Title: State of the Union Addresses
Author: Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "State of the Union Addresses" ***


State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower



The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***

Dates of addresses by Dwight D. Eisenhower in this eBook:

  February 2, 1953
  January 7, 1954
  January 6, 1955
  January 5, 1956
  January 10, 1957
  January 9, 1958
  January 9, 1959
  January 7, 1960
  January 12, 1961



***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
February 2, 1953

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This help includes:

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

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

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

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

III.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

V.

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

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

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

(2) Meet the huge costs of our defense;

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

(4) Check the menace of inflation;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII.

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

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

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

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

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

VIII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IX.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our school system demands some prompt, effective help. During each of the
last 9 years, more than 1 1/2 million children have swelled the elementary
and secondary school population of the country. Generally, the school
population is proportionately higher in States with low per capita income.
This whole situation calls for careful congressional study and action. I am
sure that you share my conviction that the firm conditions of Federal aid
must be proved need and proved lack of local income.

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

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

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

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

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

XI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 7, 1954

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

It is a high honor again to present to the Congress my views on the state
of the Union and to recommend measures to advance the security, prosperity,
and well-being of the American people.

All branches of this Government--and I venture to say both of our great
parties--can support the general objective of the recommendations I make
today, for that objective is the building of a stronger America. A nation
whose every citizen has good reason for bold hope; where effort is rewarded
and prosperity is shared; where freedom expands and peace is secure--that
is what I mean by a stronger America.

Toward this objective a real momentum has been developed during this
Administration's first year in office. We mean to continue that momentum
and to increase it. We mean to build a better future for this nation.

Much for which we may be thankful has happened during the past year.

First of all we are deeply grateful that our sons no longer die on the
distant mountains of Korea. Although they are still called from our homes
to military service, they are no longer called to the field of battle.

The nation has just completed the most prosperous year in its history. The
damaging effect of inflation on the wages, pensions, salaries and savings
of us all has been brought under control. Taxes have begun to go down. The
cost of our government has been reduced and its work proceeds with some
183,000 fewer employees; thus the discouraging trend of modern governments
toward their own limitless expansion has in our case been reversed. The
cost of armaments becomes less oppressive as we near our defense goals; yet
we are militarily stronger every day. During the year, creation of the new
Cabinet Department of Health, Education, and Welfare symbolized the
government's permanent concern with the human problems of our citizens.

Segregation in the armed forces and other Federal activities is on the way
out. We have also made progress toward its elimination in the District of
Columbia. These are steps in the continuing effort to eliminate
inter-racial difficulty.

Some developments beyond our shores have been equally encouraging.
Communist aggression, halted in Korea, continues to meet in Indo-china the
vigorous resistance of France and the Associated States, assisted by timely
aid from our country. In West Germany, in Iran, and in other areas of the
world, heartening political victories have been won by the forces of
stability and freedom. Slowly but surely, the free world gathers strength.
Meanwhile, from behind the iron curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in
trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is
hard.

There has been in fact a great strategic change in the world during the
past year. That precious intangible, the initiative, is becoming ours. Our
policy, not limited to mere reaction against crises provoked by others, is
free to develop along lines of our choice not only abroad, but also at
home. As a major theme for American policy during the coming year, let our
joint determination be to hold this new initiative and to use it.

We shall use this initiative to promote three broad purposes: First, to
protect the freedom of our people; second, to maintain a strong, growing
economy; third, to concern ourselves with the human problems of the
individual citizen.

Only by active concern for each of these purposes can we be sure that we
are on the forward road to a better and a stronger America. All my
recommendations today are in furtherance of these three purposes.

I. FOREIGN AFFAIRS

American freedom is threatened so long as the world Communist conspiracy
exists in its present scope, power and hostility. More closely than ever
before, American freedom is interlocked with the freedom of other people.
In the unity of the free world lies our best chance to reduce the Communist
threat without war. In the task of maintaining this unity and strengthening
all its parts, the greatest responsibility falls naturally on those who,
like ourselves, retain the most freedom and strength.

We shall, therefore, continue to advance the cause of freedom on foreign
fronts.

In the Far East, we retain our vital interest in Korea. We have negotiated
with the Republic of Korea a mutual security pact, which develops our
security system for the Pacific and which I shall promptly submit to the
Senate for its consent to ratification. We are prepared to meet any renewal
of armed aggression in Korea. We shall maintain indefinitely our bases in
Okinawa. I shall ask the Congress to authorize continued material
assistance to hasten the successful conclusion of the struggle in
Indo-china. This assistance will also bring closer the day when the
Associated States may enjoy the independence already assured by France. We
shall also continue military and economic aid to the Nationalist Government
of China.

In South Asia, profound changes are taking place in free nations which are
demonstrating their ability to progress through democratic methods. They
provide an inspiring contrast to the dictatorial methods and backward
course of events in Communist China. In these continuing efforts, the free
peoples of South Asia can be assured of the support of the United States.

In the Middle East, where tensions and serious problems exist, we will show
sympathetic and impartial friendship.

In Western Europe our policy rests firmly on the North Atlantic Treaty. It
will remain so based as far ahead as we can see. Within its organization,
the building of a united European community, including France and Germany,
is vital to a free and self-reliant Europe. This will be promoted by the
European Defense Community which offers assurance of European security.
With the coming of unity to Western Europe, the assistance this Nation can
render for the security of Europe and the free world will be multiplied in
effectiveness.

In the Western Hemisphere we shall continue to develop harmonious and
mutually beneficial cooperation with our neighbors. Indeed, solid
friendship with all our American neighbors is a cornerstone of our entire
policy.

In the world as a whole, the United Nations, admittedly still in a state of
evolution, means much to the United States. It has given uniquely valuable
services in many places where violence threatened. It is the only real
world forum where we have the opportunity for international presentation
and rebuttal. It is a place where the nations of the world can, if they
have the will, take collective action for peace and justice. It is a place
where the guilt can be squarely assigned to those who fail to take all
necessary steps to keep the peace. The United Nations deserves our
continued firm support.

FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AND TRADE

In the practical application of our foreign policy, we enter the field of
foreign assistance and trade.

Military assistance must be continued. Technical assistance must be
maintained. Economic assistance can be reduced. However, our economic
programs in Korea and in a few other critical places of the world are
especially important, and I shall ask Congress to continue them in the next
fiscal year.

The forthcoming Budget Message will propose maintenance of the Presidential
power of transferability of all assistance funds and will ask authority to
merge these funds with the regular defense funds. It will also propose that
the Secretary of Defense have primary responsibility for the administration
of foreign military assistance in accordance with the policy guidance of
the Secretary of State.

The fact that we can now reduce our foreign economic assistance in many
areas is gratifying evidence that its objectives are being achieved. By
continuing to surpass her prewar levels of economic activity, Western
Europe gains self-reliance. Thus our relationship enters a new phase which
can bring results beneficial to our taxpayers and our allies alike, if
still another step is taken.

This step is the creation of a healthier and freer system of trade and
payments within the free world--a system in which our allies can earn their
own way and our own economy can continue to flourish. The free world can no
longer afford the kinds of arbitrary restraints on trade that have
continued ever since the war. On this problem I shall submit to the
Congress detailed recommendations, after our Joint Commission on Foreign
Economic Policy has made its report.

ATOMIC ENERGY PROPOSAL

As we maintain our military strength during the coming year and draw closer
the bonds with our allies, we shall be in an improved position to discuss
outstanding issues with the Soviet Union. Indeed we shall be glad to do so
whenever there is a reasonable prospect of constructive results. In this
spirit the atomic energy proposals of the United States were recently
presented to the United Nations General Assembly. A truly constructive
Soviet reaction will make possible a new start toward an era of peace, and
away from the fatal road toward atomic war.

DEFENSE

Since our hope is peace, we owe ourselves and the world a candid
explanation of the military measures we are taking to make that peace
secure.

As we enter this new year, our military power continues to grow. This power
is for our own defense and to deter aggression. We shall not be aggressors,
but we and our allies have and will maintain a massive capability to strike
back.

Here are some of the considerations in our defense planning:

First, while determined to use atomic power to serve the usages of peace,
we take into full account our great and growing number of nuclear weapons
and the most effective means of using them against an aggressor if they are
needed to preserve our freedom. Our defense will be stronger if, under
appropriate security safeguards, we share with our allies certain knowledge
of the tactical use of our nuclear weapons. I urge the Congress to provide
the needed authority.

Second, the usefulness of these new weapons creates new relationships
between men and materials. These new relationships permit economies in the
use of men as we build forces suited to our situation in the world today.
As will be seen from the Budget Message on January 21, the airpower of our
Navy and Air Force is receiving heavy emphasis.

Third, our armed forces must regain maximum mobility of action. Our
strategic reserves must be centrally placed and readily deployable to meet
sudden aggression against ourselves and our allies.

Fourth, our defense must rest on trained manpower and its most economical
and mobile use. A professional corps is the heart of any security
organization. It is necessarily the teacher and leader of those who serve
temporarily in the discharge of the obligation to help defend the Republic.
Pay alone will not retain in the career service of our armed forces the
necessary numbers of long-term personnel. I strongly urge, therefore, a
more generous use of other benefits important to service morale. Among
these are more adequate living quarters and family housing units and
medical care for dependents.

Studies of military manpower have just been completed by the National
Security Training Commission and a Committee appointed by the Director of
the Office of Defense Mobilization. Evident weaknesses exist in the state
of readiness and organization of our reserve forces. Measures to correct
these weaknesses will be later submitted to the Congress.

Fifth, the ability to convert swiftly from partial to all-out mobilization
is imperative to our security. For the first time, mobilization officials
know what the requirements are for 1,000 major items needed for military
uses. These data, now being related to civilian requirements and our supply
potential, will show us the gaps in our mobilization base. Thus we shall
have more realistic plant-expansion and stockpiling goals. We shall speed
their attainment. This Nation is at last to have an up-to-date mobilization
base--the foundation of a sound defense program.

Another part of this foundation is, of course, our continental transport
system. Some of our vital heavy materials come increasingly from Canada.
Indeed our relations with Canada, happily always close, involve more and
more the unbreakable ties of strategic interdependence. Both nations now
need the St. Lawrence Seaway for security as well as for economic reasons.
I urge the Congress promptly to approve our participation in its
construction.

Sixth, military and non-military measures for continental defense must be
and are being strengthened. In the current fiscal year we are allocating to
these purposes an increasing portion of our effort, and in the next fiscal
year we shall spend nearly a billion dollars more for them than in 1953.

An indispensable part of our continental security is our civil defense
effort. This will succeed only as we have the complete cooperation of State
Governors, Mayors, and voluntary citizen groups. With their help we can
advance a cooperative program which, if an attack should come, would save
many lives and lessen destruction.

The defense program recommended in the 1955 Budget is consistent with all
of the considerations which I have just discussed. It is based on a new
military program unanimously recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
approved by me following consideration by the National Security Council.
This new program will make and keep America strong in an age of peril.
Nothing should bar its attainment.

The international and defense policies which I have outlined will enable us
to negotiate from a position of strength as we hold our resolute course
toward a peaceful world. We now turn to matters which are normally
characterized as domestic, well realizing that what we do abroad affects
every problem at home--from the amount of taxes to our very state of mind.

INTERNAL SECURITY

Under the standards established for the new employee security program, more
than 2,200 employees have been separated from the Federal government. Our
national security demands that the investigation of new employees and the
evaluation of derogatory information respecting present employees be
expedited and concluded at the earliest possible date. I shall recommend
that the Congress provide additional funds where necessary to speed these
important procedures.

From the special employment standards of the Federal government I turn now
to a matter relating to American citizenship. The subversive character of
the Communist Party in the United States has been clearly demonstrated in
many ways, including court proceedings. We should recognize by law a fact
that is plain to all thoughtful citizens-that we are dealing here with
actions akin to treason--that when a citizen knowingly participates in the
Communist conspiracy he no longer holds allegiance to the United States.

I recommend that Congress enact legislation to provide that a citizen of
the United States who is convicted in the courts of hereafter conspiring to
advocate the overthrow of this government by force or violence be treated
as having, by such act, renounced his allegiance to the United States and
forfeited his United States citizenship.

In addition, the Attorney General will soon appear before your Committees
to present his recommendations for needed additional legal weapons with
which to combat subversion in our country and to deal with the question of
claimed immunity.

II. STRONG ECONOMY

I turn now to the second great purpose of our government: Along with the
protection of freedom, the maintenance of a strong and growing economy.

The American economy is one of the wonders of the world. It undergirds our
international position, our military security, and the standard of living
of every citizen. This Administration is determined to keep our economy
strong and to keep it growing.

At this moment we are in transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy.
I am confident that we can complete this transition without serious
interruption in our economic growth. But we shall not leave this vital
matter to chance. Economic preparedness is fully as important to the nation
as military preparedness.

Subsequent special messages and the economic report on January 28 will set
forth plans of the Administration and its recommendations for Congressional
action. These will include flexible credit and debt management policies;
tax measures to stimulate consumer and business spending; suitable lending,
guaranteeing, insuring, and grant-in-aid activities; strengthened old-age
and unemployment insurance measures; improved agricultural programs;
public-works plans laid well in advance; enlarged opportunities for
international trade and investment. This mere enumeration of these subjects
implies the vast amount of study, coordination, and planning, to say
nothing of authorizing legislation, that altogether make our economic
preparedness complete.

If new conditions arise that require additional administrative or
legislative action, the Administration will still be ready. A government
always ready, as this is, to take well-timed and vigorous action, and a
business community willing, as ours is, to plan boldly and with
confidence, can between them develop a climate assuring steady economic
growth.

THE BUDGET

I shall submit to the Congress on January 21 the first budget prepared by
this Administration, for the period July 1, 1954, through June 1955. This
budget is adequate to the current needs of the government. It recognizes
that a Federal budget should be a stabilizing factor in the economy. Its
tax and expenditure programs will foster individual initiative and economic
growth.

Pending the transmittal of my Budget Message, I shall mention here only a
few points about our budgetary situation.

First, one of our initial acts was to revise, with the cooperation of the
Congress, the Budget prepared before this Administration took office.
Requests for new appropriations were greatly reduced. In addition, the
spending level provided in that Budget for the current fiscal year has been
reduced by about $7,000,000,000. In the next fiscal year we estimate a
further reduction in expenditures of more than $5,000,000,000. This will
reduce the spending level over the two fiscal years by more than
$12,000,000,000. We are also reducing further our requests for new
appropriations.

Second, despite the substantial loss of revenue in the coming fiscal year,
resulting from tax reductions now in effect and tax adjustments which I
shall propose, our reduced spending will move the new budget closer to a
balance.

Third, by keeping new appropriation requests below estimated revenues, we
continue to reduce the tremendous accumulation of unfinanced obligations
incurred by the Government under past appropriations.

Fourth, until those claims on our Government's revenues are further
reduced, the growth in the public debt cannot be entirely stopped. Because
of this--because the government's bills have to be paid every month, while
the tax money to pay them comes in with great unevenness within the fiscal
year--and because of the need for flexibility to manage this enormous debt,
I find it necessary to renew my request for an increase in the statutory
debt limit.

TAXES

The new budget provides for a lower level of taxation than has prevailed in
preceding years. Six days ago individual income taxes were reduced and the
excess profits tax expired. These tax reductions are justified only because
of the substantial reductions we already have made and are making in
governmental expenditures. As additional reductions in expenditures are
brought gradually but surely into sight, further reductions in taxes can
and will be made. When budget savings and sound governmental financing are
assured, tax burdens should be reduced so that taxpayers may spend their
own money in their own way.

While we are moving toward lower levels of taxation we must thoroughly
revise our whole tax system. The groundwork for this revision has already
been laid by the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of
Representatives, in close consultation with the Department of the Treasury.
We should now remove the more glaring tax inequities, particularly on small
taxpayers; reduce restraints on the growth of small business; and make
other changes that will encourage initiative, enterprise and production.
Twenty-five recommendations toward these ends will be contained in my
budget message.

Without attempting to summarize these manifold reforms, I can here
illustrate their tendency. For example, we propose more liberal tax
treatment for dependent children who work, for widows or widowers with
dependent children, and for medical expenses. For the business that wants
to expand or modernize its plant, we propose liberalized tax treatment of
depreciation, research and development expenses, and retained earnings.

Because of the present need for revenue the corporation income tax should
be kept at the current rate of 52% for another year, and the excise taxes
scheduled to be reduced on April first, including those on liquor, tobacco,
gasoline and automobiles, should be continued at present rates.

Immediate extension of the Renegotiation Act of 1951 is also needed to
eliminate excessive profits and to prevent waste of public funds in the
purchase of defense materials.

AGRICULTURE

The well being of our 160 million people demands a stable and prosperous
agriculture. Conversely, every farmer knows he cannot prosper unless all
America prospers. As we seek to promote increases in our standard of
living, we must be sure that the farmer fairly shares in that increase.
Therefore, a farm program promoting stability and prosperity in all
elements of our agriculture is urgently needed.

