Speech Transcript:

 I appear before the Congress today to report on the State of the
Union and the relationships of the Union to the other nations of the
world. I come here, firmly convinced that at no time in the history
of the Republic have circumstances more emphatically underscored the
need, in all echelons of government, for vision and wisdom and
resolution.

You meet in a season of stress that is testing the fitness of
political systems and the validity of political philosophies. Each
stress stems in part from causes peculiar to itself. But every stress
is a reflection of a universal phenomenon.

In the world today, the surging and understandable tide of
nationalism is marked by widespread revulsion and revolt against
tyranny, injustice, inequality and poverty. As individuals, joined in
a common hunger for freedom, men and women and even children pit their
spirit against guns and tanks. On a larger scale, in an ever more
persistent search for the self-respect of authentic sovereignty and
the economic base on which national independence must rest, peoples
sever old ties; seek new alliances; experiment--sometimes
dangerously--in their struggle to satisfy these human aspirations.

Particularly, in the past year, this tide has changed the pattern of
attitudes and thinking among millions. The changes already
accomplished foreshadow a world transformed by the spirit of freedom.
This is no faint and pious hope. The forces now at work in the minds
and hearts of men will not be spent through many years. In the main,
today's expressions of nationalism are, in spirit, echoes of our
forefathers' struggle for independence. This Republic cannot be aloof
to these events heralding a new epoch in the affairs of mankind.

Our pledged word, our enlightened self-interest, our character as a
Nation commit us to a high role in world affairs: a role of vigorous
leadership, ready strength, sympathetic understanding.

The State of the Union, at the opening of the 85th Congress,
continues to vindicate the wisdom of the principles on which this
Republic is founded. Proclaimed in the Constitution of the Nation and
in many of our historic documents, and founded in devout religious
convictions, these principles enunciate:

A vigilant regard for human liberty.

A wise concern for human welfare.

A ceaseless effort for human progress.

Fidelity to these principles, in our relations with other peoples,
has won us new friendships and has increased our opportunity for
service within the family of nations. The appeal of these principles
is universal, lighting fires in the souls of men everywhere. We shall
continue to uphold them, against those who deny them and in
counselling with our friends. At home, the application of these
principles to the complex problems of our national life has brought
us to an unprecedented peak in our economic prosperity and has
exemplified in our way of life the enduring human values of mind and
spirit. Through the past four years these principles have guided the
legislative programs submitted by the Administration to the Congress.
As we attempt to apply them to current events, domestic and foreign,
we must take into account the complex entity that is the United
States of America; what endangers it; what can improve it.

The visible structure is our American economy itself. After more than
a century and a half of constant expansion, it is still rich in a wide
variety of natural resources. It is first among nations in its
people's mastery of industrial skills. It is productive beyond our
own needs of many foodstuffs and industrial products. It is rewarding
to all our citizens in opportunity to earn and to advance in
self-realization and in self-expression. It is fortunate in its
wealth of educational and cultural and religious centers. It is
vigorously dynamic in the limitless initiative and willingness to
venture that characterize free enterprise. It is productive of a
widely shared prosperity. Our economy is strong, expanding, and
fundamentally sound. But in any realistic appraisal, even the
optimistic analyst will realize that in a prosperous period the
principal threat to efficient functioning of a free enterprise system
is inflation. We look back on four years of prosperous activities
during which prices, the cost of living, have been relatively
stable--that is, inflation has been held in check. But it is clear
that the danger is always present, particularly if the government
might become profligate in its expenditures or private groups might
ignore all the possible results on our economy of unwise struggles
for immediate gain.

This danger requires a firm resolution that the Federal Government
shall utilize only a prudent share of the Nation's resources, that it
shall live within its means, carefully measuring against need
alternative proposals for expenditures. Through the next four years,
I shall continue to insist that the executive departments and
agencies of Government search out additional ways to save money and
manpower. I urge that the Congress be equally watchful in this
matter.

We pledge the Government's share in guarding the integrity of the
dollar. But the Government's efforts cannot be the entire campaign
against inflation, the thief that can rob the individual of the value
of the pension and social security he has earned during his productive
life. For success, Government's efforts must be paralleled by the
attitudes and actions of individual citizens.

I have often spoken of the purpose of this Administration to serve
the national interest of 170 million people. The national interest
must take precedence over temporary advantages which may be secured
by particular groups at the expense of all the people.

In this regard I call on leaders in business and in labor to think
well on their responsibility to the American people. With all
elements of our society, they owe the Nation a vigilant guard against
the inflationary tendencies that are always at work in a dynamic
economy operating at today's high levels. They can powerfully help
counteract or accentuate such tendencies by their wage and price
policies.

