John R. Mott’s Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1946

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Mr. Chairman and members of the Nobel Committee of the Storting and other friends:

I do not trust myself to voice emotions which well-nigh master me in contemplation of the signal honor conferred on me in the granting of the Nobel Peace Award, and of the gracious and generous words of the President. I appreciate deeply the high privilege of being bracketed in this presentation with Miss Emily Balch, in whose distinguished career of international helpfulness I take pride.

As the President has indicated, my life has been a life of travel – for 60 years constantly moving over the wide world on journeys which first and last have taken me to 83 countries, and, what is more significant, to most of them again and again.

In this world-wide effort I have concentrated on successive generations of youth. If I were to add a word it would be a word of abounding hope. The present new generation across the breadth of the world, and whose representatives are planning to assemble here in Norway in the coming summer to take counsel together, I can testify are responsive to the Nobel Peace ideal, and are planning, as no previous generation, for a great united advance in the furtherance of peace and good-will throughout the world.