Agricultural laws now in effect successfully accomplished their wartime
purpose of encouraging maximum production of many crops. Today, production
of these crops at such levels far exceeds present demand. Yet the laws
encouraging such production are still in effect. The storage facilities of
the Commodity Credit Corporation bulge with surplus stocks of dairy
products, wheat, cotton, corn, and certain vegetable oils; and the
Corporation's presently authorized borrowing authority--$6,750,000,000--is
nearly exhausted. Some products, priced out of domestic markets, and
others, priced out of world markets, have piled up in government hands. In
a world in which millions of people are hungry, destruction of food would,
of course, be unconscionable. Yet surplus stocks continue to threaten the
market and in spite of the acreage controls authorized by present law,
surpluses will continue to accumulate.

We confront two alternatives. The first is to impose still greater acreage
reductions for some crops and apply rigid Federal controls over the use of
the diverted acres. This will regiment the production of every basic
agricultural crop. It will place every producer of those crops under the
domination and control of the Federal government in Washington. This
alternative is contrary to the fundamental interests, not only of the
farmer, but of the Nation as a whole. Nor is it a real solution to the
problem facing us.

The second alternative is to permit the market price for these agricultural
products gradually to have a greater influence on the planning of
production by farmers, while continuing the assistance of the government.
This is the sound approach. To make it effective, surpluses existing when
the new program begins must be insulated from the normal channels of trade
for special uses. These uses would include school lunch programs, disaster
relief, emergency assistance to foreign friends, and of particular
importance the stockpiling of reserves for a national emergency.

Building on the agricultural laws of 1948 and 1949, we should establish a
price support program with enough flexibility to attract the production of
needed supplies of essential commodities and to stimulate the consumption
of those commodities that are flooding American markets. Transition to
modernized parity must be accomplished gradually. In no case should there
be an abrupt downward change in the dollar level or in the percentage level
of price supports.

Next Monday I shall transmit to the Congress my detailed recommendations
embodying this approach. They have been developed through the cooperation
of innumerable individuals vitally interested in agriculture. My special
message on Monday will briefly describe the consultative and advisory
processes to which this whole program has been subjected during the past
ten months.

I have chosen this farm program because it will build markets, protect the
consumers' food supply, and move food into consumption instead of into
storage. It is a program that will remove the threat to the farmer of these
overhanging surpluses, a program, also, that will stimulate production when
a commodity is scarce and encourage consumption when nature is bountiful.
Moreover, it will promote the individual freedom, responsibility, and
initiative which distinguish American agriculture. And, by helping our
agriculture achieve full parity in the market, it promises our farmers a
higher and steadier financial return over the years than any alternative
plan.

CONSERVATION

Part of our Nation's precious heritage is its natural resources. It is the
common responsibility of Federal, state, and local governments to improve
and develop them, always working in the closest harmony and partnership.

All Federal conservation and resource development projects are being
reappraised. Sound projects now under way will be continued. New projects
in which the Federal Government has a part must be economically sound, with
local sharing of cost wherever appropriate and feasible. In the next fiscal
year work will be started on twenty-three projects that meet these
standards. The Federal Government will continue to construct and operate
economically sound flood control, power, irrigation and water supply
projects wherever these projects are beyond the capacity of local
initiative, public or private, and consistent with the needs of the whole
Nation.

Our conservation program will also take into account the important role
played by farmers in protecting our soil resources. I recommend enactment
of legislation to strengthen agricultural conservation and upstream flood
prevention work, and to achieve a better balance with major flood control
structures in the down-stream areas.

Recommendations will be made from time to time for the adoption of:

A uniform and consistent water resources policy;

A revised public lands policy; and

A sound program for safeguarding the domestic production of critical and
strategic metals and minerals.

In addition we shall continue to protect and improve our national forests,
parks, monuments and other natural and historic sites, as well as our
fishery and wildlife resources. I hope that pending legislation to improve
the conservation and management of publicly-owned grazing lands in national
forests will soon be approved by the Congress.

NATIONAL HIGHWAYS

To protect the vital interest of every citizen in a safe and adequate
highway system, the Federal Government is continuing its central role in
the Federal Aid Highway Program. So that maximum progress can be made to
overcome present inadequacies in the Interstate Highway System, we must
continue the Federal gasoline tax at two cents per gallon. This will
require cancellation of the 1/2 cent decrease which otherwise will become
effective April 1st, and will maintain revenues so that an expanded highway
program can be undertaken.

When the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations completes its study of
the present system of financing highway construction, I shall promptly
submit it for consideration by the Congress and the governors of the
states.

POST OFFICE

It is apparent that the substantial savings already made, and to be made,
by the Post Office Department cannot eliminate the postal deficit. I
recommend, therefore, that the Congress approve the bill now pending in the
House of Representatives providing for the adjustment of certain postal
rates. To handle the long term aspects of this, I also recommend that the
Congress create a permanent commission to establish fair and reasonable
postal rates from time to time in the future.

III. HUMAN PROBLEMS

Along with the protection of freedom and maintenance of a strong and
growing economy, this Administration recognizes a third great purpose of
government: concern for the human problems of our citizens. In a modern
industrial society, banishment of destitution and cushioning the shock of
personal disaster on the individual are proper concerns of all levels of
government, including the federal government. This is especially true where
remedy and prevention alike are beyond the individual's capacity.

LABOR AND WELFARE

Of the many problems in this area, those I shall first discuss are of
particular concern to the members of our great labor force, who with their
heads, hearts and hands produce so much of the wealth of our country.

Protection against the hazards of temporary unemployment should be extended
to some 6 1/2 millions of workers, including civilian Federal workers, who
now lack this safeguard. Moreover, the Secretary of Labor is making
available to the states studies and recommendations in the fields of weekly
benefits, periods of protection and extension of coverage. The Economic
Report will consider the related matter of minimum wages and their coverage.

The Labor Management Relations Act of 3947 is basically a sound law.
However, six years of experience have revealed that in some respects it can
be improved. On January 11, I shall forward to the Congress suggestions for
changes designed to reinforce the basic objectives of the Act.

Our basic social security program, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
system, to which individuals contribute during their productive years and
receive benefits based on previous earnings, is designed to shield them
from destitution. Last year I recommended extension of the social insurance
system to include more than 10,000,000 additional persons. I ask that this
extension soon be accomplished. This and other major improvements in the
insurance system will bring substantial benefit increases and broaden the
membership of the insurance system, thus diminishing the need for Federal
grants-in-aid for such purposes. A new formula will therefore be proposed,
permitting progressive reduction in such grants as the need for them
declines.

Federal grant-in-aid welfare programs, now based on widely varying
formulas, should be simplified. Concrete proposals on fourteen of them will
be suggested to the appropriate Committees.

The program for rehabilitation of the disabled especially needs
strengthening. Through special vocational training, this program presently
returns each year some 60,000 handicapped individuals to productive work.
Far more disabled people can be saved each year from idleness and
dependence if this program is gradually increased. My more detailed
recommendations on this and the other social insurance problems I have
mentioned will be sent to the Congress on January 14th.

HEALTH

I am flatly opposed to the socialization of medicine. The great need for
hospital and medical services can best be met by the initiative of private
plans. But it is unfortunately a fact that medical costs are rising and
already impose severe hardships on many families. The Federal Government
can do many helpful things and still carefully avoid the socialization of
medicine.

The Federal Government should encourage medical research in its battle with
such mortal diseases as cancer and heart ailments, and should continue to
help the states in their health and rehabilitation programs. The present
Hospital Survey and Construction Act should be broadened in order to assist
in the development of adequate facilities for the chronically ill, and to
encourage the construction of diagnostic centers, rehabilitation
facilities, and nursing homes. The war on disease also needs a better
working relationship between Government and private initiative. Private and
non-profit hospital and medical insurance plans are already in the field,
soundly based on the experience and initiative of the people in their
various communities.

A limited Government reinsurance service would permit the private and
non-profit insurance companies to offer broader protection to more of the
many families which want and should have it. On January 18 I shall forward
to the Congress a special message presenting this Administration's health
program in its detail.

EDUCATION

Youth--our greatest resource--is being seriously neglected in a vital
respect. The nation as a whole is not preparing teachers or building
schools fast enough to keep up with the increase in our population.

The preparation of teachers as, indeed, the control and direction of public
education policy, is a state and local responsibility. However, the Federal
Government should stand ready to assist states which demonstrably cannot
provide sufficient school buildings. In order to appraise the needs, I hope
that this year a conference on education will be held in each state,
culminating in a national conference. From these conferences on education,
every level of government--from the Federal Government to each local school
board--should gain the information with which to attack this serious
problem.

HOUSING

The details of a program to enlarge and improve the opportunities for our
people to acquire good homes will be presented to the Congress by special
message on January 25.

This program will include:

Modernization of the home mortgage insurance program of the Federal
Government;

Redirection of the present system of loans and grants-in-aid to cities for
slum clearance and redevelopment;

Extension of the advantages of insured lending to private credit engaged in
this task of rehabilitating obsolete neighborhoods;

Insurance of long-term, mortgage loans, with small down payment for
low-income families; and, until alternative programs prove more effective,

Continuation of the public housing program adopted in the Housing Act of
1949.

If the individual, the community, the State and federal governments will
alike apply themselves, every American family can have a decent home.

VETERANS ADMINISTRATION

The internal reorganization of the Veterans Administration is proceeding
with my full approval. When completed, it will afford a single agency whose
services, including medical facilities, will be better adapted to the needs
of those 20,000,000 veterans to whom this Nation owes so much.

SUFFRAGE

My few remaining recommendations all relate to a basic right of our
citizens--that of being represented in the decisions of the government.

I hope that the States will cooperate with the Congress in adopting uniform
standards in their voting laws that will make it possible for our citizens
in the armed forces overseas to vote.

In the District of Columbia the time is long overdue for granting national
suffrage to its citizens and also applying the principle of local
self-government to the Nation's Capital. I urge the Congress to move
promptly in this direction and also to revise District revenue measures to
provide needed public works improvements.

The people of Hawaii are ready for statehood. I renew my request for this
legislation in order that Hawaii may elect its State officials and its
representatives in Washington along with the rest of the country this
fall.

For years our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of
peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the
political process that produces this fateful summons. I urge Congress to
propose to the States a constitutional amendment permitting citizens to
vote when they reach the age of 18.

CONCLUSION

I want to add one final word about the general purport of these many
recommendations.

Our government's powers are wisely limited by the Constitution; but quite
apart from those limitations, there are things which no government can do
or should try to do.

A government can strive, as ours is striving, to maintain an economic
system whose doors are open to enterprise and ambition--those personal
qualities on which economic growth largely depends. But enterprise and
ambition are qualities which no government can supply. Fortunately no
American government need concern itself on this score; our people have
these qualities in good measure.

A government can sincerely strive for peace, as ours is striving, and ask
its people to make sacrifices for the sake of peace. But no government can
place peace in the hearts of foreign rulers. It is our duty then to
ourselves and to freedom itself to remain strong in all those
ways--spiritual, economic, military--that will give us maximum safety
against the possibility of aggressive action by others.

No government can inoculate its people against the fatal materialism that
plagues our age. Happily, our people, though blessed with more material
goods than any people in history, have always reserved their first
allegiance to the kingdom of the spirit, which is the true source of that
freedom we value above all material things.

But a government can try, as ours tries, to sense the deepest aspirations
of the people, and to express them in political action at home and abroad.
So long as action and aspiration humbly and earnestly seek favor in the
sight of the Almighty, there is no end to America's forward road; there is
no obstacle on it she will not surmount in her march toward a lasting peace
in a free and prosperous world.

The Address as reported from the floor appears in the Congressional Record
(vol. 100, p. 62).

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 6, 1955

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

First, I extend cordial greetings to the 84th Congress. We shall have much
to do together; I am sure that we shall get it done--and, that we shall do
it in harmony and good will.

At the outset, I believe it would be well to remind ourselves of this great
fundamental in our national life: our common belief that every human being
is divinely endowed with dignity and worth and inalienable rights. This
faith, with its corollary--that to grow and flourish people must be
free--shapes the interests and aspirations of every American.

From this deep faith have evolved three main purposes of our Federal
Government:

First, to maintain justice and freedom among ourselves and to champion them
for others so that we may work effectively for enduring peace;

Second, to help keep our economy vigorous and expanding, thus sustaining
our international strength and assuring better jobs, better living, better
opportunities for every citizen;

And third, to concern ourselves with the human problems of our people so
that every American may have the opportunity to lead a healthy, productive
and rewarding life.

Foremost among these broad purposes of government is our support of
freedom, justice and peace.

It is of the utmost importance, that each of us understand the true nature
of the struggle now taking place in the world.

It is not a struggle merely of economic theories, or of forms of
government, or of military power. At issue is the true nature of man.
Either man is the creature whom the Psalmist described as "a little lower
than the angels," crowned with glory and honor, holding "dominion over the
works" of his Creator; or man is a soulless, animated machine to be
enslaved, used and consumed by the state for its own glorification.

It is, therefore, a struggle which goes to the roots of the human spirit,
and its shadow falls across the long sweep of man's destiny. This prize, so
precious, so fraught with ultimate meaning, is the true object of the
contending forces in the world.

In the past year, there has been progress justifying hope, both for
continuing peace and for the ultimate rule of freedom and justice in the
world. Free nations are collectively stronger than at any time in recent
years.

Just as nations of this Hemisphere, in the historic Caracas and Rio
conferences, have closed ranks against imperialistic Communism and
strengthened their economic ties, so free nations elsewhere have forged new
bonds of unity.

Recent agreements between Turkey and Pakistan have laid a foundation for
increased strength in the Middle East. With our understanding support,
Egypt and Britain, Yugoslavia and Italy, Britain and Iran have resolved
dangerous differences. The security of the Mediterranean has been enhanced
by an alliance among Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia. Agreements in Western
Europe have paved the way for unity to replace past divisions which have
undermined Europe's economic and military vitality. The defense of the West
appears likely at last to include a free, democratic Germany participating
as an equal in the councils of NATO.

In Asia and the Pacific, the pending Manila Pact supplements our treaties
with Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Korea and Japan and our
prospective treaty with the Republic of China. These pacts stand as solemn
warning that future military aggression and subversion against the free
nations of Asia will meet united response. The Pacific Charter, also
adopted at Manila, is a milestone in the development of human freedom and
self-government in the Pacific area.

Under the auspices of the United Nations, there is promise of progress in
our country's plan for the peaceful use of atomic energy.

Finally, today the world is at peace. It is, to be sure, an secure peace.
Yet all humanity finds hope in the simple fact that for an appreciable time
there has been no active major battlefield on earth. This same fact
inspires us to work all the more effectively with other nations for the
well-being, the freedom, the dignity, of every human on earth.

These developments are heartening indeed, and we are hopeful of continuing
progress. But sobering problems remain.

The massive military machines and ambitions of the Soviet-Communist bloc
still create uneasiness in the world. All of us are aware of the continuing
reliance of the Soviet Communists on military force, of the power of their
weapons, of their present resistance to realistic armament limitation, and
of their continuing effort to dominate or intimidate free nations on their
periphery. Their steadily growing power includes an increasing strength in
nuclear weapons. This power, combined with the proclaimed intentions of the
Communist leaders to communize the world, is the threat confronting us
today.

To protect our nations and our peoples from the catastrophe of a nuclear
holocaust, free nations must maintain countervailing military power to
persuade the Communists of the futility of seeking their ends through
aggression. If Communist rulers understand that America's response to
aggression will be swift and decisive--that never shall we buy peace at the
expense of honor or faith--they will be powerfully deterred from launching
a military venture engulfing their own peoples and many others in disaster.
This, of course, is merely world stalemate. But in this stalemate each of
us may and must exercise his high duty to strive in every honorable way for
enduring peace.

The military threat is but one menace to our freedom and security. We must
not only deter aggression; we must also frustrate the effort of Communists
to gain their goals by subversion. To this end, free nations must maintain
and reinforce their cohesion, their internal security, their political and
economic vitality, and their faith in freedom.

In such a world, America's course is dear:

We must tirelessly labor to make the peace more just and durable.

We must strengthen the collective defense under the United Nations Charter
and gird ourselves with sufficient military strength and productive
capacity to discourage resort to war and protect our nation's vital
interests.

We must continue to support and strengthen the United Nations. At this very
moment, by vote of the United Nations General Assembly, its
Secretary-General is in Communist China on a mission of deepest concern to
all Americans: seeking the release of our never-to-be-forgotten American
aviators and all other United Nations prisoners wrongfully detained by the
Communist regime.

We must also encourage the efforts being made in the United Nations to
limit armaments and to harness the atom to peaceful rise.

We must expand international trade and investment and assist friendly
nations whose own best efforts are still insufficient to provide the
strength essential to the security of the free world.

