Speech Transcript:

 Seven years ago I entered my present office with one long-held
resolve overriding all others. I was then, and remain now, determined
that the United States shall become an ever more potent resource for
the cause of peace--realizing that peace cannot be for ourselves
alone, but for peoples everywhere. This determination is shared by
the entire Congress--indeed, by all Americans.

My purpose today is to discuss some features of America's position,
both at home and in her relations to others.

First, I point out that for us, annual self-examination is made a
definite necessity by the fact that we now live in a divided world of
uneasy equilibrium, with our side committed to its own protection and
against aggression by the other.

With both sides of this divided world in possession of unbelievably
destructive weapons, mankind approaches a state where mutual
annihilation becomes a possibility. No other fact of today's world
equals this in importance--it colors everything we say, plan, and do.
There is demanded of us, vigilance, determination, and the dedication
of whatever portion of our resources that will provide adequate
security, especially a real deterrent to aggression.

These things we are doing.

All these facts emphasize the importance of striving incessantly for
a just peace. Only through the strengthening of the spiritual,
intellectual, economic and defensive resources of the Free World can
we, in confidence, make progress toward this goal.

Second, we note that recent Soviet deportment and pronouncements
suggest the possible opening of a somewhat less strained period in
the relationships between the Soviet Union and the Free World. If
these pronouncements be genuine, there is brighter hope of
diminishing the intensity of past rivalry and eventually of
substituting persuasion for coercion. Whether this is to become an
era of lasting promise remains to be tested by actions.

Third, we now stand in the vestibule of a vast new technological
age--one that, despite its capacity for human destruction, has an
equal capacity to make poverty and human misery obsolete. If our
efforts are wisely directed--and if our unremitting efforts for
dependable peace begin to attain some success--we can surely become
participants in creating an age characterized by justice and rising
levels of human well-being.

Over the past year the Soviet Union has expressed an interest in
measures to reduce the common peril of war. While neither we nor any
other Free World nation can permit ourselves to be misled by pleasant
promises until they are tested by performance, yet we approach this
apparently new opportunity with the utmost seriousness. We must
strive to break the calamitous cycle of frustrations and crises
which, if unchecked, could spiral into nuclear disaster; the ultimate
insanity.

Though the need for dependable agreements to assure against resort to
force in settling disputes is apparent to both sides yet as in other
issues dividing men and nations, we cannot expect sudden and
revolutionary results. But we must find some place to begin.

One obvious road on which to make a useful start is in the widening
of communication between our two peoples. In this field there are,
both sides willing, countless opportunities--most of them well known
to us all--for developing mutual understanding, the true foundation
of peace.

Another avenue may be through the reopening, on January twelfth, of
negotiations looking to a controlled ban on the testing of nuclear
weapons. Unfortunately, the closing statement from the Soviet
scientists who met with our scientists at Geneva in an unsuccessful
effort to develop an agreed basis for a test ban, gives the clear
impression that their conclusions have been politically guided. Those
of the British and American scientific representatives are their own
freely-formed, individual and collective opinions. I am hopeful that
as new negotiations begin, truth--not political opportunism--will be
the guiding light of the deliberations.

Still another avenue may be found in the field of disarmament, in
which the Soviets have professed a readiness to negotiate seriously.
They have not, however, made clear the plans they may have, if any,
for mutual inspection and verification--the essential condition for
any extensive measure of disarmament.

There is one instance where our initiative for peace has recently
been successful. A multi-lateral treaty signed last month provides
for the exclusively peaceful use of Antarctica, assured by a system
of inspection. It provides for free and cooperative scientific
research in that continent, and prohibits nuclear explosions there
pending general international agreement on the subject. The Treaty is
a significant contribution toward peace, international cooperation,
and the advancement of science. I shall transmit its text to the
Senate for consideration and approval in the near future.

The United States is always ready to participate with the Soviet
Union in serious discussion of these or any other subjects that may
lead to peace with justice. Certainly it is not necessary to repeat
that the United States has no intention of interfering in the
internal affairs of any nation; likewise we reject any attempt to
impose its system on us or on other peoples by force or subversion.

This concern for the freedom of other peoples is the intellectual and
spiritual cement which has allied us with more than forty other
nations in a common defense effort. Not for a moment do we forget
that our own fate is firmly fastened to that of these countries; we
will not act in any way which would jeopardize our solemn commitments
to them.

