Speech Transcript:

 Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Eighty-third Congress:

I welcome the honor of appearing before you to deliver my first
message to the Congress.

It is manifestly the joint purpose of the congressional leadership
and of this administration to justify the summons to governmental
responsibility issued last November by the American people. The grand
labors of this leadership will involve:

Application of America's influence in world affairs with such
fortitude and such foresight that it will deter aggression and
eventually secure peace;

Establishment of a national administration of such integrity and such
efficiency that its honor at home will ensure respect abroad;

Encouragement of those incentives that inspire creative initiative in
our economy, so that its productivity may fortify freedom everywhere;
and

Dedication to the well-being of all our citizens and to the
attainment of equality of opportunity for all, so that our Nation
will ever act with the strength of unity in every task to which it is
called.

The purpose of this message is to suggest certain lines along which
our joint efforts may immediately be directed toward realization of
these four ruling purposes.

The time that this administration has been in office has been too
brief to permit preparation of a detailed and comprehensive program
of recommended action to cover all phases of the responsibilities
that devolve upon our country's new leaders. Such a program will be
filled out in the weeks ahead as, after appropriate study, I shall
submit additional recommendations for your consideration. Today can
provide only a sure and substantial beginning.

II.

Our country has come through a painful period of trial and
disillusionment since the victory of 1945. We anticipated a world of
peace and cooperation. The calculated pressures of aggressive
communism have forced us, instead, to live in a world of turmoil.

From this costly experience we have learned one clear lesson. We have
learned that the free world cannot indefinitely remain in a posture of
paralyzed tension, leaving forever to the aggressor the choice of time
and place and means to cause greatest hurt to us at least cost to
himself.

This administration has, therefore, begun the definition of a new,
positive foreign policy. This policy will be governed by certain
fixed ideas. They are these:

(1) Our foreign policy must be clear, consistent, and confident. This
means that it must be the product of genuine, continuous cooperation
between the executive and the legislative branches of this
Government. It must be developed and directed in the spirit of true
bipartisanship.

(2) The policy we embrace must be a coherent global policy. The
freedom we cherish and defend in Europe and in the Americas is no
different from the freedom that is imperiled in Asia.

(3) Our policy, dedicated to making the free world secure, will
envision all peaceful methods and devices--except breaking faith with
our friends. We shall never acquiesce in the enslavement of any people
in order to purchase fancied gain for ourselves. I shall ask the
Congress at a later date to join in an appropriate resolution making
clear that this Government recognizes no kind of commitment contained
in secret understandings of the past with foreign governments which
permit this kind of enslavement.

(4) The policy we pursue will recognize the truth that no single
country, even one so powerful as ours, can alone defend the liberty
of all nations threatened by Communist aggression from without or
subversion within. Mutual security means effective mutual
cooperation. For the United States, this means that, as a matter of
common sense and national interest, we shall give help to other
nations in the measure that they strive earnestly to do their full
share of the common task. No wealth of aid could compensate for
poverty of spirit. The heart of every free nation must be honestly
dedicated to the preserving of its own independence and security.

(5) Our policy will be designed to foster the advent of practical
unity in Western Europe. The nations of that region have contributed
notably to the effort of sustaining the security of the free world.
From the jungles of Indochina and Malaya to the northern shores of
Europe, they have vastly improved their defensive strength. Where
called upon to do so, they have made costly and bitter sacrifices to
hold the line of freedom.

But the problem of security demands closer cooperation among the
nations of Europe than has been known to date. Only a more closely
integrated economic and political system can provide the greatly
increased economic strength needed to maintain both necessary
military readiness and respectable living standards.

Europe's enlightened leaders have long been aware of these facts. All
the devoted work that has gone into the Schuman plan, the European
Army, and the Strasbourg Conference has testified to their vision and
determination. These achievements are the more remarkable when we
realize that each of them has marked a victory--for France and for
Germany alike over the divisions that in the past have brought such
tragedy to these two great nations and to the world.