We must be willing to use the processes of negotiation whenever they will
advance the cause of just and secure peace to which the United States and
other free nations are dedicated.

In respect to all these matters, we must, through a vigorous information
program, keep the peoples of the world truthfully advised of our actions
and purposes. This problem has been attacked with new vigor during the past
months. I urge that the Congress give its earnest consideration to the
great advantages that can accrue to our country through the successful
operations of this program.

We must also carry forward our educational exchange program. This sharing
of knowledge and experience between our citizens and those of free
countries is a powerful factor in the development and maintenance of true
partnership among free peoples.

To advance these many efforts, the Congress must act in this session on
appropriations, legislation, and treaties. Today I shall mention especially
our foreign economic and military programs.

The recent economic progress in many free nations has been most heartening.
The productivity of labor and the production of goods and services are
increasing in ever-widening areas. There is a growing will to improve the
living standards of all men. This progress is important to all our people.
It promises us allies who are strong and self-reliant; it promises a
growing world market for the products of our mines, our factories, and our
farms.

But only through steady effort can we hope to continue this progress.
Barriers still impede trade and the flow of capital needed to develop each
nation's human and material resources. Wise reduction of these barriers is
a long-term objective of our foreign economic policy--a policy of an
evolutionary and selective nature, assuring broad benefits to our own and
other peoples.

We must gradually reduce certain tariff obstacles to trade. These actions
should, of course, be accompanied by a similar lowering of trade barriers
by other nations, so that we may move steadily toward greater economic
advantage for all. We must further simplify customs administration and
procedures. We must facilitate the flow of capital and continue technical
assistance, both directly and through the United Nations, to less developed
countries to strengthen their independence and raise their living
standards. Many another step must be taken in and among the nations of the
free world to release forces of private initiative. In our own nation,
these forces have brought strength and prosperity; once released, they will
generate rising incomes in these other countries with which to buy the
products of American industry, labor and agriculture.

On January 10, by special message, I shall submit specific recommendations
for carrying forward the legislative phases of our foreign economic
policy.

Our many efforts to build a better world include the maintenance of our
military strength. This is a vast undertaking. Major national security
programs consume two-thirds of the entire Federal budget. Over four million
Americans--servicemen and civilians--are on the rolls of the defense
establishment. During the past two years, by eliminating duplication and
overstaffing, by improved procurement and inventory controls, and by
concentrating on the essentials, many billions of dollars have been saved
in our defense activities. I should like to mention certain fundamentals
underlying this vast program.

First, a realistic limitation of armaments and an enduring, just peace
remain our national goals; we maintain powerful military forces because
there is no present alternative--forces designed for deterrent and
defensive purposes alone but able instantly to strike back with destructive
power in response to an attack.

Second, we must stay alert to the fact that undue reliance on one weapon or
preparation for only one kind of warfare simply invites an enemy to resort
to another. We must, therefore, keep in our armed forces balance and
flexibility adequate for our purposes and objectives.

Third, to keep our armed forces abreast of the advances of science, our
military planning must be flexible enough to utilize the new weapons and
techniques which flow ever more speedily from our research and development
programs. The forthcoming military budget therefore emphasizes modern
airpower in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and increases the emphasis
on new weapons, especially those of rapid and destructive striking power.
It assures the maintenance of effective, retaliatory force as the principal
deterrent to overt aggression. It accelerates the continental defense
program and the build-up of ready military reserve forces. It continues a
vigorous program of stockpiling strategic and critical materials and
strengthening our mobilization base. The budget also contemplates the
strategic concentration of our strength through redeployment of certain
forces. It provides for reduction of forces in certain categories and their
expansion in others, to fit them to the military realities of our time.
These emphases in our defense planning have been made at my personal
direction after long and thoughtful study. In my judgment, they will give
our nation a defense accurately adjusted to the national need.

Fourth, pending a world agreement on armament limitation, we must continue
to improve and expand our supplies of nuclear weapons for our land, naval
and air forces, while, at the same time, continuing our encouraging
progress in the peaceful use of atomic power.

And fifth, in the administration of these costly programs, we must demand
the utmost in efficiency and ingenuity. We must assure our people not only
of adequate protection but also of a defense that can be carried forward
from year to year until the threat of aggression has disappeared.

To help maintain this kind of armed strength and improve its efficiency, I
must urge the enactment of several important measures in this session.

The first concerns the selective service act which expires next June 30th.
For the foreseeable future, our standing forces must remain much larger
than voluntary methods can sustain. We must, therefore, extend the
statutory authority to induct men for two years of military service.

The second kind of measure concerns the rapid turnover of our most
experienced servicemen. This process seriously weakens the combat readiness
of our armed forces and is exorbitantly expensive. To encourage more
trained servicemen to remain in uniform, I shall, on the thirteenth of this
month, propose a number of measures to increase the attractions of a
military career. These measures will include more adequate medical care for
dependents, survivors' benefits, more and better housing, and selective
adjustments in military pay and other allowances.

And third--also on January 13--I shall present a program to rebuild and
strengthen the civilian components of our armed forces. This is a
comprehensive program, designed to make better use of our manpower of
military age. Because it will go far in assuring fair and equitable
participation in military training and service, it is of particular
importance to our combat veterans. In keeping with the historic military
policy of our Republic, this program is designed to build and maintain
powerful civilian reserves immediately capable of effective military
service in an emergency in lieu of maintaining active duty forces in excess
of the nation's immediate need.

Maintenance of an effective defense requires continuance of our aggressive
attack on subversion at home. In this effort we have, in the past two
years, made excellent progress. FBI investigations have been powerfully
reinforced by a new Internal Security Division in the Department of
Justice; the security activities of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service have been revitalized; an improved and strengthened security system
is in effect throughout the government; the Department of Justice and the
FBI have been armed with effective new legal weapons forged by the 83rd
Congress.

We shall continue to ferret out and to destroy Communist subversion.

We shall, in the process, carefully preserve our traditions and the basic
rights of our citizens.

Our civil defense program is also a key element in the protection of our
country. We are developing cooperative methods with State Governors,
Mayors, and voluntary citizen groups, as well as among Federal agencies, in
building the civil defense organization. Its significance in time of war is
obvious; its swift assistance in disaster areas last year proved its
importance in time of peace.

An industry capable of rapid expansion and essential materials and
facilities swiftly available in time of emergency are indispensable to our
defense. I urge, therefore, a two-year extension of the Defense Production
Act and Title II of the First War Powers Act of 1941. These are
cornerstones of our program for the development and maintenance of an
adequate mobilization base. At this point, I should like to make this
additional observation. Our quest for peace and freedom necessarily
presumes that we who hold positions of public trust must rise above self
and section--that we must subordinate to the general good our partisan, our
personal pride and prejudice. Tirelessly, with united purpose, we must
fortify the material and spiritual foundations of this land of freedom and
of free nations throughout the world. As never before, there is need for
unhesitating cooperation among the branches of our government.

At this time the executive and legislative branches are under the
management of different political parties. This fact places both parties on
trial before the American people.

In less perilous days of the past, division of governmental responsibility
among our great parties has produced a paralyzing indecision. We must not
let this happen in our time. We must avoid a paralysis of the will for
peace and international security.

In the traditionally bipartisan areas--military security and foreign
relations--I can report to you that I have already, with the leaders of
this Congress, expressed assurances of unreserved cooperation. Yet, the
strength of our country requires more than mere maintenance of military
strength and success in foreign affairs; these vital matters are in turn
dependent upon concerted and vigorous action in a number of supporting
programs. I say, therefore, to the 84th Congress:

In all areas basic to the strength of America, there will be--to the extent
I can insure them--cooperative, constructive relations between the
Executive and Legislative Branches of this government. Let the general good
be our yardstick on every great issue of our time.

Our efforts to defend our freedom and to secure a just peace are, of
course, inseparable from the second great purpose of our government: to
help maintain a strong, growing economy--an economy vigorous and free, in
which there are ever-increasing opportunities, just rewards for effort, and
a stable prosperity that is widely shared.

In the past two years, many important governmental Actions helped our
economy adjust to conditions of peace; these and other actions created a
climate for renewed economic growth. Controls were removed from wages,
prices and materials. Tax revisions encouraged increased private spending
and employment. Federal expenditures were sharply reduced, making possible
a record tax cut. These actions, together with flexible monetary and debt
management policies, helped to halt inflation and stabilize the value of
the dollar. A program of cooperation and partnership in resource
development was begun. Social security and unemployment insurance laws were
broadened and strengthened. New laws started the long process of balancing
farm production with farm markets. Expanded shipbuilding and stockpiling
programs strengthened key sectors of the economy, while improving our
mobilization base. A comprehensive new housing law brought impressive
progress in an area fundamental to our economic strength and closed
loopholes in the old laws permitting dishonest manipulation. Many of these
programs are just beginning to exert their main stimulating effect upon the
economy generally and upon specific communities and industries throughout
the country.

The past year--1954--was one of the most prosperous years in our history.
Business activity now surges with new strength. Production is rising.
Employment is high. Toward the end of last year average weekly wages in
manufacturing were higher than ever before. Personal income after taxes is
at a record level. So is consumer spending. Construction activity is
reaching new peaks. Export demand for our goods is strong. State and local
government expenditures on public works are rising. Savings are high, and
credit is readily available.

So, today, the transition to a peacetime economy is largely behind us.

The economic outlook is good.

The many promising factors I have mentioned do not guarantee sustained
economic expansion; however, they do give us a strong position from which
to carry forward our economic growth. If we as a people act wisely, within
ten years our annual national output can rise from its present level of
about $360 billion to $500 billion, measured in dollars of stable buying
power.

My Budget Message on January 17, the Economic Report on the 20th of this
month, and several special messages will set forth in detail major programs
to foster the growth of our economy and to protect the integrity of the
people's money. Today I shall discuss these programs only in general
terms.

Government efficiency and economy remain essential to steady progress
toward a balanced budget. More than ten billion dollars were cut from the
spending program proposed in the budget of January 9, 1953. Expenditures of
that year were six and a half billion below those of the previous year. In
the current fiscal year, government spending will be nearly four and a half
billion dollars less than in the fiscal year which ended last June 30. New
spending authority has been held below expenditures, reducing government
obligations accumulated over the years.

Last year we had a large tax cut and, for the first time in seventy-five
years a basic revision of Federal tax laws. It is now clear that defense
and other essential government costs must remain at a level precluding
further tax reductions this year. Although excise and corporation income
taxes must, therefore, be continued at their present rates, further tax
cuts will be possible when justified by lower expenditures and by revenue
increases arising from the nation's economic growth. I am hopeful that such
reductions can be made next year.

At the foundation of our economic growth are the raw materials and energy
produced from our minerals and fuels, lands and forests, and water
resources. With respect to them, I believe that the nation must adhere to
three fundamental policies: first, to develop, wisely use and conserve
basic resources from generation to generation; second, to follow the
historic pattern of developing these resources primarily by private
citizens under fair provisions of law, including restraints for proper
conservation; and third, to treat resource development as a partnership
undertaking--a partnership in which the participation of private citizens
and State and local governments is as necessary as Federal participation.

This policy of partnership and cooperation is producing good results, most
immediately noticeable in respect to water resources. First, it has
encouraged local public bodies and private citizens to plan their own power
sources. Increasing numbers of applications to the Federal Power Commission
to conduct surveys and prepare plans for power development, notably in the
Columbia River Basin, are evidence of local response.

Second, the Federal Government and local and private organizations have
been encouraged to coordinate their developments. This is important because
Federal hydroelectric developments supply but a small fraction of the
nation's power needs. Such partnership projects as Priest Rapids in
Washington, the Coosa River development in Alabama, and Markham Ferry in
Oklahoma already have the approval of the Congress. This year justifiable
projects of a similar nature will again have Administration support.

Third, the Federal Government must shoulder its own partnership obligations
by undertaking projects of such complexity and size that their success
requires Federal development. In keeping with this principle, I again urge
the Congress to approve the development of the Upper Colorado River Basin
to conserve and assure better use of precious water essential to the future
of the West.

In addition, the 1956 budget will recommend appropriations to start six new
reclamation and more than thirty new Corps of Engineers projects of varying
size. Going projects and investigations of potential new resource
developments will be continued.

Although this partnership approach is producing encouraging results, its
full success requires a nation-wide comprehensive water resources policy
firmly based in law. Such a policy is under preparation and when completed
will be submitted to the Congress.

In the interest of their proper conservation, development and use,
continued vigilance will be maintained over our fisheries, wildlife
resources, the national parks and forests, and the public lands; and we
shall continue to encourage an orderly development of the nation's mineral
resources.

A modern, efficient highway system is essential to meet the needs of our
growing population, our expanding economy, and our national security. We
are accelerating our highway improvement program as rapidly as possible
under existing State and Federal laws and authorizations. However, this
effort will not in itself assure our people of an adequate highway system.
On my recommendation, this problem has been carefully considered by the
Conference of State Governors and by a special Advisory Committee on a
National Highway Program, composed of leading private citizens. I have
received the recommendations of the Governors' Conference and will shortly
receive the views of the special Advisory Committee. Aided by their
findings, I shall submit on January 27th detailed recommendations which
will meet our most pressing national highway needs.

In further recognition of the importance of transportation to our economic
strength and security, the Administration, through a Cabinet committee, is
thoroughly examining existing Federal transportation policies to determine
their effect on the adequacy of transportation services. This is the first
such comprehensive review directly undertaken by the Executive Branch of
the government in modern times. We are not only examining major problems
facing the various modes of transport; we are also studying closely the
inter-relationships of civilian and government requirements for
transportation. Legislation will be recommended to correct policy
deficiencies which we may find.

The nation's public works activities are tremendous in scope. It is
expected that more than $ 12 billion will be expended in 1955 for the
development of land, water and other resources; control of floods, and
navigation and harbor improvements; construction of roads, schools, and
municipal water supplies, and disposal of domestic and industrial wastes.
Many of the Federal, State and local agencies responsible for this work
are, in their separate capacities, highly efficient. But public works
activities are closely inter-related and have a substantial influence on
the growth of the country. Moreover, in times of threatening economic
contraction, they may become a valuable sustaining force. To these ends,
efficient planning and execution of the nation's public works require both
the coordination of Federal activities and effective cooperation with State
and local governments.

The Council of Economic Advisers, through its public works planning
section, has made important advances during the past year in effecting this
coordination and cooperation. In view of the success of these initial
efforts, and to give more emphasis and continuity to this essential
coordination, I shall request the Congress to appropriate funds for the
support of an Office of Coordinator of Public Works in the Executive Office
of the President.

A most significant element in our growing economy is an agriculture that is
stable, prosperous and free. The problems of our agriculture have evolved
over many years and cannot be solved overnight; nevertheless, governmental
actions last year hold great promise of fostering a better balance between
production and markets and, consequently, a better and more stable income
for our farmers.

Through vigorous administration and through new authority provided by the
83rd Congress, surplus farm products are now moving into consumption. From
February 1953 through November 1954, the rate of increase of
government-held surpluses has been reduced by our moving into use more than
2.3 billion dollars' worth of government-owned farm commodities; this
amount is equal to more than seven percent of a year's production of all
our farms and ranches. Domestic consumption remains high, and farm exports
will be higher than last year. As a result of the flexibility provided by
the Agricultural Act of 1954, we can move toward less restrictive acreage
controls.

Thus, farm production is gradually adjusting to markets, markets are being
expanded, and stocks are moving into use. We can now look forward to an
easing of the influences depressing farm prices, to reduced government
expenditures for purchase of surplus products, and to less Federal
intrusion into the lives and plans of our farm people. Agricultural
programs have been redirected toward better balance, greater stability and
sustained prosperity. We are headed in the right direction. I urgently
recommend to the Congress that we continue resolutely on this road.

Greater attention must be directed to the needs of low-income farm
families. Twenty-eight per cent of our farm-operator families have net cash
incomes of less than $1,000 per year. Last year, at my request, careful
studies were made of the problems of these farm people. I shall later
submit recommendations designed to assure the steady alleviation of their
most pressing concerns.

Because drought also remains a serious agricultural problem, I shall
recommend legislation to strengthen Federal disaster assistance programs.
This legislation will prescribe an improved appraisal of need, better
adjustment of the various programs to local conditions, and a more
equitable sharing of costs between the States and the Federal Government.

The prosperity of our small business enterprises is an indispensable
element in the maintenance of our economic strength. Creation of the Small
Business Administration and recently enacted tax laws facilitating small
business expansion are but two of many important steps we have taken to
encourage our smaller enterprises. I recommend that the Congress extend the
Small Business Act of 1953 which is due to expire next June.

We come now to the third great purpose of our government-its concern for
the health, productivity and well-being of all our people.