Business in its pricing policies should avoid unnecessary price
increases especially at a time like the present when demand in so
many areas presses hard on short supplies. A reasonable profit is
essential to the new investments that provide more jobs in an
expanding economy. But business leaders must, in the national
interest, studiously avoid those price rises that are possible only
because of vital or unusual needs of the whole nation.

If our economy is to remain healthy, increases in wages and other
labor benefits, negotiated by labor and management, must be
reasonably related to improvements in productivity. Such increases
are beneficial, for they provide wage earners with greater purchasing
power. Except where necessary to correct obvious injustices, wage
increases that outrun productivity, however, are an inflationary
factor. They make for higher prices for the public generally and
impose a particular hardship on those whose welfare depends on the
purchasing power of retirement income and savings. Wage negotiations
should also take cognizance of the right of the public generally to
share in the benefits of improvements in technology.

Freedom has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline. This
definition has a special application to the areas of wage and price
policy in a free economy. Should we persistently fail to discipline
ourselves, eventually there will be increasing pressure on government
to redress the failure. By that process freedom will step by step
disappear. No subject on the domestic scene should more attract the
concern of the friends of American working men and women and of free
business enterprise than the forces that threaten a steady
depreciation of the value of our money.

Concerning developments in another vital sector of our economy--
agriculture--I am gratified that the long slide in farm income has
been halted and that further improvement is in prospect. This is
heartening progress. Three tools that we have developed--improved
surplus disposal, improved price support laws, and the soil bank--are
working to reduce price-depressing government stocks of farm products.
Our concern for the well-being of farm families demands that we
constantly search for new ways by which they can share more fully in
our unprecedented prosperity. Legislative recommendations in the
field of agriculture are contained in the Budget Message.

Our soil, water, mineral, forest, fish, and wildlife resources are
being conserved and improved more effectively. Their conservation and
development are vital to the present and future strength of the
Nation. But they must not be the concern of the Federal Government
alone. State and local entities, and private enterprise should be
encouraged to participate in such projects.

I would like to make special mention of programs for making the best
uses of water, rapidly becoming our most precious natural resource,
just as it can be, when neglected, a destroyer of both life and
wealth. There has been prepared and published a comprehensive water
report developed by a Cabinet Committee and relating to all phases of
this particular problem. In the light of this report, there are two
things I believe we should keep constantly in mind. The first is that
each of our great river valleys should be considered as a whole.
Piecemeal operations within each lesser drainage area can be
self-defeating or, at the very least, needlessly expensive. The
second is that the domestic and industrial demands for water grow far
more rapidly than does our population.

The whole matter of making the best use of each drop of water from
the moment it touches our soil until it reaches the oceans, for such
purposes as irrigation, flood control, power production, and domestic
and industrial uses clearly demands the closest kind of cooperation
and partnership between municipalities, States and the Federal
Government. Through partnership of Federal, state and local
authorities in these vast projects we can obtain the economy and
efficiency of development and operation that springs from a lively
sense of local responsibility.

Until such partnership is established on a proper and logical basis
of sharing authority, responsibility and costs, our country will
never have both the fully productive use of water that it so
obviously needs and protection against disastrous flood. If we fail
in this, all the many tasks that need to be done in America could be
accomplished only at an excessive cost, by the growth of a stifling
bureaucracy, and eventually with a dangerous degree of centralized
control over our national life. In all domestic matters, I believe
that the people of the United States will expect of us effective
action to remedy past failure in meeting critical needs.

High priority should be given the school construction bill. This will
benefit children of all races throughout the country--and children of
all races need schools now. A program designed to meet emergency
needs for more classrooms should be enacted without delay. I am
hopeful that this program can be enacted on its own merits,
uncomplicated by provisions dealing with the complex problems of
integration. I urge the people in all sections of the country to
approach these problems with calm and reason, with mutual
understanding and good will, and in the American tradition of deep
respect for the orderly processes of law and justice.

I should say here that we have much reason to be proud of the
progress our people are making in mutual understanding--the chief
buttress of human and civil rights. Steadily we are moving closer to
the goal of fair and equal treatment of citizens without regard to
race or color. But unhappily much remains to be done.

Last year the Administration recommended to the Congress a four-point
program to reinforce civil rights. That program included:

(1) creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate asserted
violations of civil rights and to make recommendations;

(2) creation of a civil rights division in the Department of Justice
in charge of an Assistant Attorney General;

(3) enactment by the Congress of new laws to aid in the enforcement
of voting rights; and

(4) amendment of the laws so as to permit the Federal Government to
seek from the civil courts preventive relief in civil rights cases.

I urge that the Congress enact this legislation.