The needed unity of Western Europe manifestly cannot be manufactured
from without; it can only be created from within. But it is right and
necessary that we encourage Europe's leaders by informing them of the
high value we place upon the earnestness of their efforts toward this
goal. Real progress will be conclusive evidence to the American people
that our material sacrifices in the cause of collective security are
matched by essential political, economic, and military
accomplishments in Western Europe.

(6) Our foreign policy will recognize the importance of profitable
and equitable world trade.

A substantial beginning can and should be made by our friends
themselves. Europe, for example, is now marked by checkered areas of
labor surplus and labor shortage, of agricultural areas needing
machines and industrial areas needing food. Here and elsewhere we can
hope that our friends will take the initiative in creating broader
markets and more dependable currencies, to allow greater exchange of
goods and services among themselves.

Action along these lines can create an economic environment that will
invite vital help from us.

This help includes:

First: Revising our customs regulations to remove procedural
obstacles to profitable trade. I further recommend that the Congress
take the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act under immediate study and
extend it by appropriate legislation. This objective must not ignore
legitimate safeguarding of domestic industries, agriculture, and
labor standards. In all executive study and recommendations on this
problem labor and management and farmers alike will be earnestly
consulted.

Second: Doing whatever Government properly can to encourage the flow
of private American investment abroad. This involves, as a serious
and explicit purpose of our foreign policy, the encouragement of a
hospitable climate for such investment in foreign nations.

Third: Availing ourselves of facilities overseas for the economical
production of manufactured articles which are needed for mutual
defense and which are not seriously competitive with our own normal
peacetime production.

Fourth: Receiving from the rest of the world, in equitable exchange
for what we supply, greater amounts of important raw materials which
we do not ourselves possess in adequate quantities.

III.

In this general discussion of our foreign policy, I must make special
mention of the war in Korea.

This war is, for Americans, the most painful phase of Communist
aggression throughout the world. It is clearly a part of the same
calculated assault that the aggressor is simultaneously pressing in
Indochina and in Malaya, and of the strategic situation that
manifestly embraces the island of Formosa and the Chinese Nationalist
forces there. The working out of any military solution to the Korean
war will inevitably affect all these areas.

The administration is giving immediate increased attention to the
development of additional Republic of Korea forces. The citizens of
that country have proved their capacity as fighting men and their
eagerness to take a greater share in the defense of their homeland.
Organization, equipment, and training will allow them to do so.
Increased assistance to Korea for this purpose conforms fully to our
global policies.

In June 1950, following the aggressive attack on the Republic of
Korea, the United States Seventh Fleet was instructed both to prevent
attack upon Formosa and also to insure that Formosa should not be used
as a base of operations against the Chinese Communist mainland.

This has meant, in effect, that the United States Navy was required
to serve as a defensive arm of Communist China. Regardless of the
situation in 1950, since the date of that order the Chinese
Communists have invaded Korea to attack the United Nations forces
there. They have consistently rejected the proposals of the United
Nations Command for an armistice. They recently joined with Soviet
Russia in rejecting the armistice proposal sponsored in the United
Nations by the Government of India. This proposal had been accepted
by the United States and 53 other nations.

Consequently there is no longer any logic or sense in a condition
that required the United States Navy to assume defensive
responsibilities on behalf of the Chinese Communists, thus permitting
those Communists, with greater impunity, to kill our soldiers and
those of our United Nations allies in Korea.

I am, therefore, issuing instructions that the Seventh Fleet no
longer be employed to shield Communist China. This order implies no
aggressive intent on our part. But we certainly have no obligation to
protect a nation fighting us in Korea.

IV.

Our labor for peace in Korea and in the world imperatively demands
the maintenance by the United States of a strong fighting service
ready for any contingency.

Our problem is to achieve adequate military strength within the
limits of endurable strain upon our economy. To amass military power
without regard to our economic capacity would be to defend ourselves
against one kind of disaster by inviting another.

Both military and economic objectives demand a single national
military policy, proper coordination of our armed services, and
effective consolidation of certain logistics activities.

We must eliminate waste and duplication of effort in the armed
services.

We must realize clearly that size alone is not sufficient. The
biggest force is not necessarily the best--and we want the best.