Every citizen wants to give full expression to his God-given talents and
abilities and to have the recognition and respect accorded under our
religious and political traditions. Americans also want a good material
standard of living--not simply to accumulate possessions, but to fulfill a
legitimate aspiration for an environment in which their families may live
meaningful and happy lives. Our people are committed, therefore, to the
creation and preservation of opportunity for every citizen to lead a more
rewarding life. They are equally committed to the alleviation of misfortune
and distress among their fellow citizens.

The aspirations of most of our people can best be fulfilled through their
own enterprise and initiative, without government interference. This
Administration, therefore, follows two simple rules: first, the Federal
Government should perform an essential task only when it cannot otherwise
be adequately performed; and second, in performing that task, our
government must not impair the self-respect, freedom and incentive of the
individual. So long as these two rules are observed, the government can
fully meet its obligation without creating a dependent population or a
domineering bureaucracy.

During the past two years, notable advances were made in these functions of
government. Protection of old-age and survivors' insurance was extended to
an additional ten million of our people, and the benefits were
substantially increased. Legislation was enacted to provide unemployment
insurance protection to some four million additional Americans.
Stabilization of living costs and the halting of inflation protected the
value of pensions and savings. A broad program now helps to bring good
homes within the reach of the great majority of our people. With the
States, we are providing rehabilitation facilities and more clinics,
hospitals, and nursing homes for patients with chronic illnesses. Also with
the States, we have begun a great and fruitful expansion in the restoration
of disabled persons to employment and useful lives. In the areas of Federal
responsibility, we have made historic progress in eliminating from among
our people demeaning practices based on race or color.

All of us may be proud of these achievements during the past two years. Yet
essential Federal tasks remain to be done.

As part of our efforts to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing for
low-income families, we must carry forward the housing program authorized
during the 83rd Congress. We must also authorize contracts for a firm
program of 35,000 additional public housing units in each of the next two
fiscal years. This program will meet the most pressing obligations of the
Federal Government into the 1958 fiscal year for planning and building
public housing. By that time the private building industry, aided by the
Housing Act of 1954, will have had the opportunity to assume its full role
in providing adequate housing for our low income families.

The health of our people is one of our most precious assets. Preventable
sickness should be prevented; knowledge available to combat disease and
disability should be fully used. Otherwise, we as a people are guilty not
only of neglect of human suffering but also of wasting our national
strength.

Constant advances in medical care are not available to enough of our
citizens. Clearly our nation must do more to reduce the impact of accident
and disease. Two fundamental problems confront us: first, high and
ever-rising costs of health services; second, serious gaps and shortages in
these services.

By special message on January 24, I shall propose a coordinated program to
strengthen and improve existing health services. This program will continue
to reject socialized medicine. It will emphasize individual and local
responsibility. Under it the Federal Government will neither dominate nor
direct, but serve as a helpful partner. Within this framework, the program
can be broad in scope.

My recommendations will include a Federal health reinsurance service to
encourage the development of more and better voluntary health insurance
coverage by private organizations. I shall also recommend measures to
improve the medical care of that group of our citizens who, because of
need, receive Federal-State public assistance. These two proposals will
help more of our people to meet the costs of health services.

To reduce the gaps in these services, I shall propose:

New measures to facilitate construction of needed health facilities and
help reduce shortages of trained health personnel;

Vigorous steps to combat the misery and national loss involved in mental
illness;

Improved services for crippled children and for maternal and child health;

Better consumer protection under our existing pure food and drug laws; and,
finally,

Strengthened programs to combat the increasingly serious pollution of our
rivers and streams and the growing problem of air pollution.

These measures together constitute a comprehensive program holding rich
promise for better health for all of our people.

Last year's expansion of social security coverage and our new program of
improved medical care for public assistance recipients together suggest
modification of the formula for Federal sharing in old age assistance
payments. I recommend modification of the formula where such payments will,
in the future, supplement benefits received under the old age and survivors
insurance system.

It is the inalienable right of every person, from childhood on, to have
access to knowledge. In our form of society, this right of the individual
takes on a special meaning, for the education of all our citizens is
imperative to the maintenance and invigoration of America's free
institutions.

Today, we face grave educational problems. Effective and up-to-date
analyses of these problems and their solutions are being carried forward
through the individual State conferences and the White House Conference to
be completed this year.

However, such factors as population growth, additional responsibilities of
schools, and increased and longer school attendance have produced an
unprecedented classroom shortage. This shortage is of immediate concern to
all of our people. Positive, affirmative action must be taken now.

Without impairing in any way the responsibilities of our States,
localities, communities, or families, the Federal government can and should
serve as an effective-catalyst in dealing with this problem. I shall
forward a special message to the Congress on February 15, presenting an
affirmative program dealing with this shortage.

To help the States do a better and more timely job, we must strengthen
their resources for preventing and dealing with juvenile delinquency. I
shall propose Federal legislation to assist the States to promote concerted
action in dealing with this nationwide problem. I shall carry forward the
vigorous efforts of the Administration to improve the international control
of the traffic in narcotics and, in cooperation with State and local
agencies, to combat narcotic addiction in our country.

I should like to speak now of additional matters of importance to all our
people and especially to our wage earners.

During the past year certain industrial changes and the readjustment of the
economy to conditions of peace brought unemployment and other difficulties
to various localities and industries. These problems are engaging our most
earnest attention. But for the overwhelming majority of our working people,
the past year has meant good jobs. Moreover, the earnings and savings of
our wage earners are no longer depreciating in value. Because of
cooperative relations between labor and management, fewer working days were
lost through strikes in 1954 than in any year in the past decade.

The outlook for our wage earners can be made still more promising by
several legislative actions.

First, in the past five years we have had economic growth which will
support an increase in the Federal minimum wage. In the light of present
economic conditions, I recommend its increase to ninety cents an hour. I
also recommend that many others, at present excluded, be given the
protection of a minimum wage.

Second, I renew my recommendation of last year for amendment of the Labor
Management Relations Act of 1947 to further the basic objectives of this
statute. I especially call to the attention of the Congress amendments
dealing with the right of economic strikers to vote in representation
elections and the need for equalizing the obligation under the Act to file
disclaimers of Communist affiliation.

Third, the Administration will propose other important measures including
occupational safety, workmen's compensation for longshoremen and harbor
workers, and the "Eight Hour Laws" applicable to Federal contractors.
Legislation will also be proposed respecting nonoccupational disability
insurance and unemployment compensation in the District of Columbia.

In considering human needs, the Federal Government must take special
responsibility for citizens in its direct employ. On January 11 I shall
propose a pay adjustment plan for civilian employees outside the Postal
Field Service to correct inequities and increase individual pay rates. I
shall also recommend voluntary health insurance on a contributory basis for
Federal employees and their dependents. In keeping with the Group Life
Insurance Act passed in the 83rd Congress, this protection should be
provided on the group insurance principle and purchased from private
facilities. Also on January 11 I shall recommend a modern pay plan,
including pay increases, for postal field employees. As part of this
program, and to carry forward our progress toward elimination of the large
annual postal deficit. I shall renew my request for an increase in postal
rates. Again I urge that in the future the fixing of rates be delegated to
an impartial, independent body.

More adequate training programs to equip career employees of the government
to render improved public service will be recommended, as will improvements
in the laws affecting employees serving on foreign assignments.

Needed improvements in survivor, disability, and retirement benefits for
Federal civilian and military personnel have been extensively considered by
the Committee on Retirement Policy for Federal personnel. The Committee's
proposals would strengthen and improve benefits for our career people in
government, and I endorse their broad objectives. Full contributory
coverage under old-age and survivors' insurance should be made available to
all Federal personnel, just as in private industry. For career military
personnel, the protection of the old-age and survivors' insurance system
would be an important and long-needed addition, especially to their present
unequal and inadequate survivorship protection. The military retirement pay
system should remain separate and unchanged. Certain adjustments in the
present civilian personnel retirement systems will be needed to reflect the
additional protection of old-age and survivors' insurance. However, these
systems also are a basic part of a total compensation and should be
separately and independently retained.

I also urge the Congress to approve a long overdue increase in the salaries
of Members of the Congress and of the Federal judiciary to a level
commensurate with their heavy responsibilities.

Our concern for the individual in our country requires that we consider
several additional problems.

We must continue our program to help our Indian citizens improve their lot
and make their full contribution to national life. Two years ago I advised
the Congress of injustices under existing immigration laws. Through humane
administration, the Department of Justice is doing what it legally can to
alleviate hardships. Clearance of aliens before arrival has been initiated,
and except for criminal offenders, the imprisonment of aliens awaiting
admission or deportation has been stopped. Certain provisions of law,
however, have the effect of compelling action in respect to aliens which
are inequitable in some instances and discriminatory in others. These
provisions should be corrected in this session of the Congress.

As the complex problems of Alaska are resolved, that Territory should
expect to achieve statehood. In the meantime, there is no justification for
deferring the admission to statehood of Hawaii. I again urge approval of
this measure.

We have three splendid opportunities to demonstrate the strength of our
belief in the right of suffrage. First, I again urge that a Constitutional
amendment be submitted to the States to reduce the voting age for Federal
elections. Second, I renew my request that the principle of self-government
be extended and the right of suffrage granted to the citizens of the
District of Columbia. Third, I again recommend that we work with the States
to preserve the voting fights of citizens in the nation's service
overseas.

In our determination to keep faith with those who in the past have met the
highest call of citizenship, we now have under study the system of benefits
for veterans and for surviving dependents of deceased veterans and
servicemen. Studies will be undertaken to determine the need for measures
to ease the readjustment to civilian life of men required to enter the
armed forces for two years of service.

In the advancement of the various activities which will make our
civilization endure and flourish, the Federal Government should do more to
give official recognition to the importance of the arts and other cultural
activities. I shall recommend the establishment of a Federal Advisory
Commission on the Arts within the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare, to advise the Federal Government on ways to encourage artistic
endeavor and appreciation. I shall also propose that awards of merit be
established whereby we can honor our fellow citizens who make great
contribution to the advancement of our civilization.

Every citizen rightly expects efficient and economical administration of
these many government programs I have outlined today. I strongly recommend
extension of the Reorganization Act and the law establishing the Commission
on Intergovernmental Relations, both of which expire this spring. Thus the
Congress will assure continuation of the excellent progress recently made
in improving government organization and administration. In this connection
we are looking forward with great interest to the reports which will soon
be going to the Congress from the Commission on Organization of the
Executive Branch of the Government. I am sure that these studies, made
under the chairmanship of former President Herbert Hoover with the
assistance of more than two hundred distinguished citizens, will be of
great value in paving the way toward more efficiency and economy in the
government.

And now, I return to the point at which I began--the faith of our people.

The many programs here summarized are, I believe, in full keeping with
their needs, interests and aspirations. The obligations upon us are clear:

To labor earnestly, patiently, prayerfully, for peace, for freedom, for
justice, throughout the world;

To keep our economy vigorous and free, that our people may lead fuller,
happier lives;

To advance, not merely by our words but by our acts, the determination of
our government that every citizen shall have opportunity to develop to his
fullest capacity.

As we do these things, before us is a future filled with opportunity and
hope. That future will be ours if in our time we keep alive the patience,
the courage, the confidence in tomorrow, the deep faith, of the millions
who, in years past, made and preserved us this nation.

A decade ago, in the death and desolation of European battlefields, I saw
the courage and resolution, I felt the inspiration, of American youth. In
these young men I felt America's buoyant confidence and irresistible
will-to-do. In them I saw, too, a devout America, humble before God.

And so, I know with all my heart--and I deeply believe that all Americans
know--that, despite the anxieties of this divided world, our faith, and the
cause in which we all believe, will surely prevail.

The address as reported from the floor appears in the Congressional Record
(vol. 101, p. 94).

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 5, 1956

To the Congress of the United States:

The opening of this new year must arouse in us all grateful thanks to a
kind Providence whose protection has been ever present and whose bounty has
been manifold and abundant. The State of the Union today demonstrates what
can be accomplished under God by a free people; by their vision, their
understanding of national problems, their initiative, their self-reliance,
their capacity for work--and by their willingness to sacrifice whenever
sacrifice is needed.

In the past three years, responding to what our people want their
Government to do, the Congress and the Executive have done much in building
a stronger, better America. There has been broad progress in fostering the
energies of our people, in providing greater opportunity for the
satisfaction of their needs, and in fulfilling their demands for the
strength and security of the Republic.

Our country is at peace. Our security posture commands respect. A spiritual
vigor marks our national life. Our economy, approaching the 400 billion
dollar mark, is at an unparalleled level of prosperity. The national income
is more widely and fairly distributed than ever before. The number of
Americans at work has reached an all-time high. As a people, we are
achieving ever higher standards of living--earning more, producing more,
consuming more, building more and investing more than ever before.

Virtually all sectors of our society are sharing in these good times. Our
farm families, if we act wisely, imaginatively and promptly to strengthen
our present farm programs, can also look forward to sharing equitably in
the prosperity they have helped to create.

War in Korea ended two and a half years ago. The collective security system
has been powerfully strengthened. Our defenses have been reinforced at
sharply reduced costs. Programs to expand world trade and to harness the
atom for the betterment of mankind have been carried forward. Our economy
has been freed from governmental wage and price controls. Inflation has
been halted; the cost of living stabilized.

Government spending has been cut by more than ten billion dollars. Nearly
three hundred thousand positions have been eliminated from the Federal
payroll. Taxes have been substantially reduced. A balanced budget is in
prospect. Social security has been extended to ten million more Americans
and unemployment insurance to four million more. Unprecedented advances in
civil rights have been made. The long-standing and deep-seated problems of
agriculture have been forthrightly attacked.

This record of progress has been accomplished with a self imposed caution
against unnecessary and unwise interference in the private affairs of our
people, of their communities and of the several States.

If we of the Executive and Legislative Branches, keeping this caution ever
in mind, address ourselves to the business of the year before us--and to
the unfinished business of last year--with resolution, the outlook is
bright with promise.

Many measures of great national importance recommended last year to the
Congress still demand immediate attention legislation for school and
highway construction; health and immigration legislation; water resources
legislation; legislation to complete the implementation of our foreign
economic policy; such labor legislation as amendments of the
Labor-Management Relations Act, extension of the Fair Labor Standards Act
to additional groups not now covered, and occupational safety legislation;
and legislation for construction of an atomic-powered exhibit vessel.

Many new items of business likewise require our attention-measures that
will further promote the release of the energies of our people; that will
broaden opportunity for all of them; that will advance the Republic in its
leadership toward a just peace; measures, in short, that are essential to
the building of an everstronger, ever-better America.

Every political and economic guide supports a valid confidence that wise
effort will be rewarded by an even more plentiful harvest of human benefit
than we now enjoy. Our resources are too many, our principles too dynamic,
our purposes too worthy and the issues at stake too immense for us to
entertain doubt or fear. But our responsibilities require that we approach
this year's business with a sober humility.

A heedless pride in our present strength and position would blind us to the
facts of the past, to the pitfalls of the future. We must walk ever in the
knowledge that we are enriched by a heritage earned in the labor and
sacrifice of our forebears; that, for our children's children, we are
trustees of a great Republic and a time-tested political system; that we
prosper as a cooperating member of the family of nations.

In this light the Administration has continued work on its program for the
Republic, begun three years ago. Because the vast spread of national and
human interests is involved within it, I shall not in this Message attempt
its detailed delineation. Instead, from time to time during this Session,
there will be submitted to the Congress specific recommendations within
specific fields. In the comprehensive survey required for their
preparation, the Administration is guided by enduring objectives. The first
is:

THE DISCHARGE OF OUR WORLD RESPONSIBILITY

Our world policy and our actions are dedicated to the achievement of peace
with justice for all nations.

With this purpose, we move in a wide variety of ways and through many
agencies to remove the pall of fear; to strengthen the ties with our
partners and to improve the cooperative cohesion of the free world; to
reduce the burden of armaments, and to stimulate and inspire action among
all nations for a world of justice and prosperity and peace. These national
objectives are fully supported by both our political parties.

In the past year, our search for a more stable and just peace has taken
varied forms. Among the most important were the two Conferences at Geneva,
in July and in the fall of last year. We explored the possibilities of
agreement on critical issues that jeopardize the peace.

The July meeting of Heads of Government held out promise to the world of
moderation in the bitterness, of word and action, which tends to generate
conflict and war. All were in agreement that a nuclear war would be an
intolerable disaster which must not be permitted to occur. But in October,
when the Foreign Ministers met again, the results demonstrated conclusively
that the Soviet leaders are not yet willing to create the indispensable
conditions for a secure and lasting peace.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the conflict between international communism
and freedom has taken on a new complexion.

We know the Communist leaders have often practiced the tactics of retreat
and zigzag. We know that Soviet and Chinese communism still poses a serious
threat to the free world. And in the Middle East recent Soviet moves are
hardly compatible with the reduction of international tension.

