|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
2nd Innaugural Address of Dwight D. Eisenhower |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| |
| |
Second Inaugural Address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Monday, January 21, 1957
THE PRICE OF PEACE
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Speaker, members
of my family and friends, my countrymen, and the friends of my country,
wherever they may be, we meet again, as upon a like moment four years ago,
and again you have witnessed my solemn oath of service to you.
I, too, am a witness, today testifying in your name to the principles and
purposes to which we, as a people, are pledged.
Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings
of Almighty God. And the hopes in our hearts fashion the deepest prayers of
our whole people.
May we pursue the right-without self-righteousness.
May we know unity-without conformity.
May we grow in strength-without pride in self.
May we, in our dealings with all peoples of the earth, ever speak truth
and serve justice.
And so shall America-in the sight of all men of good will-prove true to
the honorable purposes that bind and rule us as a people in all this time of
trial through which we pass.
We live in a land of plenty, but rarely has this earth known such peril as today.
In our nation work and wealth abound. Our population grows. Commerce
crowds our rivers and rails, our skies, harbors, and highways. Our soil is
fertile, our agriculture productive. The air rings with the song of our
industry-rolling mills and blast furnaces, dynamos, dams, and assembly
lines-the chorus of America the bountiful.
This is our home-yet this is not the whole of our world. For our world is
where our full destiny lies-with men, of all people, and all nations, who
are or would be free. And for them-and so for us-this is no time of ease or of rest.
In too much of the earth there is want, discord, danger. New forces and
new nations stir and strive across the earth, with power to bring, by their
fate, great good or great evil to the free world's future. From the deserts
of North Africa to the islands of the South Pacific one third of all mankind
has entered upon an historic struggle for a new freedom; freedom from
grinding poverty. Across all continents, nearly a billion people seek,
sometimes almost in desperation, for the skills and knowledge and assistance
by which they may satisfy from their own resources, the material wants
common to all mankind.
No nation, however old or great, escapes this tempest of change and
turmoil. Some, impoverished by the recent World War, seek to restore their
means of livelihood. In the heart of Europe, Germany still stands tragically
divided. So is the whole continent divided. And so, too, is all the world.
The divisive force is International Communism and the power that it controls.
The designs of that power, dark in purpose, are clear in practice. It
strives to seal forever the fate of those it has enslaved. It strives to
break the ties that unite the free. And it strives to capture-to exploit for
its own greater power-all forces of change in the world, especially the
needs of the hungry and the hopes of the oppressed.
Yet the world of International Communism has itself been shaken by a
fierce and mighty force: the readiness of men who love freedom to pledge
their lives to that love. Through the night of their bondage, the
unconquerable will of heroes has struck with the swift, sharp thrust of
lightning. Budapest is no longer merely the name of a city; henceforth it is
a new and shining symbol of man's yearning to be free.
Thus across all the globe there harshly blow the winds of change. And,
we-though fortunate be our lot-know that we can never turn our backs to them.
We look upon this shaken earth, and we declare our firm and fixed
purpose-the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails.
The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it
is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain it, we must be aware of its
full meaning-and ready to pay its full price.
We know clearly what we seek, and why.
We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as
in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of
modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.
Yet this peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be rooted in
the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and shared by all
peoples, for, without justice the world can know only a tense and unstable
truce. There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for
without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the
strong upon the weak. But the law of which we speak, comprehending the
values of freedom, affirms the equality of all nations, great and small.
Splendid as can be the blessings of such a peace, high will be its cost:
in toil patiently sustained, in help honorably given, in sacrifice calmly borne.
We are called to meet the price of this peace.
To counter the threat of those who seek to rule by force, we must pay the
costs of our own needed military strength, and help to build the security of
others.
We must use our skills and knowledge and, at times, our substance, to help
others rise from misery, however far the scene of suffering may be from our
shores. For wherever in the world a people knows desperate want, there must
appear at least the spark of hope, the hope of progress-or there will surely
rise at last the flames of conflict.