We must not let traditions or habits of the past stand in the way of
developing an efficient military force. All members of our forces
must be ever mindful that they serve under a single flag and for a
single cause.

We must effectively integrate our armament programs and plan them in
such careful relation to our industrial facilities that we assure the
best use of our manpower and our materials.

Because of the complex technical nature of our military organization
and because of the security reasons involved, the Secretary of
Defense must take the initiative and assume the responsibility for
developing plans to give our Nation maximum safety at minimum cost.
Accordingly, the new Secretary of Defense and his civilian and
military associates will, in the future, recommend such changes in
present laws affecting our defense activities as may be necessary to
clarify responsibilities and improve the total effectiveness of our
defense effort.

This effort must always conform to policies laid down in the National
Security Council.

The statutory function of the National Security Council is to assist
the President in the formulation and coordination of significant
domestic, foreign, and military policies required for the security of
the Nation. In these days of tension it is essential that this central
body have the vitality to perform effectively its statutory role. I
propose to see that it does so.

Careful formulation of policies must be followed by clear
understanding of them by all peoples. A related need, therefore, is
to make more effective all activities of the Government related to
international information.

I have recently appointed a committee of representative and informed
citizens to survey this subject and to make recommendations in the
near future for legislative, administrative, or other action.

A unified and dynamic effort in this whole field is essential to the
security of the United States and of the other peoples in the
community of free nations. There is but one sure way to avoid total
war--and that is to win the cold war.

While retaliatory power is one strong deterrent to a would-be
aggressor, another powerful deterrent is defensive power. No enemy is
likely to attempt an attack foredoomed to failure.

Because the building of a completely impenetrable defense against
attack is still not possible, total defensive strength must include
civil defense preparedness. Because we have incontrovertible evidence
that Soviet Russia possesses atomic weapons, this kind of protection
becomes sheer necessity.

Civil defense responsibilities primarily belong to the State and
local governments--recruiting, training, and organizing volunteers to
meet any emergency. The immediate job of the Federal Government is to
provide leadership, to supply technical guidance, and to continue to
strengthen its civil defense stockpile of medical, engineering, and
related supplies and equipment. This work must go forward without
lag.

V.

I have referred to the inescapable need for economic health and
strength if we are to maintain adequate military power and exert
influential leadership for peace in the world.

Our immediate task is to chart a fiscal and economic policy that
can:

(1) Reduce the planned deficits and then balance the budget, which
means, among other things, reducing Federal expenditures to the safe
minimum;

(2) Meet the huge costs of our defense;

(3) Properly handle the burden of our inheritance of debt and
obligations;

(4) Check the menace of inflation;

(5) Work toward the earliest possible reduction of the tax burden;

(6) Make constructive plans to encourage the initiative of our
citizens.

It is important that all of us understand that this administration
does not and cannot begin its task with a clean slate. Much already
has been written on the record, beyond our power quickly to erase or
to amend. This record includes our inherited burden of indebtedness
and obligations and deficits.

The current year's budget, as you know, carries a 5.9 billion dollar
deficit; and the budget, which was presented to you before this
administration took office, indicates a budgetary deficit of 9.9
billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1954. The national debt
is now more than 265 billion dollars. In addition, the accumulated
obligational authority of the Federal Government for future payment
totals over 80 billion dollars. Even this amount is exclusive of
large contingent liabilities, so numerous and extensive as to be
almost beyond description.

The bills for the payment of nearly all of the 80 billion dollars of
obligations will be presented during the next 4 years. These bills,
added to the current costs of government we must meet, make a
formidable burden.

The present authorized Government-debt limit is 275 billion dollars.
The forecast presented by the outgoing administration with the fiscal
year 1954 budget indicates that--before the end of the fiscal year and
at the peak of demand for payments during the year--the total
Government debt may approach and even exceed that limit. Unless
budgeted deficits are checked, the momentum of past programs will
force an increase of the statutory debt limit.

Permit me this one understatement: to meet and to correct this
situation will not be easy.

Permit me this one assurance: every department head and I are
determined to do everything we can to resolve it.