We and our friends are, of course, concerned with self-defense.
Growing out of this concern is the realization that all people of the
Free World have a great stake in the progress, in freedom, of the
uncommitted and newly emerging nations. These peoples, desperately
hoping to lift themselves to decent levels of living must not, by our
neglect, be forced to seek help from, and finally become virtual
satellites of, those who proclaim their hostility to freedom.

Their natural desire for a better life must not be frustrated by
withholding from them necessary technical and investment assistance.
This is a problem to be solved not by America alone, but also by
every nation cherishing the same ideals and in position to provide
help.

In recent years America's partners and friends in Western Europe and
Japan have made great economic progress. Their newly found economic
strength is eloquent testimony to the striking success of the
policies of economic cooperation which we and they have pursued.

The international economy of 1960 is markedly different from that of
the early postwar years. No longer is the United States the only
major industrial country capable of providing substantial amounts of
the resources so urgently needed in the newly-developing countries.

To remain secure and prosperous themselves, wealthy nations must
extend the kind of cooperation to the less fortunate members that
will inspire hope, confidence and progress. A rich nation can for a
time, without noticeable damage to itself, pursue a course of
self-indulgence, making its single goal the material ease and comfort
of its own citizens-- thus repudiating its own spiritual and material
stake in a peaceful and prosperous society of nations. But the
enmities it will incur, the isolation into which it will descend, and
the internal moral and physical softness that will be engendered,
will, in the long term, bring it to disaster.

America did not become great through softness and self-indulgence.
Her miraculous progress and achievements flow from other qualities
far more worthy and substantial:

    * adherence to principles and methods consonant with our
religious philosophy
    * a satisfaction in hard work
    * the readiness to sacrifice for worthwhile causes
    * the courage to meet every challenge to her progress
    * the intellectual honesty and capacity to recognize the true
path of her own best interests.

To us and to every nation of the Free World, rich or poor, these
qualities are necessary today as never before if we are to march
together to greater security, prosperity and peace.

I believe the industrial countries are ready to participate actively
in supplementing the efforts of the developing countries to achieve
progress. The immediate need for this kind of cooperation is
underscored by the strain in our international balance of payments.
Our surplus from foreign business transactions has in recent years
fallen substantially short of the expenditures we make abroad to
maintain our military establishments overseas, to finance private
investment, and to provide assistance to the less developed nations.
In 1959 our deficit in balance of payments approached $4 billion.
Continuing deficits of anything like this magnitude would, over time,
impair our own economic growth and check the forward progress of the
Free World.

We must meet this situation by promoting a rising volume of exports
and world trade. Further, we must induce all industrialized nations
of the Free World to work together in a new cooperative endeavor to
help lift the scourge of poverty from less fortunate nations. This
will provide for better sharing of this burden and for still further
profitable trade.

New nations, and others struggling with the problems of development,
will progress only if they demonstrate faith in their own destiny and
possess the will and use their own resources to fulfill it. Moreover,
progress in a national transformation can be only gradually earned;
there is no easy and quick way to follow from the oxcart to the jet
plane. But, just as we drew on Europe for assistance in our earlier
years, so now do those new and emerging nations that have this faith
and determination deserve help.

Over the last fifteen years, twenty nations have gained political
independence. Others are doing so each year. Most of them are
woefully lacking in technical capacity and in investment capital;
without Free World support in these matters they cannot effectively
progress in freedom. Respecting their need, one of the major focal
points of our concern is the South Asian region. Here, in two nations
alone, are almost five hundred million people, all working, and
working hard, to raise their standards, and in doing so, to make of
themselves a strong bulwark against the spread of an ideology that
would destroy liberty.

I cannot express to you the depth of my conviction that, in our own
and Free World interests, we must cooperate with others to help these
people achieve their legitimate ambitions, as expressed in their
different multi-year plans. Through the World Bank and other
instrumentalities, as well as through individual action by every
nation in position to help, we must squarely face this titanic
challenge.

All of us must realize, of course, that development in freedom by the
newly emerging nations, is no mere matter of obtaining outside
financial assistance. An indispensable element in this process is a
strong and continuing determination on the part of these nations to
exercise the national discipline necessary for any sustained
development period. These qualities of determination are particularly
essential because of the fact that the process of improvement will
necessarily be gradual and laborious rather than revolutionary.
Moreover, everyone should be aware that the development process is no
short term phenomenon. Many years are required for even the most
favorably situated countries.