Yet Communist tactics against the free nations have shifted in emphasis
from reliance on violence and the threat of violence to reliance on
division, enticement and duplicity. We must be well prepared to meet the
current tactics which pose a dangerous though less obvious threat. At the
same time, our policy must be dynamic as well as flexible, designed
primarily to forward the achievement of our own objectives rather than to
meet each shift and change on the Communist front. We must act in the firm
assurance that the fruits of freedom are more attractive and desirable to
mankind in the pursuit of happiness than the record of Communism.

In the face of Communist military power, we must, of course, continue to
maintain an effective system of collective security. This involves two
things--a system which gives clear warning that armed aggression will be
met by joint action of the free nations, and deterrent military power to
make that warning effective. Moreover, the awesome power of the atom must
be made to serve as a guardian of the free community and of the peace.

In the last year, the free world has seen major gains for the system of
collective security: the accession to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and Western European Union of the sovereign Federal German
Republic; the developing cooperation under the Southeast Asia Collective
Defense Treaty; and the formation in the Middle East of the Baghdad Pact
among Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. In our own
hemisphere, the inter-American system has continued to show its vitality in
maintaining peace and a common approach to world problems. We now have
security pacts with more than 40 other nations.

In the pursuit of our national purposes, we have been steadfast in our
support of the United Nations, now entering its second decade with a wider
membership and ever-increasing influence and usefulness. In the release of
our fifteen fliers from Communist China, an essential prelude was the world
opinion mobilized by the General Assembly, which condemned their
imprisonment and demanded their liberation. The successful Atomic Energy
Conference held in Geneva under United Nations auspices and our Atoms for
Peace program have been practical steps toward the world-wide use of this
new energy source. Our sponsorship of such use has benefited our relations
with other countries. Active negotiations are now in progress to create an
International Agency to foster peaceful uses of atomic energy.

During the past year the crucial problem of disarmament has moved to the
forefront of practical political endeavor. At Geneva, I declared the
readiness of the United States to exchange blueprints of the military
establishments of our nation and the USSR, to be confirmed by reciprocal
aerial reconnaissance. By this means, I felt mutual suspicions could be
allayed and an atmosphere developed in which negotiations looking toward
limitation of arms would have improved chances of success.

In the United Nations Subcommittee on Disarmament last fall, this proposal
was explored and the United States also declared itself willing to include
reciprocal ground inspection of key points. By the overwhelming vote of 56
to 7, the United Nations on December 16 endorsed these proposals and gave
them a top priority. Thereby, the issue is placed squarely before the bar
of world opinion. We shall persevere in seeking a general reduction of
armaments under effective inspection and control which are essential
safeguards to ensure reciprocity and protect the security of all.

In the coming year much remains to be done.

While maintaining our military deterrent, we must intensify our efforts to
achieve a just peace. In Asia we shall continue to give help to nations
struggling to maintain their freedom against the threat of Communist
coercion or subversion. In Europe we shall endeavor to increase not only
the military strength of the North Atlantic Alliance but also its political
cohesion and unity of purpose. We shall give such assistance as is feasible
to the recently renewed effort of Western European nations to achieve a
greater measure of integration, such as in the field of peaceful uses of
atomic energy.

In the Near East we shall spare no effort in seeking to promote a fair
solution of the tragic dispute between the Arab States and Israel, all of
whom we want as our friends. The United States is ready to do its part to
assure enduring peace in that area. We hope that both sides will make the
contributions necessary to achieve that purpose. In Latin America, we shall
continue to cooperate vigorously in trade and other measures designed to
assist economic progress in the area.

Strong economic ties are an essential element in our free world
partnership. Increasing trade and investment help all of us prosper
together. Gratifying progress has been made in this direction, most
recently by the three-year extension of our trade agreements legislation.

I most earnestly request that the Congress approve our membership in the
Organization for Trade Cooperation, which would assist the carrying out of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to which we have been a party
since 1948. Our membership in the OTC will provide the most effective and
expeditious means for removing discriminations and restrictions against
American exports and in making our trade agreements truly reciprocal.
United States membership in the Organization will evidence our continuing
desire to cooperate in promoting an expanded trade among the free nations.
Thus the Organization, as proposed, is admirably suited to our own
interests and to those of like-minded nations in working for steady
expansion of trade and closer economic cooperation. Being strictly an
administrative entity, the Organization for Trade Cooperation cannot, of
course, alter the control by Congress of the tariff, import, and customs
policies of the United States.

We need to encourage investment overseas by avoiding unfair tax
duplications, and to foster foreign trade by further simplification and
improvement of our customs legislation.

We must sustain and fortify our Mutual Security Program. Because the
conditions of poverty and unrest in less developed areas make their people
a special target of international communism, there is a need to help them
achieve the economic growth and stability necessary to preserve their
independence against communist threats and enticements.

In order that our friends may better achieve the greater strength that is
our common goal, they need assurance of continuity in economic assistance
for development projects and programs which we approve and which require a
period of years for planning and completion. Accordingly, I ask Congress to
grant limited authority to make longer-term commitments for assistance to
such projects, to be fulfilled from appropriations to be made in future
fiscal years.

These various steps will powerfully strengthen the economic foundation of
our foreign policy. Together with constructive action abroad, they will
maintain the present momentum toward general economic progress and vitality
of the free world.

In all things, change is the inexorable law of life. In much of the world
the ferment of change is working strongly; but grave injustices are still
uncorrected. We must not, by any sanction of ours, help to perpetuate these
wrongs. I have particularly in mind the oppressive division of the German
people, the bondage of millions elsewhere, and the exclusion of Japan from
United Nations membership.

We shall keep these injustices in the forefront of human consciousness and
seek to maintain the pressure of world opinion to fight these vast wrongs
in the interest both of justice and secure peace.

Injustice thrives on ignorance. Because an understanding of the truth about
America is one of our most powerful forces, I am recommending a substantial
increase in budgetary support of the United States Information Agency.

The sum of our international effort should be this: the waging of peace,
with as much resourcefulness, with as great a sense of dedication and
urgency, as we have ever mustered in defense of our country in time of war.
In this effort, our weapon is not force. Our weapons are the principles and
ideas embodied in our historic traditions, applied with the same vigor that
in the past made America a living promise of freedom for all mankind.

To accomplish these vital tasks, all of us should be concerned with the
strength, effectiveness and morale .of our State Department and our Foreign
Service.

Another guide in the preparation of the Administration's program is:

THE CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT OF OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

Because peace is the keystone of our national policy, our defense program
emphasizes an effective flexible type of power calculated to deter or
repulse any aggression and to preserve the peace. Short of war, we have
never had military strength better adapted to our needs with improved
readiness for emergency use. The maintenance of this strong military
capability for the indefinite future will continue to call for a large
share of our national budget. Our military programs must meet the needs of
today. To build less would expose the nation to aggression. To build
excessively, under the influence of fear, could defeat our purposes and
impair or destroy the very freedom and economic system our military
defenses are designed to protect.

We have improved the effectiveness and combat readiness of our forces by
developing and making operational new weapons and by integrating the latest
scientific developments, including new atomic weapons, into our military
plans. We continue to push the production of the most modern military
aircraft. The development of long-range missiles has been on an accelerated
basis for some time. We are moving as rapidly as practicable toward
nuclear-powered aircraft and ships. Combat capability, especially in terms
of firepower, has been substantially increased. We have made the
adjustments in personnel permitted by the cessation of the Korean War, the
buildup of our allies and the introduction of new weapons. The services are
all planning realistically on a long-term basis.

To strengthen our continental defenses the United States and Canada, in the
closest cooperation, have substantially augmented early warning networks.
Great progress is being made in extending surveillance of the Arctic, the
Atlantic and the Pacific approaches to North America.

In the last analysis our real strength lies in the caliber of the men and
women in our Armed Forces, active and Reserve. Much has been done to
attract and hold capable military personnel, but more needs to be done.
This year, I renew my request of last year for legislation to provide
proper medical care for military dependents and a more equitable survivors'
benefit program. The Administration will prepare additional recommendations
designed to achieve the same objectives, including career incentives for
medical and dental officers and nurses, and increases in the proportion of
regular officers.

Closely related to the mission of the Defense Department is the task of the
Federal Civil Defense Administration. A particular point of relationship
arises from the fact that the key to civil defense is the expanded
continental defense program, including the distant early warning system.
Our Federal civil defense authorities have made progress in their program,
and now comprehensive studies are being conducted jointly by the Federal
Civil Defense Administration, the States, and critical target cities to
determine the best procedures that can be adopted in case of an atomic
attack. We must strengthen Federal assistance to the States and cities in
devising the most effective common defense.

We have a broad and diversified mobilization base. We have the facilities,
materials, skills and knowledge rapidly to expand the production of things
we need for our defense whenever they are required. But mobilization base
requirements change with changing technology and strategy. We must maintain
flexibility to meet new requirements. I am requesting, therefore, that the
Congress once again extend the Defense Production Act.

Of great importance to our nation's security is a continuing alertness to
internal subversive activity within or without our government. This
Administration will not relax its efforts to deal forthrightly and
vigorously in protection of this government and its citizens against
subversion, at the same time fully protecting the constitutional rights of
all citizens.

A third objective of the Administration is:

FISCAL INTEGRITY

A public office is, indeed, a public trust. None of its aspects is more
demanding than the proper management of the public finances. I refer now
not only to the indispensable virtues of plain honesty and trustworthiness
but also to the prudent, effective and conscientious use of tax money. I
refer also to the attitude of mind that makes efficient and economical
service to the people a watchword in our government.

Over the long term, a balanced budget is a sure index to thrifty
management--in a home, in a business or in the Federal Government. When
achievement of a balanced budget is for long put off in a business or home,
bankruptcy is the result. But in similar circumstances a government resorts
to inflation of the money supply. This inevitably results in depreciation
of the value of the money, and an increase in the cost of living. Every
investment in personal security is threatened by this process of inflation,
and the real values of the people's savings, whether in the form of
insurance, bonds, pension and retirement funds or savings accounts are
thereby shriveled.

We have made long strides these past three years in bringing our Federal
finances under control. The deficit for fiscal year 1953 was almost 9-1/2
billion dollars. Larger deficits seemed certain--deficits which would have
depreciated the value of the dollar and pushed the cost of living still
higher. But government waste and extravagance were searched out.
Nonessential activities were dropped. Government expenses were carefully
scrutinized. Total spending was cut by 14 billion dollars below the amount
planned by the previous Administration for the fiscal year 1954.

This made possible--and it was appropriate in the existing circumstances of
transition to a peacetime economy--the largest tax cut in any year in our
history. Almost 7-1/2 billion dollars were released and every taxpayer in
the country benefited. Almost two-thirds of the savings went directly to
individuals. This tax cut also helped to build up the economy, to make jobs
in industry and to increase the production .of the many things desired to
improve the scale of living for the great majority of Americans.

The strong expansion of the economy, coupled with a constant care for
efficiency in government operations and an alert guard against waste and
duplication, has brought us to a prospective balance between income and
expenditure. This is being done while we continue to strengthen our
military security.

I expect the budget to be in balance during the fiscal year ending June 30,
1956.

I shall propose a balanced budget for the next fiscal year ending June 30,
1957.

But the balance we are seeking cannot be accomplished without the
continuing every-day effort of the Executive and Legislative Branches to
keep expenditures under control. It will also be necessary to continue all
of the present excise taxes without any reduction and the corporation
income taxes at their present rates for another year beyond next April
1st.

It is unquestionably true that our present tax level is very burdensome
and, in the interest of long term and continuous economic growth, should be
reduced when we prudently can. It is essential, in the sound management of
the Government's finances, that we be mindful of our enormous national debt
and of the obligation we have toward future Americans to reduce that debt
whenever we can appropriately do so. Under conditions of high peacetime
prosperity, such as now exist, we can never justify going further into debt
to give ourselves a tax cut at the expense of our children. So, in the
present state of our financial affairs, I earnestly believe that a tax cut
can be deemed justifiable only when it will not unbalance the budget, a
budget which makes provision for some reduction, even though modest, in our
national debt. In this way we can best maintain fiscal integrity.

A fourth aim of our program is:

TO FOSTER A STRONG ECONOMY

Our competitive enterprise system depends on the energy of free human
beings, limited by prudent restraints in law, using free markets to plan,
organize and distribute production, and spurred by the prospect of reward
for successful effort. This system has developed our resources. It has
marvelously expanded our productive capacity. Against the record of all
other economic systems devised through the ages, this competitive system
has proved the most creative user of human skills in the development of
physical resources, and the richest rewarder of human effort.

This is still true in this era when improved living standards and rising
national requirements are accompanied by swift advances in technology and
rapid obsolescence in machines and methods. Typical of these are the
strides made in construction of plants to produce electrical energy from
atomic power and of laboratories and installations for the application of
this new force in industry, agriculture and the healing arts. These
developments make it imperative--to assure effective functioning of our
enterprise system--that the Federal Government concern itself with certain
broad areas of our economic life. Most important of these is:

Agriculture

Our farm people are not sharing as they should in the general prosperity.
They alone of all major groups have seen their incomes decline rather than
rise. They are caught between two millstones--rising production costs and
declining prices. Such harm to a part of the national economy so vitally
important to everyone is of great concern to us all. No other resource is
so indispensable as the land that feeds and clothes us. No group is more
fundamental to our national life than our farmers.

In successful prosecution of the war, the nation called for the utmost
effort of its farmers. Their response was superb, their contribution
unsurpassed. Farmers are not now to be blamed for the mountainous,
price-depressing surpluses produced in response to wartime policies and
laws that were too long continued. War markets are not the markets of
peacetime. Failure to recognize that basic fact by a timely adjustment of
wartime legislation brought its inevitable result in peacetime--surpluses,
lower prices and lower incomes for our farmers.

The dimensions of government responsibility are as broad and complex as the
farm problem itself. We are here concerned not only with our essential
continuing supplies of food and fiber, but also with a way of life. Both
are indispensable to the well-being and strength of the nation.
Consideration of these matters must be above and beyond politics. Our
national farm policy, so vital to the welfare of farm people and all of us,
must not become a field for political warfare. Too much is at stake.

Our farm people expect of us, who have responsibility for their government,
understanding of their problems and the will to help solve them. Our
objective must be to help bring production into balance with existing and
new markets, at prices that yield farmers a return for their work in line
with what other Americans get.

To reach this goal, deep-seated problems must be subjected to a stepped-up
attack. There is no single easy solution. Rather, there must be a
many-sided assault on the stubborn problems of surpluses, prices, costs,
and markets; and a steady, persistent, imaginative advance in the
relationship between farmers and their government.

In a few days, by special message, I shall lay before the Congress my
detailed recommendations for new steps that should be taken promptly to
speed the transition in agriculture and thus assist our farmers to achieve
their fair share of the national income.

Basic to this program will be a new attack on the surplus problem-for even
the best-conceived farm program cannot work under a multi-billion dollar
weight of accumulated stocks.

I shall urge authorization of a soil bank program to alleviate the problem
of diverted acres and an overexpanded agricultural plant. This will include
an acreage reserve to reduce current and accumulated surpluses of crops in
most serious difficulty, and a conservation reserve to achieve other needed
adjustments in the use of agricultural resources. I shall urge measures to
strengthen our surplus disposal activities.

I shall propose measures to strengthen individual commodity programs, to
remove controls where possible, to reduce carryovers, and to stop further
accumulations of surpluses. I shall ask the Congress to provide substantial
new funds for an expanded drive on the research front, to develop new
markets, new crops, and new uses. The Rural Development Program to better
the lot of low-income farm families deserves full Congressional support.
The Great Plains Program must go forward vigorously. Advances on these and
other fronts will pull down the pricedepressing surpluses and raise farm
income.

In this time of testing in agriculture, we should all together, regardless
of party, carry forward resolutely with a sound and forward looking program
on which farm people may confidently depend, now and for years to come.

I shall briefly mention four other subjects directly related to the
well-being of the economy, preliminary to their fuller discussion in the
Economic Report and later communications.

Resources Conservation

I wish to re-emphasize the critical importance of the wise use and
conservation of our great natural resources of land, forests, minerals and
water and their long-range development consistent with our agricultural
policy. Water in particular now plays an increasing role in industrial
processes, in the irrigation of land, in electric power, as well as in
domestic uses. At the same time, it has the potential of damage and
disaster.

A comprehensive legislative program for water conservation will be
submitted to the Congress during the Session. The development of our water
resources cannot be accomplished overnight. The need is such that we must
make faster progress and without delay. Therefore, I strongly recommend
that action be taken at this Session on such wholly Federal projects as the
Colorado River Storage Project and the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project; on the
John Day partnership project, and other projects which provide for
cooperative action between the Federal Government and non-Federal
interests; and on legislation, which makes provision for Federal
participation in small projects under the primary sponsorship of agencies
of State and local government.

During the past year the areas of our National Parks have been expanded,
and new wildlife refuges have been created. The visits of our people to the
Parks have increased much more rapidly than have the facilities to care for
them. The Administration will submit recommendations to provide more
adequate facilities to keep abreast of the increasing interest of our
people in the great outdoors.