The first order of business is the elimination of the annual deficit.
This cannot be achieved merely by exhortation. It demands the
concerted action of all those in responsible positions in the
Government and the earnest cooperation of the Congress.

Already, we have begun an examination of the appropriations and
expenditures of all departments in an effort to find significant
items that may be decreased or canceled without damage to our
essential requirements.

Getting control of the budget requires also that State and local
governments and interested groups of citizens restrain themselves in
their demands upon the Congress that the Federal Treasury spend more
and more money for all types of projects.

A balanced budget is an essential first measure in checking further
depreciation in the buying power of the dollar. This is one of the
critical steps to be taken to bring an end to planned inflation. Our
purpose is to manage the Government's finances so as to help and not
hinder each family in balancing its own budget.

Reduction of taxes will be justified only as we show we can succeed
in bringing the budget under control. As the budget is balanced and
inflation checked, the tax burden that today stifles initiative can
and must be eased.

Until we can determine the extent to which expenditures can be
reduced, it would not be wise to reduce our revenues.

Meanwhile, the tax structure as a whole demands review. The Secretary
of the Treasury is undertaking this study immediately. We must develop
a system of taxation which will impose the least possible obstacle to
the dynamic growth of the country. This includes particularly real
opportunity for the growth of small businesses. Many readjustments in
existing taxes will be necessary to serve these objectives and also to
remove existing inequities. Clarification and simplification in the
tax laws as well as the regulations will be undertaken.

In the entire area of fiscal policy--which must, in its various
aspects, be treated in recommendations to the Congress in coming
weeks--there can now be stated certain basic facts and principles.

First. It is axiomatic that our economy is a highly complex and
sensitive mechanism. Hasty and ill-considered action of any kind
could seriously upset the subtle equation that encompasses debts,
obligations, expenditures, defense demands, deficits, taxes, and the
general economic health of the Nation. Our goals can be clear, our
start toward them can be immediate--but action must be gradual.

Second. It is clear that too great a part of the national debt comes
due in too short a time. The Department of the Treasury will
undertake at suitable times a program of extending part of the debt
over longer periods and gradually placing greater amounts in the
hands of longer-term investors.

Third. Past differences in policy between the Treasury and the
Federal Reserve Board have helped to encourage inflation. Henceforth,
I expect that their single purpose shall be to serve the whole Nation
by policies designed to stabilize the economy and encourage the free
play of our people's genius for individual initiative.

In encouraging this initiative, no single item in our current
problems has received more thoughtful consideration by my associates,
and by the many individuals called into our counsels, than the matter
of price and wage control by law.

The great economic strength of our democracy has developed in an
atmosphere of freedom. The character of our people resists artificial
and arbitrary controls of any kind. Direct controls, except those on
credit, deal not with the real causes of inflation but only with its
symptoms. In times of national emergency, this kind of control has a
role to play. Our whole system, however, is based upon the assumption
that, normally, we should combat wide fluctuations in our price
structure by relying largely on the effective use of sound fiscal and
monetary policy, and upon the natural workings of economic law.

Moreover, American labor and American business can best resolve their
wage problems across the bargaining table. Government should refrain
from sitting in with them unless, in extreme cases, the public
welfare requires protection.

We are, of course, living in an international situation that is
neither an emergency demanding full mobilization, nor is it peace. No
one can know how long this condition will persist. Consequently, we
are forced to learn many new things as we go along-clinging to what
works, discarding what does not.

In all our current discussions on these and related facts, the weight
of evidence is clearly against the use of controls in their present
forms. They have proved largely unsatisfactory or unworkable. They
have not prevented inflation; they have not kept down the cost of
living. Dissatisfaction with them is wholly justified. I am convinced
that now--as well as in the long run--free and competitive prices will
best serve the interests of all the people, and best meet the
changing, growing needs of our economy.

Accordingly, I do not intend to ask for a renewal of the present wage
and price controls on April 30, 1953, when present legislation
expires. In the meantime, steps will be taken to eliminate controls
in an orderly manner, and to terminate special agencies no longer
needed for this purpose. It is obviously to be expected that the
removal of these controls will result in individual price
changes--some up, some down. But a maximum of freedom in market
prices as well as in collective bargaining is characteristic of a
truly free people.