I shall continue to urge the American people, in the interests of
their own security, prosperity and peace, to make sure that their own
part of this great project be amply and cheerfully supported. Free
World decisions in this matter may spell the difference between world
disaster and world progress in freedom.

Other countries, some of which I visited last month, have similar
needs. A common meeting ground is desirable for those nations which
are prepared to assist in the development effort. During the past
year I have discussed this matter with the leaders of several Western
Nations. Because of its wealth of experience, the Organization for
European Economic Cooperation could help with initial studies. The
goal is to enlist all available economic resources in the
industrialized Free World--especially private investment capital.

But I repeat that this help, no matter how great, can be lastingly
effective only if it is used as a supplement to the strength of
spirit and will of the people of the newly-developing nations. By
extending this help we hope to make possible the enthusiastic
enrollment of these nations under freedom's banner. No more startling
contrast to a system of sullen satellites could be imagined.

If we grasp this opportunity to build an age of productive
partnership between the less fortunate nations and those that have
already achieved a high state of economic advancement, we will make
brighter the outlook for a world order based upon security, freedom
and peace. Otherwise, the outlook could be dark indeed. We face what
may be a turning point in history, and we must act decisively.

As a nation we can successfully pursue these objectives only from a
position of broadly based strength. No matter how earnest is our
quest for guaranteed peace, we must maintain a high degree of
military effectiveness at the same time we are engaged in negotiating
the issue of arms reduction. Until tangible and mutually enforceable
arms reduction measures are worked out, we will not weaken the means
of defending our institutions.

America possesses an enormous defense power. It is my studied
conviction that no nation will ever risk general war against us
unless we should be so foolish as to neglect the defense forces we
now so powerfully support. It is world-wide knowledge that any nation
which might be tempted today to attack the United States, even though
our country might sustain great losses, would itself promptly suffer
a terrible destruction. But I once again assure all peoples and all
nations that the United States, except in defense, will never turn
loose this destructive power.

During the past year, our long-range striking power, unmatched today
in manned bombers, has taken on new strength as the Atlas
intercontinental ballistic missile has entered the operational
inventory. In fourteen recent test launchings, at ranges of over
5,000 miles, Atlas has been striking on an average within two miles
of the target. This is less than the length of a jet runway--well
within the circle of total destruction. Such performance is a great
tribute to American scientists and engineers, who in the past five
years have had to telescope time and technology to develop these
long-range ballistic missiles, where America had none before.

This year, moreover, growing numbers of nuclear-powered submarines
will enter our active forces, some to be armed with Polaris missiles.
These remarkable ships and weapons, ranging the oceans, will be
capable of accurate fire on targets virtually anywhere on earth.
Impossible to destroy by surprise attack, they will become one of our
most effective sentinels for peace.

To meet situations of less than general nuclear war, we continue to
maintain our carrier forces, our many service units abroad, our
always ready Army strategic forces and Marine Corps divisions, and
the civilian components. The continuing modernization of these forces
is a costly but necessary process, and is scheduled to go forward at a
rate which will steadily add to our strength.

The deployment of a portion of these forces beyond our shores, on
land and sea, is persuasive demonstration of our determination to
stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies for collective security.
Moreover, I have directed that steps be taken to program our military
assistance to these allies on a longer range basis. This is necessary
for a sounder collective defense system.

Next I refer to our effort in space exploration, which is often
mistakenly supposed to be an integral part of defense research and
development.

First, America has made great contributions in the past two years to
the world's fund of knowledge of astrophysics and space science.
These discoveries are of present interest chiefly to the scientific
community; but they are important foundation-stones for more
extensive exploration of outer space for the ultimate benefit of all
mankind.

Second, our military missile program, going forward so successfully,
does not suffer from our present lack of very large rocket engines,
which are so necessary in distant space exploration. I am assured by
experts that the thrust of our present missiles is fully adequate for
defense requirements.

Third, the United States is pressing forward in the development of
large rocket engines to place much heavier vehicles into space for
exploration purposes.

Fourth, in the meantime, it is necessary to remember that we have
only begun to probe the environment immediately surrounding the
earth. Using launch systems presently available, we are developing
satellites to scout the world's weather; satellite relay stations to
facilitate and extend communications over the globe; for navigation
aids to give accurate bearings to ships and aircraft; and for
perfecting instruments to collect and transmit the data we seek. This
is the area holding the most promise for early and useful applications
of space technology.