We recognize and accept our own deep involvement in the destiny of men
everywhere. We are accordingly pledged to honor, and to strive to fortify,
the authority of the United Nations. For in that body rests the best hope of
our age for the assertion of that law by which all nations may live in dignity.
And, beyond this general resolve, we are called to act a responsible role
in the world's great concerns or conflicts-whether they touch upon the
affairs of a vast region, the fate of an island in the Pacific, or the use
of a canal in the Middle East. Only in respecting the hopes and cultures of
others will we practice the equality of all nations. Only as we show
willingness and wisdom in giving counsel-in receiving counsel-and in sharing
burdens, will we wisely perform the work of peace.
For one truth must rule all we think and all we do. No people can live to
itself alone. The unity of all who dwell in freedom is their only sure
defense. The economic need of all nations-in mutual dependence-makes
isolation an impossibility; not even America's prosperity could long survive
if other nations did not also prosper. No nation can longer be a fortress,
lone and strong and safe. And any people, seeking such shelter for
themselves, can now build only their own prison.
Our pledge to these principles is constant, because we believe in their rightness.
We do not fear this world of change. America is no stranger to much of its
spirit. Everywhere we see the seeds of the same growth that America itself
has known. The American experiment has, for generations, fired the passion
and the courage of millions elsewhere seeking freedom, equality, and
opportunity. And the American story of material progress has helped excite
the longing of all needy peoples for some satisfaction of their human wants.
These hopes that we have helped to inspire, we can help to fulfill.
In this confidence, we speak plainly to all peoples.
We cherish our friendship with all nations that are or would be free. We
respect, no less, their independence. And when, in time of want or peril,
they ask our help, they may honorably receive it; for we no more seek to buy
their sovereignty than we would sell our own. Sovereignty is never bartered
among freemen.
We honor the aspirations of those nations which, now captive, long for
freedom. We seek neither their military alliance nor any artificial
imitation of our society. And they can know the warmth of the welcome that
awaits them when, as must be, they join again the ranks of freedom.
We honor, no less in this divided world than in a less tormented time, the
people of Russia. We do not dread, rather do we welcome, their progress in
education and industry. We wish them success in their demands for more
intellectual freedom, greater security before their own laws, fuller
enjoyment of the rewards of their own toil. For as such things come to pass,
the more certain will be the coming of that day when our peoples may freely
meet in friendship.
So we voice our hope and our belief that we can help to heal this divided
world. Thus may the nations cease to live in trembling before the menace of
force. Thus may the weight of fear and the weight of arms be taken from the
burdened shoulders of mankind.
This, nothing less, is the labor to which we are called and our strength dedicated.
And so the prayer of our people carries far beyond our own frontiers, to
the wide world of our duty and our destiny.
May the light of freedom, coming to all darkened lands, flame
brightly-until at last the darkness is no more.
May the turbulence of our age yield to a true time of peace, when men and
nations shall share a life that honors the dignity of each, the brotherhood of all.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Farewell Address
January 17, 1961
My fellow Americans:
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell,
and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor
with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace
and prosperity for all.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed
four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own
country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most
influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of
this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige
depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military
strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and
human betterment.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the
conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs
our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in
character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the
danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it
successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory
sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward
steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and
complex struggle--with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite
every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human
betterment.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our
arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential
aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by
any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World
War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no
armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as
required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency
improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a
permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a
half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense
establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net
income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms
industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--economic,
political, even spiritual---is felt in every city, every State house, every
office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this
development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our
toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of
our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties
or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert
and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge
industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and
goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our
industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during
recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more
formalized complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted
for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been
overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing
fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the
fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a
revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs
involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for
intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of
new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal
employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present--and
is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we
should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public
policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate
these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic
system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we
peer into society's future, we--you and I, and our government--must avoid
the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and
convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the
material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their
political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all
generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that
this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of
dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual
trust and respect.
Visit Mr. Eisenhower's Website
|
|
|
|
|
|
The U. S. Constitution