I believe also that material and product controls should be ended,
except with respect to defense priorities and scarce and critical
items essential for our defense. I shall recommend to the Congress
that legislation be enacted to continue authority for such remaining
controls of this type as will be necessary after the expiration of
the existing statute on June 30, 1953.

I recommend the continuance of the authority for Federal control over
rents in those communities in which serious housing shortages exist.
These are chiefly the so-called defense areas. In these and all areas
the Federal Government should withdraw from the control of rents as
soon as practicable. But before they are removed entirely, each
legislature should have full opportunity to take over, within its own
State, responsibility for this function.

It would be idle to pretend that all our problems in this whole field
of prices will solve themselves by mere Federal withdrawal from direct
controls.

We shall have to watch trends closely. If the freer functioning of
our economic system, as well as the indirect controls which can be
appropriately employed, prove insufficient during this period of
strain and tension, I shall promptly ask the Congress to enact such
legislation as may be required.

In facing all these problems--wages, prices, production, tax rates,
fiscal policy, deficits--everywhere we remain constantly mindful that
the time for sacrifice has not ended. But we are concerned with the
encouragement of competitive enterprise and individual initiative
precisely because we know them to be our Nation's abiding sources of
strength.

VI.

Our vast world responsibility accents with urgency our people's
elemental right to a government whose clear qualities are loyalty,
security, efficiency, economy, and integrity.

The safety of America and the trust of the people alike demand that
the personnel of the Federal Government be loyal in their motives and
reliable in the discharge of their duties. Only a combination of both
loyalty and reliability promises genuine security.

To state this principle is easy; to apply it can be difficult. But
this security we must and shall have. By way of example, all
principal new appointees to departments and agencies have been
investigated at their own request by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.

Confident of your understanding and cooperation, I know that the
primary responsibility for keeping out the disloyal and the dangerous
rests squarely upon the executive branch. When this branch so conducts
itself as to require policing by another branch of the Government, it
invites its own disorder and confusion.

I am determined to meet this responsibility of the Executive. The
heads of all executive departments and agencies have been instructed
to initiate at once effective programs of security with respect to
their personnel. The Attorney General will advise and guide the
departments and agencies in the shaping of these programs, designed
at once to govern the employment of new personnel and to review
speedily any derogatory information concerning incumbent personnel.

To carry out these programs, I believe that the powers of the
executive branch under existing law are sufficient. If they should
prove inadequate, the necessary legislation will be requested.

These programs will be both fair to the rights of the individual and
effective for the safety of the Nation. They will, with care and
justice, apply the basic principle that public employment is not a
right but a privilege.

All these measures have two clear purposes: Their first purpose is to
make certain that this Nation's security is not jeopardized by false
servants. Their second purpose is to clear the atmosphere of that
unreasoned suspicion that accepts rumor and gossip as substitutes for
evidence.

Our people, of course, deserve and demand of their Federal Government
more than security of personnel. They demand, also, efficient and
logical organization, true to constitutional principles.

I have already established a Committee on Government Organization.
The Committee is using as its point of departure the reports of the
Hoover Commission and subsequent studies by several independent
agencies. To achieve the greater efficiency and economy which the
Committee analyses show to be possible, I ask the Congress to extend
the present Government Reorganization Act for a period of 18 months
or 2 years beyond its expiration date of April 1, 1953.

There is more involved here than realigning the wheels and smoothing
the gears of administrative machinery. The Congress
rightfully-expects the Executive to take the initiative in
discovering and removing outmoded functions and eliminating
duplication.

One agency, for example, whose head has promised early and vigorous
action to provide greater efficiency is the Post Office. One of the
oldest institutions of our Federal Government, its service should be
of the best. Its employees should merit and receive the high regard
and esteem of the citizens of the Nation. There are today in some
areas of the postal service, both waste and incompetence to be
corrected. With the cooperation of the Congress, and taking advantage
of its accumulated experience in postal affairs, the Postmaster
General will institute a program directed at improving service while
at the same time reducing costs and decreasing deficits.