Fifth, we have just completed a year's experience with our new space
law. I believe it deficient in certain particulars and suggested
improvements will be submitted shortly.

The accomplishment of the many tasks I have alluded to requires the
continuous strengthening of the spiritual, intellectual, and economic
sinews of American life. The steady purpose of our society is to
assure justice, before God, for every individual. We must be ever
alert that freedom does not wither through the careless amassing of
restrictive controls or the lack of courage to deal boldly with the
giant issues of the day.

A year ago, when I met with you, the nation was emerging from an
economic downturn, even though the signs of resurgent prosperity were
not then sufficiently convincing to the doubtful. Today our surging
strength is apparent to everyone. 1960 promises to be the most
prosperous year in our history.

Yet we continue to be afflicted by nagging disorders.

Among current problems that require solution are:

    * the need to protect the public interest in situations of
prolonged labor-management stalemate;
    * the persistent refusal to come to grips with a critical problem
in one sector of American agriculture;
    * the continuing threat of inflation, together with the
persisting tendency toward fiscal irresponsibility;
    * in certain instances the denial to some of our citizens of
equal protection of the law.

Every American was disturbed by the prolonged dispute in the steel
industry and the protracted delay in reaching a settlement. We are
all relieved that a settlement has at last been achieved in that
industry. Percentagewise, by this settlement the increase to the
steel companies in employment costs is lower than in any prior wage
settlement since World War II. It is also gratifying to note that
despite the increase in wages and benefits several of the major steel
producers have announced that there will be no increase in steel
prices at this time. The national interest demands that in the period
of industrial peace which has been assured by the new contract both
management and labor make every possible effort to increase
efficiency and productivity in the manufacture of steel so that price
increases can be avoided.

One of the lessons of this story is that the potential danger to the
entire Nation of longer and greater strikes must be met. To insure
against such possibilities we must of course depend primarily upon
the good commonsense of the responsible individuals. It is my
intention to encourage regular discussions between management and
labor outside the bargaining table, to consider the interest of the
public as well as their mutual interest in the maintenance of
industrial peace, price stability and economic growth.

To me, it seems almost absurd for the United States to recognize the
need, and so earnestly to seek, for cooperation among the nations
unless we can achieve voluntary, dependable, abiding cooperation
among the important segments of our own free society. Failure to face
up to basic issues in areas other than those of labor-management can
cause serious strains on the firm freedom supports of our society.

I refer to agriculture as one of these areas. Our basic farm laws
were written 27 years ago, in an emergency effort to redress hardship
caused by a world-wide depression. They were continued--and their
economic distortions intensified--during World War II in order to
provide incentives for production of food needed to sustain a
war-torn free world.

Today our farm problem is totally different. It is that of
effectively adjusting to the changes caused by a scientific
revolution. When the original farm laws were written, an hour's farm
labor produced only one-fourth as much wheat as at present.

Farm legislation is woefully out-of-date, ineffective, and expensive.
For years we have gone on with an outmoded system which not only has
failed to protect farm income, but also has produced soaring,
threatening surpluses. Our farms have been left producing for war
while America has long been at peace.

Once again I urge Congress to enact legislation that will gear
production more closely to markets, make costly surpluses more
manageable, provide greater freedom in farm operations, and steadily
achieve increased net farm incomes.

Another issue that we must meet squarely is that of living within our
means. This requires restraint in expenditure, constant reassessment
of priorities, and the maintenance of stable prices. We must prevent
inflation. Here is an opponent of so many guises that it is sometimes
difficult to recognize. But our clear need is to stop continuous and
general price rises--a need that all of us can see and feel. To
prevent steadily rising costs and prices calls for stern
self-discipline by every citizen. No person, city, state, or
organized group can afford to evade the obligation to resist
inflation, for every American pays its crippling tax.

Inflation's ravages do not end at the water's edge. Increases in
prices of the goods we sell abroad threaten to drive us out of
markets that once were securely ours. Whether domestic prices, so
high as to be noncompetitive, result from demands for too-high profit
margins or from increased labor costs that outrun growth in
productivity, the final result is seriously damaging to the nation.

We must fight inflation as we would a fire that imperils our home.
Only by so doing can we prevent it from destroying our salaries,
savings, pensions and insurance, and from gnawing away the very roots
of a free, healthy economy and the nation's security.

