear; when democracy was on the
16 Congressional Record, September 6, 1945.
96