In all departments, dedication to these basic precepts of security
and efficiency, integrity, and economy can and will produce an
administration deserving of the trust the people have placed in it.

Our people have demanded nothing less than good, efficient
government. They shall get nothing less.

VII.

Vitally important are the water and minerals, public lands and
standing timber, forage and Mid-life of this country. A fast-growing
population will have vast future needs in these resources. We must
more than match the substantial achievements in the half-century
since President Theodore Roosevelt awakened the Nation to the problem
of conservation.

This calls for a strong Federal program in the field of resource
development. Its major projects should be timed, where possible to
assist in leveling off peaks and valleys in our economic life.
Soundly planned projects already initiated should be carried out. New
ones will be planned for the future.

The best natural resources program for America will not result from
exclusive dependence on Federal bureaucracy. It will involve a
partnership of the States and local communities, private citizens,
and the Federal Government, all working together. This combined
effort will advance the development of the great river valleys of our
Nation and the power that they can generate. Likewise, such a
partnership can be effective in the expansion throughout the Nation
of upstream storage; the sound use of public lands; the wise
conservation of minerals; and the sustained yield of our forests.

There has been much criticism, some of it apparently justified, of
the confusion resulting from overlapping Federal activities in the
entire field of resource-conservation. This matter is being
exhaustively studied and appropriate reorganization plans will be
developed.

Most of these particular resource problems pertain to the Department
of the Interior. Another of its major concerns is our country's
island possessions. Here, one matter deserves attention. The
platforms of both political parties promised immediate statehood to
Hawaii. The people of that Territory have earned that status.
Statehood should be granted promptly with the first election
scheduled for 1954.

VIII.


One of the difficult problems which face the new administration is
that of the slow, irregular decline of farm prices. This decline,
which has been going on for almost 2 years, has occurred at a time
when most nonfarm prices and farm costs of production are
extraordinarily high.

Present agricultural legislation provides for the mandatory support
of the prices of basic farm commodities at 90 percent of parity. The
Secretary of Agriculture and his associates will, of course, execute
the present act faithfully and thereby seek to mitigate the
consequences of the downturn in farm income.

This price-support legislation will expire at the end of 1954.

So we should begin now to consider what farm legislation we should
develop for 1955 and beyond. Our aim should be economic stability and
full parity of income for American farmers. But we must seek this goal
in ways that minimize governmental interference in the farmers'
affairs, that permit desirable shifts in production, and that
encourage farmers themselves to use initiative in meeting changing
economic conditions.

A continuing study reveals nothing more emphatically than the
complicated nature of this subject. Among other things, it shows that
the prosperity of our agriculture depends directly upon the prosperity
of the whole country--upon the purchasing power of American consumers.
It depends also upon the opportunity to ship abroad large surpluses of
particular commodities, and therefore upon sound economic
relationships between the United States and many foreign countries.
It involves research and scientific investigation, conducted on an
extensive scale. It involves special credit mechanisms and marketing,
rural electrification, soil conservation, and other programs.

The whole complex of agricultural programs and policies will be
studied by a Special Agricultural Advisory Commission, as I know it
will by appropriate committees of the Congress. A nonpartisan group
of respected authorities in the field of agriculture has already been
appointed as an interim advisory group.

The immediate changes needed in agricultural programs are largely
budgetary and administrative in nature. New policies and new programs
must await the completion of the far-reaching studies which have
already been launched.

IX.


The determination of labor policy must be governed not by the
vagaries of political expediency but by the firmest principles and
convictions. Slanted partisan appeals to American workers, spoken as
if they were a group apart, necessitating a special language and
treatment, are an affront to the fullness of their dignity as
American citizens.

The truth in matters of labor policy has become obscured in
controversy. The very meaning of economic freedom as it affects labor
has become confused. This misunderstanding has provided a climate of
opinion favoring the growth of governmental paternalism in labor
relations. This tendency, if left uncorrected, could end only by
producing a bureaucratic despotism. Economic freedom is, in fact, the
requisite of greater prosperity for every American who earns his own
living.