Disaster Assistance

A modern community is a complex combination of skills, specialized
buildings, machines, communications and homes. Most importantly, it
involves human lives. Disaster in many forms--by flood, frost, high winds,
for instance--can destroy on a massive scale in a few hours the labor of
many years.

Through the past three years the Administration has repeatedly moved into
action wherever disaster struck. The extent of State participation in
relief activities, however, has been far from uniform and, in many cases,
has been either inadequate or nonexistent. Disaster assistance legislation
requires overhauling and an experimental program of flood-damage
indemnities should be undertaken. The Administration will make detailed
recommendations on these subjects.

Area Redevelopment

We must help deal with the pockets of chronic unemployment that here and
there mar the nation's general industrial prosperity. Economic changes in
recent years have been often so rapid and far-reaching that areas committed
to a single local resource or industrial activity have found themselves
temporarily deprived of their markets and their livelihood.

Such conditions mean severe hardship for thousands of people as the slow
process of adaptation to new circumstances goes on. This process can be
speeded up. Last year I authorized a major study of the problem to find
additional steps to supplement existing programs for the redevelopment of
areas of chronic unemployment. Recommendations will be submitted, designed
to supplement, with Federal technical and loan assistance local efforts to
get on with this vital job. Improving such communities must, of course,
remain the primary responsibility of the people living there and of their
States. But a soundly conceived Federal partnership program can be of real
assistance to them in their efforts.

Highway Legislation.

Legislation to provide a modern, interstate highway system is even more
urgent this year than last, for 12 months have now passed in which we have
fallen further behind in road construction needed for the personal safety,
the general prosperity, the national security of the American people.
During the year, the number of motor vehicles has increased from 58 to 61
million. During the past year over 38,000 persons lost their lives in
highway accidents, while the fearful toll of injuries and property damage
has gone on unabated.

In my message of February 22, 1955, I urged that measures be taken to
complete the vital 40,000 mile interstate system over a period of 10 years
at an estimated Federal cost of approximately 25 billion dollars. No
program was adopted.

If we are ever to solve our mounting traffic problem, the whole interstate
system must be authorized as one project, to be completed approximately
within the specified time. Only in this way can industry efficiently gear
itself to the job ahead. Only in this way can the required planning and
engineering be accomplished without the confusion and waste unavoidable a
piecemeal approach. Furthermore, as I pointed out last year, the pressing
nature of this problem must not lead us to solutions outside the bounds of
sound fiscal management. As in the case of other pressing problems, there
must be an adequate plan of financing. To continue the drastically needed
improvement in other national highway systems, I recommend the continuation
of the Federal Aid Highway Program.

Aside from agriculture and the four subjects specifically mentioned, an
integral part of our efforts to foster a strong and expanding free economy
is keeping open the door of opportunity to new and small enterprises,
checking monopoly, and preserving a competitive environment. In this past
year the steady improvement in the economic health of small business has
reinforced the vitality of our competitive economy. We shall continue to
help small business concerns to obtain access to adequate financing and to
competent counsel on management, production, and marketing problems.

Through measures already taken, opportunities for smallbusiness
participation in government procurement programs, including military
procurement, are greatly improved. The effectiveness of these measures will
become increasingly apparent. We shall continue to make certain that small
business has a fair opportunity to compete and has an economic environment
in which it may prosper.

In my message last year I referred to the appointment of an advisory
committee to appraise and report to me on the deficiencies as well as the
effectiveness of existing Federal transportation policies. I have commended
the fundamental purposes and objectives of the committee's report. I
earnestly recommend that the Congress give prompt attention to the
committee's proposals.

Essential to a prosperous economic environment for all business, small and
large--for agriculture and industry and commerce-is efficiency in
Government. To that end, exhaustive studies of the entire governmental
structure were made by the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and
the Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch of the
Government--the reports of these Commissions are now under intensive review
and already in the process of implementation in important areas.

One specific and most vital governmental function merits study and action
by the Congress. As part of our program of promoting efficiency in
Government and getting the fiscal situation in hand, the Post Office
Department in the past three years has been overhauled. Nearly one thousand
new post offices have been provided. Financial practices have been
modernized, and transportation and operating methods are being constantly
improved. A new wage and incentive plan for the half million postal
employees has been established. Never before has the postal system handled
so much mail so quickly and so economically.

The Post Office Department faces two serious problems. First, much of its
physical plant--post offices and other buildings-is obsolete and
inadequate. Many new buildings and the modernization of present ones are
essential if we are to have improved mail service. The second problem is
the Department's fiscal plight. It now faces an annual deficit of one-half
billion dollars.

Recommendations on postal facilities and on additional postal revenues will
be submitted to the Congress.

A final consideration in our program planning is:

THE RESPONSE TO HUMAN CONCERNS

A fundamental belief shines forth in this Republic. We believe in the worth
and dignity of the individual. We know that if we are to govern ourselves
wisely--in the tradition of America--we must have the opportunity to
develop our individual capacities to the utmost.

To fulfill the individual's aspirations in the American way of life, good
education is fundamental. Good education is the outgrowth of good homes,
good communities, good churches, and good schools. Today our schools face
pressing problems--problems which will not yield to swift and easy
solutions, or to any single action. They will yield only to a continuing,
active, formed effort by the people toward achieving better schools.

This kind of effort has been spurred by the thousands of conferences held
in recent months by half a million citizens and educators in all parts of
the country, culminating in the White House Conference on Education. In
that Conference, some two thousand delegates, broadly representative of the
nation, studied together the problems of the nation's schools.

They concluded that the people of the United States must make a greater
effort through their local, State, and Federal Governments to improve the
education of our youth. This expression from the people must now be
translated into action at all levels of government.

So far as the Federal share of responsibility is concerned, I urge that the
Congress move promptly to enact an effective program of Federal assistance
to help erase the existing deficit of school classrooms. Such a program,
which should be limited to a five-year period, must operate to increase
rather than decrease local and State support of schools and to give the
greatest help to the States and localities with the least financial
resources. Federal aid should in no way jeopardize the freedom of local
school systems. There will be presented to the Congress a recommended
program of Federal assistance for school construction.

Such a program should be accompanied by action to increase services to the
nation's schools by the Office of Education and by legislation to provide
continuation of payments to school districts where Federal activities have
impaired the ability of those districts to provide adequate schools.

Under the 1954 Amendments to the old-age and survivors' insurance program,
protection was extended to some 10 million additional workers and benefits
were increased. The system now helps protect 9 out of 10 American workers
and their families against loss of income in old age or on the death of the
breadwinner. The system is sound. It must be kept so. In developing
improvements in the system, we must give the most careful consideration to
population and social trends, and to fiscal requirements. With these
considerations in mind, the Administration will present its recommendations
for further expansion of coverage and other steps which can be taken wisely
at this time.

Other needs in the area of social welfare include increased child welfare
services, extension of the program of aid to dependent children,
intensified attack on juvenile delinquency, and special attention to the
problems of mentally retarded children. The training of more skilled
workers for these fields and the quest for new knowledge through research
in social welfare are essential. Similarly the problems of our aged people
need our attention.

The nation has made dramatic progress in conquering disease--progress of
profound human significance which can be greatly accelerated by an
intensified effort in medical research. A well-supported, well-balanced
program of research, including basic research, can open new frontiers of
knowledge, prevent and relieve suffering, and prolong life. Accordingly I
shall recommend a substantial increase in Federal funds for the support of
such a program. As an integral part of this effort, I shall recommend a new
plan to aid construction of non-Federal medical research and teaching
facilities and to help provide more adequate support for the training of
medical research manpower.

Finally, we must aid in cushioning the heavy and rising costs of illness
and hospitalization to individuals and families. Provision should be made,
by Federal reinsurance or otherwise, to foster extension of voluntary
health insurance coverage to many more persons, especially older persons
and those in rural areas. Plans should be evolved to improve protection
against the costs of prolonged or severe illness. These measures will help
reduce the dollar barrier between many Americans and the benefits of modern
medical care.

The Administration health program will be submitted to the Congress in
detail.

The response of government to human concerns embraces, of course, other
measures of broad public interest, and of special interest to our working
men and women. The need still exists for improvement of the Labor
Management Relations Act. The recommendations I submitted to the Congress
last year take into account not only the interests of labor and management
but also the public welfare. The needed amendments should be enacted
without further delay.

We must also carry forward the job of improving the wagehour law. Last year
I requested the Congress to broaden the coverage of the minimum wage. I
repeat that recommendation, and I pledge the full resources of the
Executive Branch to assist the Congress in finding ways to attain this
goal. Moreover, as requested last year, legislation should be passed to
clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who
are subject to Federal wage standards on Federal and Federally assisted
construction and other public works.

The Administration will shortly propose legislation to assure adequate
disclosure of the financial affairs of each employee pension and welfare
plan and to afford substantial protection to their beneficiaries in
accordance with the objectives outlined in my message of January 11, 1954.
Occupational safety still demands attention, as I pointed out last year,
and legislation to improve the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers'
Compensation Act is still needed. The improvement of the District of
Columbia Unemployment Insurance Law and legislation to provide employees in
the District with non-occupational disability insurance are no less
necessary now than 12 months ago. Legislation to apply the principle of
equal pay for equal work without discrimination because of sex is a matter
of simple justice. I earnestly urge the Congress to move swiftly to
implement these needed labor measures.

In the field of human needs, we must carry forward the housing program,
which is contributing so greatly to the well-being of our people and the
prosperity of our economy. Home ownership is now advanced to the point
where almost three of every five families in our cities, towns, and suburbs
own the houses they live in.

For the housing program, most of the legislative authority already exists.
However, a firm program of public housing is essential until the private
building industry has found ways to provide more adequate housing for
low-income families. The Administration will propose authority to contract
for 35 thousand additional public housing units in each of the next 2
fiscal years for communities which will participate in an integrated attack
on slums and blight.

To meet the needs of the growing number of older people, several amendments
to the National Housing Act will be proposed to assist the private
homebuilding industry as well as charitable and non-profit organizations.

With so large a number of the American people desiring to modernize and
improve existing dwellings, I recommend that the Title 1 program for
permanent improvements in the home be liberalized.

I recommend increases in the general FHA mortgage insurance authority; the
extension of the FHA military housing program; an increase in the
authorization for Urban Planning grants; in the special assistance
authority of the Federal National Mortgage Association; and continued
support of the college housing program in a way that will not discourage
private capital from helping to meet the needs of our colleges.

The legislation I have recommended for workers in private industry should
be accompanied by a parallel effort for the welfare of Government
employees. We have accomplished much in this field, including a
contributory life insurance program; equitable pay increases and a fringe
benefits program, covering many needed personnel policy changes, from
improved premium pay to a meaningful incentive award program.

Additional personnel management legislation is needed in this Session. As I
stated last year, an executive pay increase is essential to efficient
governmental management. Such an increase, together with needed adjustments
in the pay for the top career positions, is also necessary to the equitable
completion of the Federal pay program initiated last year. Other
legislation will be proposed, including legislation for prepaid group
health insurance for employees and their dependents and to effect major
improvements in the Civil Service retirement system.

All of us share a continuing concern for those who have served this nation
in the Armed Forces. The Commission on Veterans Pensions is at this time
conducting a study of the entire field of veterans' benefits and will soon
submit proposed improvements.

We are proud of the progress our people have made in the field of civil
rights. In Executive Branch operations throughout the nation, elimination
of discrimination and segregation is all but completed. Progress is also
being made among contractors engaged in furnishing Government services and
requirements. Every citizen now has the opportunity to fit himself for and
to hold a position of responsibility in the service of his country. In the
District of Columbia, through the voluntary cooperation of the people,
discrimination and segregation are disappearing from hotels, theaters,
restaurants and other facilities.

It is disturbing that in some localities allegations persist that Negro
citizens are being deprived of their right to vote and are likewise being
subjected to unwarranted economic pressures. I recommend that the substance
of these charges be thoroughly examined by a Bipartisan Commission created
by the Congress. It is hoped that such a commission will be established
promptly so that it may arrive at findings which can receive early
consideration.

The stature of our leadership in the free world has increased through the
past three years because we have made more progress than ever before in a
similar period to assure our citizens equality in justice, in opportunity
and in civil rights. We must expand this effort on every front. We must
strive to have every person judged and measured by what he is, rather than
by his color, race or religion. There will soon be recommended to the
Congress a program further to advance the efforts of the Government, within
the area of Federal responsibility, to accomplish these objectives.

One particular challenge confronts us. In the Hawaiian Islands, East meets
West. To the Islands, Asia and Europe and the Western Hemisphere, all the
continents, have contributed their peoples and their cultures to display a
unique example of a community that is a successful laboratory in human
brotherhood.

Statehood, supported by the repeatedly expressed desire of the Islands'
people and by our traditions, would be a shining example of the American
way to the entire earth. Consequently, I urgently request this Congress to
grant statehood for Hawaii. Also, in harmony with the provisions I last
year communicated to the Senate and House Committees on Interior and
Insular Affairs, I trust that progress toward statehood for Alaska can be
made in this Session.

Progress is constant toward full integration of our Indian citizens into
normal community life. During the past two years the Administration has
provided school facilities for thousands of Indian children previously
denied this opportunity. We must continue to meet the needs of increased
numbers of Indian children. Provision should also be made for the education
of adult Indians whose schooling in earlier years was neglected.

In keeping with our responsibility of world leadership and in our own self
interest, I again point out to the Congress the urgent need for revision of
the immigration and nationality laws. Our nation has always welcomed
immigrants to our shores. The wisdom of such a policy is clearly shown by
the fact that America has been built by immigrants and the descendants of
immigrants. That policy must be continued realistically with present day
conditions in mind.

I recommend that the number of persons admitted to this country annually be
based not on the 1920 census but on the latest, the 1950 census. Provision
should be made to allow for greater flexibility in the use of quotas so if
one country does not use its share, the vacancies may be made available for
the use of qualified individuals from other countries.

The law should be amended to permit the Secretary of State and the Attorney
General to waive the requirements of fingerprinting on a reciprocal basis
for persons coming to this country for temporary visits. This and other
changes in the law are long overdue and should be taken care of promptly.
Detailed recommendations for revision of the immigration laws will be
submitted to the Congress.

I am happy to report substantial progress in the flow of immigrants under
the Refugee Relief Act of 1953; however, I again request this Congress to
approve without further delay the urgently needed amendments to that act
which I submitted in the last Session. Because of the high prosperity in
Germany and Austria, the number of immigrants from those countries will be
reduced. This will make available thousands of unfilled openings which I
recommend be distributed to Greece and Italy and to escapees from behind
the Iron Curtain.

Once again I ask the Congress to join with me in demonstrating our belief
in the right of suffrage. I renew my request that the principle of
self-government be extended and the right of suffrage granted to the
citizens of the District of Columbia.

To conclude: the vista before us is bright. The march of science, the
expanding economy, the advance in collective security toward a just
peace--in this threefold movement our people are creating new standards by
which the future of the Republic may be judged.

Progress, however, will be realized only as it is more than matched by a
continuing growth in the spiritual strength of the nation. Our dedication
to moral values must be complete in our dealings abroad and in our
relationships among ourselves. We have single-minded devotion to the common
good of America. Never must we forget that this means the well-being, the
prosperity, the security of all Americans in every walk of life.

To the attainment of these objectives, I pledge full energies of the
Administration, as in the Session ahead, it works on a program for
submission to you, the Congress of the United States.

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 10, 1957

To the Congress of the United States:

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 rounded.
Proclaimed in the Constitution of the Nation and in many of our historic
documents, and rounded 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
trader 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.

The Address as reported from the floor appears in the Congressional Record
(vol. 103, p. 387).

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 9, 1958

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 85th Congress:

It is again my high privilege to extend personal greetings to the members
of the 85th Congress.

All of us realize that, as this new session begins, many Americans are
troubled about recent world developments which they believe may threaten
our nation's safety. Honest men differ in their appraisal of America's
material and intellectual strength, and the dangers that confront us. But
all know these dangers are real.

The purpose of this message is to outline the measures that can give the
American people a confidence--just as real--in their own security.

I am not here to justify the past, gloss over the problems of the present,
or propose easy solutions for the future.

I am here to state what I believe to be right and what I believe to be
wrong; and to propose action for correcting what I think wrong! I.

There are two tasks confronting us that so far outweigh all other that I
shall devote this year's message entirely to them. The first is to ensure
our safety through strength.

As to our strength, I have repeatedly voiced this conviction: We now have a
broadly based and efficient defensive strength, including a great deterrent
power, which is, for the present, our main guarantee against war; but,
unless we act wisely and promptly, we could lose that capacity to deter
attack or defend ourselves.

My profoundest conviction is that the American people will say, as one man:
No matter what the exertions or sacrifices, we shall maintain that
necessary strength!