One major method by which the Federal government can counter
inflation and rising prices is to insure that its expenditures are
below its revenues. The debt with which we are now confronted is
about 290 billion dollars. With interest charges alone now costing
taxpayers about $9 1/2 billions, it is clear that this debt growth
must stop. You will be glad to know that despite the unsettling
influences of the recent steel strike, we estimate that our accounts
will show, on June 30, this year, a favorable balance of
approximately $200 million.

I shall present to the Congress for 1961 a balanced budget. In the
area of defense, expenditures continue at the record peace-time
levels of the last several years. With a single exception,
expenditures in every major category of Health, Education and Welfare
will be equal or greater than last year. In Space expenditures the
amounts are practically doubled. But the over-all guiding goal of
this budget is national need--not response to specific group, local
or political insistence. Expenditure increases, other than those I
have indicated, are largely accounted for by the increased cost of
legislation previously enacted.

I repeat, this budget will be a balanced one. Expenditures will be 79
billion 8 hundred million. The amount of income over outgo, described
in the budget as a Surplus, to be applied against our national debt,
is 4 billion 2 hundred million. Personally, I do not feel that any
amount can be properly called a "Surplus" as long as the nation is in
debt. I prefer to think of such an item as "reduction on our
children's inherited mortgage." Once we have established such
payments as normal practice, we can profitably make improvements in
our tax structure and thereby truly reduce the heavy burdens of
taxation.

[In any event, this one reduction will save taxpayers, each year,
approximately 2 hundred million dollars in interest costs.]

This budget will help ease pressures in our credit and capital
markets. It will enhance the confidence of people all over the world
in the strength of our economy and our currency and in our individual
and collective ability to be fiscally responsible.

In the management of the huge public debt the Treasury is
unfortunately not free of artificial barriers. Its ability to deal
with the difficult problems in this field has been weakened greatly
by the unwillingness of the Congress to remove archaic restrictions.
The need for a freer hand in debt management is even more urgent
today because the costs of the undesirable financing practices which
the Treasury has been forced into are mounting. Removal of this
roadblock has high priority in my legislative recommendations.

Still another issue relates to civil rights. In all our hopes and
plans for a better world we all recognize that provincial and racial
prejudices must be combatted. In the long perspective of history, the
right to vote has been one of the strongest pillars of a free society.
Our first duty is to protect this right against all encroachment. In
spite of constitutional guarantees, and notwithstanding much progress
of recent years, bias still deprives some persons in this country of
equal protection of the laws.

Early in your last session I recommended legislation which would help
eliminate several practices discriminating against the basic rights of
Americans. The Civil Rights Commission has developed additional
constructive recommendations. I hope that these will be among the
matters to be seriously considered in the current session. I trust
that Congress will thus signal to the world that our Government is
striving for equality under law for all our people.

Each year and in many ways our nation continues to undergo profound
change and growth. In the past 18 months we have hailed the entry of
two more States of the Union--Alaska and Hawaii. We salute these two
western stars proudly.

Our vigorous expansion, which we all welcome as a sign of health and
vitality, is many-sided. We are, for example, witnessing explosive
growth in metropolitan areas. By 1975 the metropolitan areas of the
United States will occupy twice the territory they do today. The
roster of urban problems with which they must cope is staggering.
They involve water supply, cleaning the air, adjusting local tax
systems, providing for essential educational, cultural, and social
services, and destroying those conditions which breed delinquency and
crime.

In meeting these, we must, if we value our historic freedoms, keep
within the traditional framework of our Federal system with powers
divided between the national and state governments. The uniqueness of
this system may confound the casual observer, but it has worked
effectively for nearly 200 years.

I do not doubt that our urban and other perplexing problems can be
solved in the traditional American method. In doing so we must
realize that nothing is really solved and ruinous tendencies are set
in motion by yielding to the deceptive bait of the "easy" Federal tax
dollar.

Our educational system provides a ready example. All recognize the
vital necessity of having modern school plants, well-qualified and
adequately compensated teachers, and of using the best possible
teaching techniques and curricula. We cannot be complacent about
educating our youth.

But the route to better trained minds is not through the swift
administration of a Federal hypodermic or sustained financial
transfusion. The educational process, essentially a local and
personal responsibility, cannot be made to leap ahead by crash,
centralized governmental action.

The Administration has proposed a carefully reasoned program for
helping eliminate current deficiencies. It is designed to stimulate
classroom construction, not by substitution of Federal dollars for
state and local funds, but by incentives to extend and encourage
state and local efforts. This approach rejects the notion of Federal
domination or control. It is workable, and should appeal to every
American interested in advancement of our educational system in the
traditional American way. I urge the Congress to take action upon
it.

There is one other subject concerning which I renew a recommendation
I made in my State of the Union Message last January. I then advised
the Congress of my purpose to intensify our efforts to replace force
with a rule of law among nations. From many discussions abroad, I am
convinced that purpose is widely and deeply shared by other peoples
and nations of the world.

In the same Message I stated that our efforts would include a
reexamination of our own relation to the International Court of
Justice. The Court was established by the United Nations to decide
international legal disputes between nations. In 1946 we accepted the
Court's jurisdiction, but subject to a reservation of the right to
determine unilaterally whether a matter lies essentially within
domestic jurisdiction. There is pending before the Senate, a
Resolution which would repeal our present self-judging reservation. I
support that Resolution and urge its prompt passage. If this is done,
I intend to urge similar acceptance of the Court's jurisdiction by
every member of the United Nations.

Here perhaps it is not amiss for me to say to the Members of the
Congress, in this my final year of office, a word about the
institutions we respectively represent and the meaning which the
relationships between our two branches has for the days ahead.

I am not unique as a President in having worked with a Congress
controlled by the opposition party--except that no other President
ever did it for quite so long! Yet in both personal and official
relationships we have weathered the storms of the past five years.
For this I am grateful.

My deep concern in the next twelve months, before my successor takes
office, is with our joint Congressional-Executive duty to our own and
to other nations. Acting upon the beliefs I have expressed here today,
I shall devote my full energies to the tasks at hand, whether these
involve travel for promoting greater world understanding,
negotiations to reduce international ant discussions and
communications with the Congress and the American people on issues
both domestic and foreign.

In pursuit of these objectives, I look forward to, and shall dedicate
myself to, a close and constructive association with the Congress.
Every minute spent in irrelevant interbranch wrangling is precious
time taken from the intelligent initiation and adoption of coherent
policies for our national survival and progress. We seek a common
goal--brighter opportunity for our own citizens and a world peace
with justice for all.

Before us and our friends is the challenge of an ideology which, for
more than four decades, has trumpeted abroad its purpose of gaining
ultimate victory over all forms of government at variance with its
own. We realize that however much we repudiate the tenets of
imperialistic Communism, it represents a gigantic enterprise grimly
pursued by leaders who compel its subjects to subordinate their
freedom of action and spirit and personal desires for some hoped-for
advantage in the future.

The Communists can present an array of material accomplishments over
the past fifteen years that lends a false persuasiveness to many of
their glittering promises to the uncommitted peoples. The competition
they provide is formidable.

But in our scale of values we place freedom first--our whole national
existence and development have been geared to that basic concept and
are responsible for the position of free world leadership to which we
have succeeded. It is the highest prize that any nation can possess;
it is one that Communism can never offer. And America's record of
material accomplishment in freedom is written not only in the
unparalleled prosperity of our own nation, but in the many billions
we have devoted to the reconstruction of Free World economies wrecked
by World War II and in the effective help of many more billions we
have given in saving the independence of many others threatened by
outside domination. Assuredly we have the capacity for handling the
problems in the new era of the world's history we are now entering.

But we must use that capacity intelligently and tirelessly,
regardless of personal sacrifice. The fissure that divides our
political planet is deep and wide. We live, moreover, in a sea of
semantic disorder in which old labels no longer faithfully describe.
Police states are called "people's democracies." Armed conquest of
free people is called "liberation." Such slippery slogans make more
difficult the problem of communicating true faith, facts and
beliefs.

We must make clear our peaceful intentions, our aspirations for a
better world. So doing, we must use language to enlighten the mind,
not as the instrument of the studied innuendo and distorter of truth.
And we must live by what we say.

On my recent visit to distant lands I found one statesman after
another eager to tell me of the elements of their government that had
been borrowed from our American Constitution, and from the
indestructible ideals set forth in our Declaration of Independence.

As a nation we take pride that our own constitutional system, and the
ideals which sustain it, have been long viewed as a fountainhead of
freedom. By our every action we must strive to make ourselves worthy
of this trust, ever mindful that an accumulation of seemingly minor
encroachments upon freedom gradually could break down the entire
fabric of a free society.

So persuaded, we shall get on with the task before us. So dedicated,
and with faith in the Almighty, humanity shall one day achieve the
unity in freedom to which all men have aspired from the dawn of time.