In the field of labor legislation, only a law that merits the respect
and support of both labor and management can help reduce the loss of
wages and of production through strikes and stoppages, and thus add
to the total economic strength of our Nation.

We have now had 5 years' experience with the Labor Management Act of
1947, commonly known as the Taft-Hartley Act. That experience has
shown the need for some corrective action, and we should promptly
proceed to amend that act.

I know that the Congress is already proceeding with renewed studies
of this subject. Meanwhile, the Department of Labor is at once
beginning work to devise further specific recommendations for your
consideration.

In the careful working out of legislation, I know you will give
thoughtful consideration--as will we in the executive branch--to the
views of labor, and of management, and of the general public. In this
process, it is only human that each of us should bring forward the
arguments of self-interest. But if all conduct their arguments in the
overpowering light of national interest--which is enlightened
self-interest--we shall get the right answers. I profoundly hope that
every citizen of our country will follow with understanding your
progress in this work. The welfare of all of us is involved.

Especially must we remember that the institutions of trade unionism
and collective bargaining are monuments to the freedom that must
prevail in our industrial life. They have a century of honorable
achievement behind them. Our faith in them is proven, firm, and
final.

Government can do a great deal to aid the settlement of labor
disputes without allowing itself to be employed as an ally of either
side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the
processes of mediation and conciliation. These processes can
successfully be directed only by a government free from the taint of
any suspicion that it is partial or punitive.

The administration intends to strengthen and to improve the services
which the Department of Labor can render to the worker and to the
whole national community. This Department was created--just 40 years
ago--to serve the entire Nation. It must aid, for example, employers
and employees alike in improving training programs that will develop
skilled and competent workers. It must enjoy the confidence and
respect of labor and industry in order to play a significant role in
the planning of America's economic future. To that end, I am
authorizing the Department of Labor to establish promptly a
tripartite advisory committee consisting of representatives of
employers, labor, and the public.

X.


Our civil and social rights form a central part of the heritage we
are striving to defend on all fronts and with all our strength. I
believe with all my heart that our vigilant guarding of these rights
is a sacred obligation binding upon every citizen. To be true to
one's own freedom is, in essence, to honor and respect the freedom of
all others.

A cardinal ideal in this heritage we cherish is the equality of
rights of all citizens of every race and color and creed.

We know that discrimination against minorities persists despite our
allegiance to this ideal. Such discrimination--confined to no one
section of the Nation--is but the outward testimony to the
persistence of distrust and of fear in the hearts of men.

This fact makes all the more vital the fighting of these wrongs by
each individual, in every station of life, in his every deed.

Much of the answer lies in the power of fact, fully publicized; of
persuasion, honestly pressed; and of conscience, justly aroused.
These are methods familiar to our way of life, tested and proven
wise.

I propose to use whatever authority exists in the office of the
President to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including
the Federal Government, and any segregation in the Armed Forces.

Here in the District of Columbia, serious attention should be given
to the proposal to develop and authorize, through legislation, a
system to provide an effective voice in local self-government. While
consideration of this proceeds, I recommend an immediate increase of
two in the number of District Commissioners to broaden representation
of all elements of our local population. This will be a first step
toward insuring that this Capital provide an honored example to all
communities of our Nation.

In this manner, and by the leadership of the office of the President
exercised through friendly conferences with those in authority in our
States and cities, we expect to make true and rapid progress in civil
rights and equality of employment opportunity.

There is one sphere in which civil rights are inevitably involved in
Federal legislation. This is the sphere of immigration.

It is a manifest right of our Government to limit the number of
immigrants our Nation can absorb. It is also a manifest right of our
Government to set reasonable requirements on the character and the
numbers of the people who come to share our land and our freedom.

It is well for us, however, to remind ourselves occasionally of an
equally manifest fact: we are--one and all--immigrants or sons and
daughters of immigrants.

Existing legislation contains injustices. It does, in fact,
discriminate. I am informed by Members of the Congress that it was
realized, at the time of its enactment, that future study of the
basis of determining quotas would be necessary.

I am therefore requesting the Congress to review this legislation and
to enact a statute that will at one and the same time guard our
legitimate national interests and be faithful to our basic ideas of
freedom and fairness to all.