But we could make no more tragic mistake than merely to concentrate on
military strength.

For if we did only this, the future would hold nothing for the world but an
Age of Terror.

And so our second task is to do the constructive work of building a genuine
peace. We must never become so preoccupied with our desire for military
strength that we neglect those areas of economic development, trade,
diplomacy, education, ideas and principles where the foundations of real
peace must be laid. II.

The threat to our safety, and to the hope of a peaceful world, can be
simply stated. It is communist imperialism.

This threat is not something imagined by critics of the Soviets. Soviet
spokesmen, from the beginning, have publicly and frequently declared their
aim to expand their power, one way or another, throughout the world.

The threat has become increasingly serious as this expansionist aim has
been reinforced by an advancing industrial, military and scientific
establishment.

But what makes the Soviet threat unique in history is its
all--inclusiveness. Every human activity is pressed into service as a
weapon of expansion. Trade, economic development, military power, arts,
science, education, the whole world of ideas--all are harnessed to this
same chariot of expansion.

The Soviets are, in short, waging total cold war.

The only answer to a regime that wages total cold war is to wage total
peace.

This means bringing to bear every asset of our personal and national lives
upon the task of building the conditions in which security and peace can
grow. III.

Among our assets, let us first briefly glance at our military power.

Military power serves the cause of security by making prohibitive the cost
of any aggressive attack.

It serves the cause of peace by holding up a shield behind which the
patient constructive work of peace can go on.

But it can serve neither cause if we make either of two mistakes. The one
would be to overestimate our strength, and thus neglect crucially important
actions in the period just ahead. The other would be to underestimate our
strength. Thereby we might be tempted to become irresolute in our foreign
relations, to dishearten our friends, and to lose our national poise and
perspective in approaching the complex problems ahead.

Any orderly balance-sheet of military strength must be in two parts. The
first is the position as of today. The second is the position in the period
ahead.

As of today: our defensive shield comprehends a vast complex of ground,
sea, and air units, superbly equipped and strategically deployed around the
world. The most powerful deterrent to war in the world today lies in the
retaliatory power of our Strategic Air Command and the aircraft of our
Navy. They present to any potential attacker who would unleash war upon the
world the prospect of virtual annihilation of his own country.

Even if we assume a surprise attack on our bases, with a marked reduction
in our striking power, our bombers would immediately be on their way in
sufficient strength to accomplish this mission of retaliation. Every
informed government knows this. It is no secret.

Since the Korean Armistice, the American people have spent $225 billion in
maintaining and strengthening this overall defensive shield. This is the
position as of today.

Now as to the period ahead: Every part of our military establishment must
and will be equipped to do its defensive job with the most modern weapons
and methods. But it is particularly important to our planning that we make
a candid estimate of the effect of long-range ballistic missiles on the
present deterrent power I have described.

At this moment, the consensus of opinion is that we are probably somewhat
behind the Soviets in some areas of long-range ballistic missile
development. But it is my conviction, based on close study of all relevant
intelligence, that if we make the necessary effort, we will have the
missiles, in the needed quantity and in time, to sustain and strengthen the
deterrent power of our increasingly efficient bombers. One encouraging fact
evidencing this ability is the rate of progress we have achieved since we
began to concentrate on these missiles.

The intermediate ballistic missiles, Thor and Jupiter, have already been
ordered into production. The parallel progress in the intercontinental
ballistic missile effort will be advanced by our plans for acceleration.
The development of the submarine-based Polaris missile system has
progressed so well that its future procurement schedules are being moved
forward markedly.

When it is remembered that our country has concentrated on the development
of ballistic missiles for only about a third as long as the Soviets, these
achievements show a rate of progress that speaks for itself. Only a brief
time back, we were spending at the rate of only about one million dollars a
year on long range ballistic missiles. In 1957 we spent more than one
billion dollars on the Arias, Titan, Thor, Jupiter, and Polaris programs
alone.

But I repeat, gratifying though this rate of progress is, we must still do
more!

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital
necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

What I have just said applies to our strength as a single country. But we
are not alone. I have returned from the recent NATO meeting with renewed
conviction that, because we are a part of a world-wide community of free
and peaceful nations, our own security is immeasurably increased.

By contrast, the Soviet Union has surrounded itself with captive and sullen
nations. Like a crack in the crust of an uneasily sleeping volcano, the
Hungarian uprising revealed the depth and intensity of the patriotic
longing for liberty that still burns within these countries.

The world thinks of us as a country which is strong, but which will never
start a war. The world also thinks of us as a land which has never enslaved
anyone and which is animated by humane ideals. This friendship, based on
common ideals, is one of our greatest sources of strength.

It cements into a cohesive security arrangement the aggregate of the
spiritual, military and economic strength of all those nations which, with
us, are allied by treaties and agreements.

Up to this point, I have talked solely about our military strength to deter
a possible future war.

I now want to talk about the strength we need to win a different kind of
war--one that has already been launched against us.

It is the massive economic offensive that has been mounted by the communist
imperialists against free nations.

The communist imperialist regimes have for some time been largely
frustrated in their attempts at expansion based directly on force. As a
result, they have begun to concentrate heavily on economic penetration,
particularly of newly-developing countries, as a preliminary to political
domination.

This non-military drive, if underestimated, could defeat the free world
regardless of our military strength. This danger is all the greater
precisely because many of us fail or refuse to recognize it. Thus, some
people may be tempted to finance our extra military effort by cutting
economic assistance. But at the very time when the economic threat is
assuming menacing proportions, to fail to strengthen our own effort would
be nothing less than reckless folly!

Admittedly, most of us did not anticipate the psychological impact upon the
world of the launching of the first earth satellite. Let us not make the
same kind of mistake in another field, by failing to anticipate the much
more serious impact of the Soviet economic offensive.

As with our military potential, our economic assets are more than equal to
the task. Our independent farmers produce an abundance of food and fibre.
Our free workers are versatile, intelligent, and hardworking. Our
businessmen are imaginative and resourceful. The productivity, the
adaptability of the American economy is the solid foundation-stone of our
security structure.

We have just concluded another prosperous year. Our output was once more
the greatest in the nation's history. In the latter part of the year, some
decline in employment and output occurred, following the exceptionally
rapid expansion of recent years. In a free economy, reflecting as it does
the independent judgments of millions of people, growth typically moves
forward unevenly. But the basic forces of growth remain unimpaired. There
are solid grounds for confidence that economic growth will be resumed
without an extended interruption. Moreover, the Federal government,
constantly alert to signs of weakening in any part of our economy, always
stands ready, with its full power, to take any appropriate further action
to promote renewed business expansion.

If our history teaches us anything, it is this lesson: so far as the
economic potential of our nation is concerned, the believers in the future
of America have always been the realists. I count myself as one of this
company.

Our long-range problem, then, is not the stamina of our enormous engine of
production. Our problem is to make sure that we use these vast economic
forces confidently and creatively, not only in direct military defense
efforts, but likewise in our foreign policy, through such activities as
mutual economic aid and foreign trade.

In much the same way, we have tremendous potential resources on other
non-military fronts to help in countering the Soviet threat: education,
science, research, and, not least, the ideas and principles by which we
live. And in all these cases the task ahead is to bring these resources
more sharply to bear upon the new tasks of security and peace in a
swiftly-changing world. IV.

There are many items in the Administration's program, of a kind frequently
included in a State of the Union Message, with which I am not dealing
today. They are important to us and to our prosperity. But I am reserving
them for treatment in separate communications because of my purpose today
of speaking only about matters bearing directly upon our security and
peace.

I now place before you an outline of action designed to focus our resources
upon the two tasks of security and peace.

In this special category I list eight items requiring action. They are not
merely desirable. They are imperative.

1. DEFENSE REORGANIZATION

The first need is to assure ourselves that military organization
facilitates rather than hinders the functioning of the military
establishment in maintaining the security of the nation.

Since World War II, the purpose of achieving maximum organizational
efficiency in a modern defense establishment has several times occasioned
action by the Congress and by the Executive.

The advent of revolutionary new devices, bringing with them the problem of
overall continental defense, creates new difficulties, reminiscent of those
attending the advent of the airplane half a century ago.

Some of the important new weapons which technology has produced do not fit
into any existing service pattern. They cut across all services, involve
all services, and transcend all services, at every stage from development
to operation. In some instances they defy classification according to
branch of service.

Unfortunately, the uncertainties resulting from such a situation, and the
jurisdictional disputes attending upon it, tend to bewilder and confuse the
public and create the impression that service differences are damaging the
national interest.

Let us proudly remember that the members of the Armed Forces give their
basic allegiance solely to the United States. Of that fact all of us are
certain. But pride of service and mistaken zeal in promoting particular
doctrine has more than once occasioned the kind of difficulty of which I
have just spoken.

I am not attempting today to pass judgment on the charge of harmful service
rivalries. But one thing is sure. Whatever they are, America wants them
stopped.

Recently I have had under special study the never-ending problem of
efficient organization, complicated as it is by new weapons. Soon my
conclusions will be finalized. I shall promptly take such Executive action
as is necessary and, in a separate message, I shall present appropriate
recommendations to the Congress.

Meanwhile, without anticipating the detailed form that a reorganization
should take, I can state its main lines in terms of objectives:

A major purpose of military organization is to achieve real unity in the
Defense establishment in all the principal features of military activities.
Of all these, one of the most important to our nation's security is
strategic planning and control. This work must be done under unified
direction.

The defense structure must be one which, as a whole, can assume, with top
efficiency and without friction, the defense of America. The Defense
establishment must therefore plan for a better integration of its defensive
resources, particularly with respect to the newer weapons now building and
under development. These obviously require full coordination in their
development, production and use. Good organization can help assure this
coordination.

In recognition of the need for single control in some of our most advanced
development projects, the Secretary of Defense has already decided to
concentrate into one organization all the anti-missile and satellite
technology undertaken within the Department of Defense.

Another requirement of military organization is a clear subordination of
the military services to duly constituted civilian authority. This control
must be real; not merely on the surface.

Next there must be assurance that an excessive number of compartments in
organization will not create costly and confusing compartments in our
scientific and industrial effort.

Finally, to end inter-service disputes requires clear organization and
decisive central direction, supported by the unstinted cooperation of every
individual in the defense establishment, civilian and military.

2. ACCELERATED DEFENSE EFFORT

The second major action item is the acceleration of the defense effort in
particular areas affected by the fast pace of scientific and technological
advance.

Some of the points at which improved and increased effort are most
essential are these:

We must have sure warning in case of attack. The improvement of warning
equipment is becoming increasingly important as we approach the period when
long-range missiles will come into use.

We must protect and disperse our striking forces and increase their
readiness for instant reaction. This means more base facilities and standby
crews.

We must maintain deterrent retaliatory power. This means, among other
things, stepped-up long range missile programs; accelerated programs for
other effective missile systems; and, for some years, more advanced
aircraft.

We must maintain freedom of the seas. This means nuclear submarines and
cruisers; improved anti-submarine weapons; missile ships; and the like.

We must maintain all necessary types of mobile forces to deal with local
conflicts, should there be need. This means further improvements in
equipment, mobility, tactics and fire power.

Through increases in pay and incentive, we must maintain in the armed
forces the skilled manpower modern military forces require.

We must be forward-looking in our research and development to anticipate
and achieve the unimagined weapons of the future.

With these and other improvements, we intend to assure that our vigilance,
power, and technical excellence keep abreast of any realistic threat we
face.

3. MUTUAL AID

Third: We must continue to strengthen our mutual security efforts. Most
people now realize that our programs of military aid and defense support
are an integral part of our own defense effort. If the foundations of the
Free World structure were progressively allowed to crumble under the
pressure of communist imperialism, the entire house of freedom would be in
danger of collapse.

As for the mutual economic assistance program, the benefit to us is
threefold. First, the countries receiving this aid become bulwarks against
communist encroachment as their military defenses and economies are
strengthened. Nations that are conscious of a steady improvement in their
industry, education, health and standard of living are not apt to fall prey
to the blandishments of communist imperialists.

Second, these countries are helped to reach the point where mutually
profitable trade can expand between them and us.

Third, the mutual confidence that comes from working together on
constructive projects creates an atmosphere in which real understanding and
peace can flourish.

To help bring these multiple benefits, our economic aid effort should be
made more effective.

In proposals for future economic aid, I am stressing a greater use of
repayable loans, through the Development Loan Fund, through funds generated
by sale of surplus farm products, and through the Export-Import Bank.

While some increase in Government funds will be required, it remains our
objective to encourage shifting to the use of private capital sources as
rapidly as possible.

One great obstacle to the economic aid program in the past has been, not a
rational argument against it on the merits, but a catchword: "give-away
program."

The real fact is that no investment we make in our own security and peace
can pay us greater dividends than necessary amounts of economic aid to
friendly nations.

This is no "give-away."

Let's stick to facts!

We cannot afford to have one of our most essential security programs shot
down with a slogan!

4. MUTUAL TRADE

Fourth: Both in our national interest, and in the interest of world peace,
we must have a five-year extension of the Trade Agreements Act with
broadened authority to negotiate.

World trade supports a significant segment of American industry and
agriculture. It provides employment for four and one-half million American
workers. It helps supply our ever increasing demand for raw materials. It
provides the opportunity for American free enterprise to develop on a
worldwide scale. It strengthens our friends and increases their desire to
be friends. World trade helps to lay the groundwork for peace by making all
free nations of the world stronger and more self-reliant.

America is today the world's greatest trading nation. If we use this great
asset wisely to meet the expanding demands of the world, we shall not only
provide future opportunities for our own business, agriculture, and labor,
but in the process strengthen our security posture and other prospects for
a prosperous, harmonious world.

As President McKinley said, as long ago as 1901: "Isolation is no longer
possible or desirable .... The period of exclusiveness is past."

5. SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION WITH OUR ALLIES

Fifth: It is of the highest importance that the Congress enact the
necessary legislation to enable us to exchange appropriate scientific and
technical information with friendly countries as part of our effort to
achieve effective scientific cooperation.

It is wasteful in the extreme for friendly allies to consume talent and
money in solving problems that their friends have already solved--all
because of artificial barriers to sharing. We cannot afford to cut
ourselves off from the brilliant talents and minds of scientists in
friendly countries. The task ahead will be hard enough without handcuffs of
our own making.

The groundwork for this kind of cooperation has already been laid in
discussions among NATO countries. Promptness in following through with
legislation will be the best possible evidence of American unity of purpose
in cooperating with our friends.

6. EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

Sixth: In the area of education and research, I recommend a balanced
program to improve our resources, involving an investment of about a
billion dollars over a four year period. This involves new activities by
the Department of Health, Education and Welfare designed principally to
encourage improved teaching quality and student opportunities in the
interests of national security. It also provides a five-fold increase in
sums available to the National Science Foundation for its special
activities in stimulating and improving science education.

Scrupulous attention has been paid to maintaining local control of
educational policy, spurring the maximum amount of local effort, and to
avoiding undue stress on the physical sciences at the expense of other
branches of learning.

In the field of research, I am asking for substantial increases in basic
research funds, including a doubling of the funds available to the National
Science Foundation for this purpose.

But Federal action can do only a part of the job. In both education and
research, redoubled exertions will be necessary on the part of all
Americans if we are to rise to the demands of our times. This means hard
work on the part of state and local governments, private industry, schools
and colleges, private organizations and foundations, teachers, parents,
and--perhaps most important of all--the student himself, with his bag of
books and his homework.

With this kind of all-inclusive campaign, I have no doubt that we can
create the intellectual capital we need for the years ahead, invest it in
the right places--and do all this, not as regimented pawns, but as free men
and women!

7. SPENDING AND SAVING

Seventh: To provide for this extra effort for security, we must apply stern
tests of priority to other expenditures, both military and civilian. This
extra effort involves, most immediately, the need for a supplemental
defense appropriation of $1.3 billion for fiscal year 1958.

In the 1959 budget, increased expenditures for missiles, nuclear ships,
atomic energy, research and development, science and education, a special
contingency fund to deal with possible new technological discoveries, and
increases in pay and incentives to obtain and retain competent manpower add
up to a total increase over the comparable figures in the 1957 budget of
about $4 billion.

I believe that, in spite of these necessary increases, we should strive to
finance the 1959 security effort out of expected revenues. While we now
believe that expected revenues and expenditures will roughly balance, our
real purpose will be to achieve adequate security, but always with the
utmost regard for efficiency and careful management.

This purpose will require the cooperation of Congress in making careful
analysis of estimates presented, reducing expenditure on less essential
military programs and installations, postponing some new civilian programs,
transferring some to the states, and curtailing or eliminating others.

Such related matters as the national debt ceiling and tax revenues will be
dealt with in later messages.

8. WORKS OF PEACE

My last call for action is not primarily addressed to the Congress and
people of the United States. Rather, it is a message from the people of the
United States to all other peoples, especially those of the Soviet Union.