Essential to the stable economic growth we seek is a system of
well-adapted and efficient financial institutions. I believe the time
has come to conduct a broad national inquiry into the nature,
performance and adequacy of our financial system, both in terms of
its direct service to the whole economy and in terms of its function
as the mechanism through which monetary and credit policy takes
effect. I believe the Congress should authorize the creation of a
commission of able and qualified citizens to undertake this vital
inquiry. Out of their findings and recommendations the Administration
would develop and present to the Congress any legislative proposals
that might be indicated for the purpose of improving our financial
machinery. In this message it seems unnecessary that I should repeat
recommendations involving our domestic affairs that have been urged
upon the Congress during the past four years, but which, in some
instances, did not reach the stage of completely satisfactory
legislation.

The Administration will, through future messages either directly from
me or from heads of the departments and agencies, transmit to the
Congress specific recommendations. These will involve our financial
and fiscal affairs; our military and civil defenses; the
administration of justice; our agricultural economy; our domestic and
foreign commerce; the urgently needed increase in our postal rates;
the development of our natural resources; our labor laws, including
our labor-management relations legislation, and vital aspects of the
health, education and welfare of our people. There will be special
recommendations dealing with such subjects as atomic energy, the
furthering of public works, the continued efforts to eliminate
government competition with the businesses of tax-paying citizens. A
number of legislative recommendations will be mentioned specifically
in my forthcoming Budget Message, which will reach you within the
week. That message will also recommend such sums as are needed to
implement the proposed action.

Turning to the international scene: The existence of a strongly armed
imperialistic dictatorship poses a continuing threat to the free
world's and thus to our own Nation's security and peace. There are
certain truths to be remembered here.

First, America alone and isolated cannot assure even its own
security. We must be joined by the capability and resolution of
nations that have proved themselves dependable defenders of freedom.
Isolation from them invites war. Our security is also enhanced by the
immeasurable interest that joins us with all peoples who believe that
peace with justice must be preserved, that wars of aggression are
crimes against humanity.

Another truth is that our survival in today's world requires modern,
adequate, dependable military strength. Our Nation has made great
strides in assuring a modern defense, so armed in new weapons, so
deployed, so equipped, that today our security force is the most
powerful in our peacetime history. It can punish heavily any enemy
who undertakes to attack us. It is a major deterrent to war. By our
research and development more efficient weapons--some of amazing
capabilities--are being constantly created. These vital efforts we
shall continue. Yet we must not delude ourselves that safety
necessarily increases as expenditures for military research or forces
in being go up. Indeed, beyond a wise and reasonable level, which is
always changing and is under constant study, money spent on arms may
be money wasted on sterile metal or inflated costs, thereby weakening
the very security and strength we seek.

National security requires far more than military power. Economic and
moral factors play indispensable roles. Any program that endangers our
economy could defeat us. Any weakening of our national will and
resolution, any diminution of the vigor and initiative of our
individual citizens, would strike a blow at the heart of our
defenses.

The finest military establishment we can produce must work closely in
cooperation with the forces of our friends. Our system of regional
pacts, developed within the Charter of the United Nations, serves to
increase both our own security and the security of other nations.

This system is still a recent introduction on the world scene. Its
problems are many and difficult, because it insists on equality among
its members and brings into association some nations traditionally
divided. Repeatedly in recent months, the collapse of these regional
alliances has been predicted. The strains upon them have been at
times indeed severe. Despite these strains our regional alliances
have proved durable and strong, and dire predictions of their
disintegration have proved completely false.

With other free nations, we should vigorously prosecute measures that
will promote mutual strength, prosperity and welfare within the free
world. Strength is essentially a product of economic health and
social well-being. Consequently, even as

we continue our programs of military assistance, we must emphasize
aid to our friends in building more productive economies and in
better satisfying the natural demands of their people for progress.
Thereby we shall move a long way toward a peaceful world.

A sound and safeguarded agreement for open skies, unarmed aerial
sentinels, and reduced armament would provide a valuable contribution
toward a durable peace in the years ahead. And we have been persistent
in our effort to reach such an agreement. We are willing to enter any
reliable agreement which would reverse the trend toward ever more
devastating nuclear weapons; reciprocally provide against the
possibility of surprise attack; mutually control the outer space
missile and satellite development; and make feasible a lower level of
armaments and armed forces and an easier burden of military
expenditures. Our continuing negotiations in this field are a major
part of our quest for a confident peace in this atomic age.

This quest requires as well a constructive attitude among all the
nations of the free world toward expansion of trade and investment,
that can give all of us opportunity to work out economic betterment.

An essential step in this field is the provision of an administrative
agency to insure the orderly and proper operation of existing
arrangements under which multilateral trade is now carried on. To
that end I urge Congressional authorization for United States
membership in the proposed Organization for Trade Cooperation, an
action which will speed removal of discrimination against our export
trade.

We welcome the efforts of a number of our European friends to achieve
an integrated community to develop a common market. We likewise
welcome their cooperative effort in the field of atomic energy.

To demonstrate once again our unalterable purpose to make of the atom
a peaceful servant of humanity, I shortly shall ask the Congress to
authorize full United States participation in the International
Atomic Energy Agency.

World events have magnified both the responsibilities and the
opportunities of the United States Information Agency. Just as, in
recent months, the voice of communism has become more shaken and
confused, the voice of truth must be more clearly heard. To enable
our Information Agency to cope with these new responsibilities and
opportunities, I am asking the Congress to increase appreciably the
appropriations for this program and for legislation establishing a
career service for the Agency's overseas foreign service officers.

The recent historic events in Hungary demand that all free nations
share to the extent of their capabilities in the responsibility of
granting asylum to victims of Communist persecution. I request the
Congress promptly to enact legislation to regularize the status in
the United States of Hungarian refugees brought here as parolees. I
shall shortly recommend to the Congress by special message the
changes in our immigration laws that I deem necessary in the light of
our world responsibilities.

The cost of peace is something we must face boldly, fearlessly.
Beyond money, it involves changes in attitudes, the renunciation of
old prejudices, even the sacrifice of some seeming self-interest.

Only five days ago I expressed to you the grave concern of your
Government over the threat of Soviet aggression in the Middle East. I
asked for Congressional authorization to help counter this threat. I
say again that this matter is of vital and immediate importance to
the Nation's and the free world's security and peace. By our proposed
programs in the Middle East, we hope to assist in establishing a
climate in which constructive and long-term solutions to basic
problems of the area may be sought.

From time to time, there will be presented to the Congress requests
for other legislation in the broad field of international affairs.
All requests will reflect the steadfast purpose of this
Administration to pursue peace, based on justice. Although in some
cases details will be new, the underlying purpose and objectives will
remain the same.

All proposals made by the Administration in this field are based on
the free world's unity. This unity may not be immediately obvious
unless we examine link by link the chain of relationships that binds
us to every area and to every nation. In spirit the free world is one
because its people uphold the right of independent existence for all
nations. I have already alluded to their economic interdependence.
But their interdependence extends also into the field of security.

First of all, no reasonable man will question the absolute need for
our American neighbors to be prosperous and secure. Their security
and prosperity are inextricably bound to our own. And we are, of
course, already joined with these neighbors by historic pledges.

Again, no reasonable man will deny that the freedom and prosperity
and security of Western Europe are vital to our own prosperity and
security. If the institutions, the skills, the manpower of its
peoples were to fall under the domination of an aggressive
imperialism, the violent change in the balance of world power and in
the pattern of world commerce could not be fully compensated for by
any American measures, military or economic.

But these people, whose economic strength is largely dependent on
free and uninterrupted movement of oil from the Middle East, cannot
prosper--indeed, their economies would be severely impaired--should
that area be controlled by an enemy and the movement of oil be
subject to its decisions.

Next, to the Eastward, are Asiatic and Far Eastern peoples, recently
returned to independent control of their own affairs or now emerging
into sovereign statehood. Their potential strength constitutes new
assurance for stability and peace in the world--if they can retain
their independence. Should they lose freedom and be dominated by an
aggressor, the world-wide effects would imperil the security of the
free world. In short, the world has so shrunk that all free nations
are our neighbors. Without cooperative neighbors, the United States
cannot maintain its own security and welfare, because:

First, America's vital interests are world-wide, embracing both
hemispheres and every continent.

Second, we have community of interest with every nation in the free
world.

Third, interdependence of interests requires a decent respect for the
rights and the peace of all peoples.

These principles motivate our actions within the United Nations.
There, before all the world, by our loyalty to them, by our practice
of them, let us strive to set a standard to which all who seek
justice and who hunger for peace can rally. May we at home, here at
the Seat of Government, in all the cities and towns and farmlands of
America, support these principles in a personal effort of dedication.
Thereby each of us can help establish a secure world order in which
opportunity for freedom and justice will be more widespread, and in
which the resources now dissipated on the armaments of war can be
released for the life and growth of all humanity.

When our forefathers prepared the immortal document that proclaimed
our independence, they asserted that every individual is endowed by
his Creator with certain inalienable rights. As we gaze back through
history to that date, it is clear that our nation has striven to live
up to this declaration, applying it to nations as well as to
individuals.

Today we proudly assert that the government of the United States is
still committed to this concept, both in its activities at home and
abroad.

The purpose is Divine; the implementation is human. Our country and
its government have made mistakes--human mistakes. They have been of
the head--not of the heart. And it is still true that the great
concept of the dignity of all men, alike created in the image of the
Almighty, has been the compass by which we have tried and are trying
to steer our course. So long as we continue by its guidance, there
will be true progress in human affairs, both among ourselves and
among those with whom we deal.

To achieve a more perfect fidelity to it, I submit, is a worthy
ambition as we meet together in these first days of this, the first
session of the 85th Congress.