In another but related area--that of social rights--we see most
clearly the new application of old ideas of freedom.

This administration is profoundly aware of two great needs born of
our living in a complex industrial economy. First, the individual
citizen must have safeguards against personal disaster inflicted by
forces beyond his control; second, the welfare of the people demands
effective and economical performance by the Government of certain
indispensable social services.

In the light of this responsibility, certain general purposes and
certain concrete measures are plainly indicated now.

There is urgent need for greater effectiveness in our programs, both
public and private, offering safeguards against the privations that
too often come with unemployment, old age, illness, and accident. The
provisions of the old-age and survivors insurance law should promptly
be extended to cover millions of citizens who have been left out of
the social-security system. No less important is the encouragement of
privately sponsored pension plans. Most important of all, of course,
is renewed effort to check the inflation which destroys so much of
the value of all social-security payments.

Our school system demands some prompt, effective help. During each of
the last 9 years, more than 1 Ѕ million children have swelled
the elementary and secondary school population of the country.
Generally, the school population is proportionately higher in States
with low per capita income. This whole situation calls for careful
congressional study and action. I am sure that you share my
conviction that the firm conditions of Federal aid must be proved
need and proved lack of local income.

One phase of the school problem demands special action. The school
population of many districts has been greatly in- creased by the
swift growth of defense activities. These activities have added
little or nothing to the tax resources of the communities affected.
Legislation aiding construction of schools in the districts expires
on June 30. This law should be renewed; and likewise, the partial
payments for current operating expenses for these particular school
districts should be made, including the deficiency requirement of the
current fiscal year.

Public interest similarly demands one prompt specific action in
protection of the general consumer. The Food and Drug Administration
should be authorized to continue its established and necessary
program of factory inspections. The invalidation of these inspections
by the Supreme Court of December 8, 1952, was based solely on the fact
that the present law contained inconsistent and unclear provisions.
These must be promptly corrected.

I am well aware that beyond these few immediate measures there
remains much to be done. The health and housing needs of our people
call for intelligently planned programs. Involved are the solvency of
the whole security system; and its guarding against exploitation by
the irresponsible.

To bring clear purpose and orderly procedure into this field, I
anticipate a thorough study of the proper relationship among Federal,
State, and local programs. I shall shortly send you specific
recommendations for establishing such an appropriate commission,
together with a reorganization plan defining new administrative
status for all Federal activities in health, education, and social
security.

I repeat that there are many important subjects of which I make no
mention today. Among these is our great and growing body of veterans.
America has traditionally been generous in caring for the
disabled--and the widow and the orphan of the fallen. These millions
remain close to all our hearts. Proper care of our uniformed citizens
and appreciation of the past service of our veterans are part of our
accepted governmental responsibilities.

XI


We have surveyed briefly some problems of our people and a portion of
the tasks before us.

The hope of freedom itself depends, in real measure, upon our
strength, our heart, and our wisdom.

We must be strong in arms. We must be strong in the source of all our
armament, our productivity. We all--workers and farmers, foremen and
financiers, technicians and builders--all must produce, produce more,
and produce yet more.

We must be strong, above all, in the spiritual resources upon which
all else depends. We must be devoted with all our heart to the values
we defend. We must know that each of these values and virtues applies
with equal force at the ends of the earth and in our relations with
our neighbor next door. We must know that freedom expresses itself
with equal eloquence in the right of workers to strike in the nearby
factory, and in the yearnings and sufferings of the peoples of
Eastern Europe.

As our heart summons our strength, our wisdom must direct it.

There is, in world affairs, a steady course to be followed between an
assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of
helplessness that is cowardly.

There is, in our affairs at home, a middle way between untrammeled
freedom of the individual and the demands for the welfare of the
whole Nation. This way must avoid government by bureaucracy as
carefully as it avoids neglect of the helpless.

In every area of political action, free men must think before they
can expect to win.

In this spirit must we live and labor: confident of our strength,
compassionate in our heart, clear in our mind.

In this spirit, let us together turn to the great tasks before us.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER