Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 86th Congress:

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 opinion. 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.[1]

[Footnote 1: At this point the President interpolated the two paragraphs
shown in brackets.]

[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 discord, or constant 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 economics 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.