This is the spirit of what we would like to say:

"In the last analysis, there is only one solution to the grim problems that
lie ahead. The world must stop the present plunge toward more and more
destructive weapons of war, and turn the corner that will start our steps
firmly on the path toward lasting peace.

"Our greatest hope for success lies in a universal fact: the people of the
world, as people, have always wanted peace and want peace now.

"The problem, then, is to find a way of translating this universal desire
into action.

"This will require more than words of peace. It requires works of peace."

Now, may I try to give you some concrete examples of the kind of works of
peace that might make a beginning in the new direction.

For a start our people should learn to know each other better. Recent
negotiations in Washington have provided a basis in principle for greater
freedom of communication and exchange of people. I urge the Soviet
government to cooperate in turning principle into practice by prompt and
tangible actions that will break down the unnatural barriers that have
blocked the flow of thought and understanding between our people.

Another kind of work of peace is cooperation on projects of human welfare.
For example, we now have it within our power to eradicate from the face of
the earth that age-old scourge of mankind: malaria. We are embarking with
other nations in an all-out five-year campaign to blot out this curse
forever. We invite the Soviets to join with us in this great work of
humanity.

Indeed, we would be willing to pool our efforts with the Soviets in other
campaigns against the diseases that are the common enemy of all
mortals--such as cancer and heart disease.

If people can get together on such projects, is it not possible that we
could then go on to a full-scale cooperative program of Science for Peace?

We have as a guide and inspiration the success of our Atoms-for-Peace
proposal, which in only a few years, under United Nations auspices, became
a reality in the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A program of Science for Peace might provide a means of funneling into one
place the results of research from scientists everywhere and from there
making it available to all parts of the world.

There is almost no limit to the human betterment that could result from
such cooperation. Hunger and disease could increasingly be driven from the
earth. The age-old dream of a good life for all could, at long last, be
translated into reality.

But of all the works of peace, none is more needed now than a real first
step toward disarmament.

Last August the United Nations General Assembly, by an overwhelming vote,
approved a disarmament plan that we and our allies sincerely believed to be
fair and practical. The Soviets have rejected both the plan, and the
negotiating procedure set up by the United Nations. As a result,
negotiation on this supremely important issue is now at a stand-still.

But the world cannot afford to stand still on disarmament! We must never
give up the search for a basis of agreement.

Our allies from time to time develop differing ideas on how to proceed. We
must concert these convictions among ourselves. Thereafter, any reasonable
proposal that holds promise for disarmament and reduction of tension must
be heard, discussed, and, if possible, negotiated.

But a disarmament proposal, to hold real promise, must at the minimum have
one feature: reliable means to ensure compliance by all. It takes actions
and demonstrated integrity on both sides to create and sustain confidence.
And confidence in a genuine disarmament agreement is vital, not only to the
signers of the agreement, but also to the millions of people all over the
world who are weary of tensions and armaments.

I say once more, to all peoples, that we will always go the extra mile with
anyone on earth if it will bring us nearer a genuine peace.

CONCLUSION

These, then, are the ways in which we must funnel our energies more
efficiently into the task of advancing security and peace.

These actions demand and expect two things of the American people:
sacrifice, and a high degree of understanding. For sacrifice to be
effective it must be intelligent. Sacrifice must be made for the right
purpose and in the right place--even if that place happens to come close to
home!

After all, it is no good demanding sacrifice in general terms one day, and
the next day, for local reasons, opposing the elimination of some unneeded
Federal facility.

It is pointless to condemn Federal spending in general, and the next moment
condemn just as strongly an effort to reduce the particular Federal grant
that touches one's own interest.

And it makes no sense whatever to spend additional billions on military
strength to deter a potential danger, and then, by cutting aid and trade
programs, let the world succumb to a present danger in economic guise.

My friends of the Congress: The world is waiting to see how wisely and
decisively a free representative government will now act.

I believe that this Congress possesses and will display the wisdom promptly
to do its part in translating into law the actions demanded by our nation's
interests. But, to make law effective, our kind of government needs the
full voluntary support of millions of Americans for these actions.

I am fully confident that the response of the Congress and of the American
people will make this time of test a time of honor. Mankind then will see
more clearly than ever that the future belongs, not to the concept of the
regimented atheistic state, but to the people--the God-fearing,
peace-loving people of all the world.

The Address as reported from the floor appears in the Congressional Record
(vol. 104, p. 171).

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 9, 1959

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

This is the moment when Congress and the Executive annually begin their
cooperative work to build a better America.

One basic purpose unites us: To promote strength and security, side by side
with liberty and opportunity.

As we meet today, in the 170th year of the Republic, our Nation must
continue to provide--as all other free governments have had to do
throughout time--a satisfactory answer to a question as old as history. It
is: Can Government based upon liberty and the God-given rights of man,
permanently endure when ceaselessly challenged by a dictatorship, hostile
to our mode of life, and controlling an economic and military power of
great and growing strength?

For us the answer has always been found, and is still found in the
devotion, the vision, the courage and the fortitude of our people.

Moreover, this challenge we face, not as a single powerful nation, but as
one that has in recent decades reached a position of recognized leadership
in the Free World.

We have arrived at this position of leadership in an era of remarkable
productivity and growth. It is also a time when man's power of mass
destruction has reached fearful proportions.

Possession of such capabilities helps create world suspicion and tension.
We, on our part, know that we seek only a just peace for all, with
aggressive designs against no one. Yet we realize that there is uneasiness
in the world because of a belief on the part of peoples that through
arrogance, miscalculation or fear of attack, catastrophic war could be
launched. Keeping the peace in today's world more than ever calls for the
utmost in the nation's resolution, wisdom, steadiness and unremitting
effort.

We cannot build peace through desire alone. Moreover, we have learned the
bitter lesson that international agreements, historically considered by us
as sacred, are regarded in Communist doctrine and in practice to be mere
scraps of paper. The most recent proof of their disdain of international
obligations, solemnly undertaken, is their announced intention to abandon
their responsibilities respecting Berlin.

As a consequence, we can have no confidence in any treaty to which
Communists are a party except where such a treaty provides within itself
for self-enforcing mechanisms. Indeed, the demonstrated disregard of the
Communists of their own pledges is one of the greatest obstacles to success
in substituting the Rule of Law for rule by force.

Yet step by step we must strengthen the institutions of peace--a peace that
rests upon justice--a peace that depends upon a deep knowledge and dear
understanding by all peoples of the cause and consequences of possible
failure in this great purpose.

To achieve this peace we seek to prevent war at any place and in any
dimension. If, despite our best efforts, a local dispute should flare into
armed hostilities, the next problem would be to keep the conflict from
spreading, and so compromising freedom. In support of these objectives we
maintain forces of great power and flexibility.

Our formidable air striking forces are a powerful deterrent to general war.
Large and growing portions of these units can depart from their bases in a
matter of minutes.

Similar forces are included in our naval fleets.

Ground and other tactical formations can move with swiftness and precision,
when requested by friendly and responsible governments, to help curb
threatened aggression. The stabilizing influence of this capacity has been
dramatically demonstrated more than once over the past year.

Our military and related scientific progress has been highly gratifying.

Great strides have been made in the development of ballistic missiles.
Intermediate range missiles are now being deployed in operational units.
The Arias intercontinental ballistic missile program has been marked by
rapid development as evidenced by recent successful tests. Missile training
units have been established and launching sites are far along in
construction.

New aircraft that fly at twice the speed of sound are entering our
squadrons.

We have successfully placed five satellites in orbit, which have gathered
information of scientific importance never before available. Our latest
satellite illustrates our steady advance in rocketry and foreshadows new
developments in world-wide communications.

Warning systems constantly improve.

Our atomic submarines have shattered endurance records and made historic
voyages under the North Polar Sea.

A major segment of our national scientific and engineering community is
working intensively to achieve new and greater developments. Advance in
military technology requires adequate financing but, of course, even more,
it requires talent and time.

All this is given only as a matter of history; as a record of our progress
in space and ballistic missile fields in no more than four years of
intensive effort. At the same time we clearly recognize that some of the
recent Soviet accomplishments in this particular technology are indeed
brilliant.

Under the law enacted last year the Department of Defense is being
reorganized to give the Secretary of Defense full authority over the
military establishment. Greater efficiency, more cohesive effort and
speedier reaction to emergencies are among the many advantages we are
already noting from these changes.

These few highlights point up our steady military gains. We are rightfully
gratified by the achievements they represent. But we must remember that
these imposing armaments are purchased at great cost.

National Security programs account for nearly sixty percent of the entire
Federal budget for this coming fiscal year.

Modern weapons are exceedingly expensive.

The overall cost of introducing ATLAS into our armed forces will average
$35 million per missile on the firing line.

This year we are investing an aggregate of close to $7 billion in missile
programs alone.

Other billions go for research, development, test and evaluation of new
weapons systems.

Our latest atomic submarines will cost $50 millions each, while some
special types will cost three times as much.

We are now ordering fighter aircraft which are priced at fifty times as
much as the fighters of World War II.

We are buying certain bombers that cost their weight in gold.

These sums are tremendous, even when compared with the marvelous resiliency
and capacity of our economy.

Such expenditures demand both balance and perspective in our planning for
defense. At every turn, we must weigh, judge and select. Needless
duplication of weapons and forces must be avoided.

We must guard against feverish building of vast armaments to meet glibly
predicted moments of so-called "maximum peril." The threat we face is not
sporadic or dated: It is continuous. Hence we must not be swayed in our
calculations either by groundless fear or by complacency. We must avoid
extremes, for vacillation between extremes is inefficient, costly, and
destructive of morale. In these days of unceasing technological advance, we
must plan our defense expenditures systematically and with care, fully
recognizing that obsolescence compels the never-ending replacement of older
weapons with new ones.

The defense budget for the coming year has been planned on the basis of
these principles and considerations. Over these many months I have
personally participated in its development.

The aim is a sensible posture of defense. The secondary aim is increased
efficiency and avoidance of waste. Both are achieved by this budgetary
plan.

Working by these guide lines I believe with all my heart that America can
be as sure of the strength and efficiency of her armed forces as she is of
their loyalty. I am equally sure that the nation will thus avoid useless
expenditures which, in the name of security, might tend to undermine the
economy and, therefore, the nation's safety.

Our own vast strength is only a part of that required for dependable
security. Because of this we have joined with nearly 50 other nations in
collective security arrangements. In these common undertakings each nation
is expected to contribute what it can in sharing the heavy load. Each
supplies part of a strategic deployment to protect the forward boundaries
of freedom.

Constantly we seek new ways to make more effective our contribution to this
system of collective security. Recently I have asked a Committee of eminent
Americans of both parties to re-appraise our military assistance programs
and the relative emphasis which should be placed on military and economic
aid.

I am hopeful that preliminary recommendations of this Committee will be
available in time to assist in shaping the Mutual Security program for the
coming fiscal year.

Any survey of the free world's defense structure cannot fail to impart a
feeling of regret that so much of our effort and resources must be devoted
to armaments. At Geneva and elsewhere we continue to seek technical and
other agreements that may help to open up, with some promise, the issues of
international disarmament. America will never give up the hope that
eventually all nations can, with mutual confidence, drastically reduce
these non-productive expenditures. II.

The material foundation of our national safety is a strong and expanding
economy. This we have--and this we must maintain. Only with such an economy
can we be secure and simultaneously provide for the well-being of our
people.

A year ago the nation was experiencing a decline in employment and output.
Today that recession is fading into history, and this without gigantic,
hastily-improvised public works projects or untimely tax reductions. A
healthy and vigorous recovery has been under way since last May. New homes
are being built at the highest rate in several years. Retail sales are at
peak levels. Personal income is at an all-time high.

The marked forward thrust of our economy reaffirms our confidence in
competitive enterprise. But--clearly--wisdom and prudence in both the
public and private sectors of the economy are always necessary.

Our outlook is this: 1960 commitments for our armed forces, the Atomic
Energy Commission and Military Assistance exceed 47 billion dollars. In the
foreseeable future they are not likely to be significantly lower. With an
annual population increase of three million, other governmental costs are
bound to mount.

After we have provided wisely for our military strength, we must judge how
to allocate our remaining government resources most effectively to promote
our well-being and economic growth.

Federal programs that will benefit all citizens are moving forward.

Next year we will be spending increased amounts on health programs; on
Federal assistance to science and education; on the development of the
nation's water resources; on the renewal of urban areas; and on our vast
system of Federal-aid highways.

Each of these additional outlays is being made necessary by the surging
growth of America.

Let me illustrate. Responsive to this growth, Federal grants and long term
loans to assist 14 major types of capital improvements in our cities will
total over 2 billion dollars in 1960--double the expenditure of two years
ago. The major responsibility for development in these fields rests in the
localities, even though the Federal Government will continue to do its
proper part in meeting the genuine needs of a burgeoning population.

But the progress of our economy can more than match the growth of our
needs. We need only to act wisely and confidently.

Here, I hope you will permit me to digress long enough to express something
that is much on my mind.

The basic question facing us today is more than mere survival--the military
defense of national life and territory. It is the preservation of a way of
life.

We must meet the world challenge and at the same time permit no stagnation
in America.

Unless we progress, we regress.

We can successfully sustain security and remain true to our heritage of
freedom if we clearly visualize the tasks ahead and set out to perform them
with resolution and fervor. We must first define these tasks and then
understand what we must do to perform them.

If progress is to be steady we must have long term guides extending far
ahead, certainly five, possibly even ten years. They must reflect the
knowledge that before the end of five years we will have a population of
over 190 million. They must be goals that stand high, and so inspire every
citizen to climb always toward mounting levels of moral, intellectual and
material strength. Every advance toward them must stir pride in individual
and national achievements.

To define these goals, I intend to mobilize help from every available
source.

We need more than politically ordained national objectives to challenge the
best efforts of free men and women. A group of selfless and devoted
individuals, outside of government, could effectively participate in making
the necessary appraisal of the potentials of our future. The result would
be establishment of national goals that would not only spur us on to our
finest efforts, but would meet the stern test of practicality.

The Committee I plan will comprise educators and representatives of labor,
management, finance, the professions and every other kind of useful
activity.

Such a study would update and supplement, in the light of continuous
changes in our society and its economy, the monumental work of the
Committee on Recent Social Trends which was appointed in 1931 by President
Hoover. Its report has stood the test of time and has had a beneficial
influence on national development. The new Committee would be concerned,
among other things, with the acceleration of our economy's growth and the
living standards of our people, their health and education, their better
assurance of life and liberty and their greater opportunities. It would
also be concerned with methods to meet such goals and what levels of
government--Local, State, or Federal--might or should be particularly
concerned.

As one example, consider our schools, operated under the authority of local
communities and states. In their capacity and in their quality they conform
to no recognizable standards. In some places facilities are ample, in
others meager. Pay of teachers ranges between wide limits, from the
adequate to the shameful. As would be expected, quality of teaching varies
just as widely. But to our teachers we commit the most valuable possession
of the nation and of the family--our children.

We must have teachers of competence. To obtain and hold them we need
standards. We need a National Goal. Once established I am certain that
public opinion would compel steady progress toward its accomplishment.

Such studies would be helpful, I believe, to government at all levels and
to all individuals. The goals so established could help us see our current
needs in perspective. They will spur progress.

We do not forget, of course, that our nation's progress and fiscal
integrity are interdependent and inseparable. We can afford everything we
clearly need, but we cannot afford one cent of waste. We must examine every
item of governmental expense critically. To do otherwise would betray our
nation's future. Thrift is one of the characteristics that has made this
nation great. Why should we ignore it now?

We must avoid any contribution to inflationary processes, which could
disrupt sound growth in our economy.

Prices have displayed a welcome stability in recent months and, if we are
wise and resolute, we will not tolerate inflation in the years to come. But
history makes clear the risks inherent in any failure to deal firmly with
the .basic causes of inflation. Two of the most important of these causes
are the wage-price spiral and continued deficit financing.

Inflation would reduce job opportunities, price us out of world markets,
shrink the value of savings and penalize the thrift so essential to finance
a growing economy.

Inflation is not a Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor.
Rather, it deals most cruelly with those who can least protect themselves.
It strikes hardest those millions of our citizens whose incomes do not
quickly rise with the cost of living. When prices soar, the pensioner and
the widow see their security undermined, the man of thrift sees his savings
melt away; the white collar worker, the minister, and the teacher see their
standards of living dragged down.

Inflation can be prevented. But this demands statesmanship on the part of
business and labor leaders and of government at all levels.

We must encourage the self-discipline, the restraint necessary to curb the
wage-price spiral and we must meet current costs from current revenue.

To minimize the danger of future soaring prices and to keep our economy
sound and expanding, I shall present to the Congress certain proposals.

First, I shall submit a balanced budget for the next year, a year expected
to be the most prosperous in our history. It is a realistic budget with
wholly attainable objectives.

If we cannot live within our means during such a time of rising prosperity,
the hope for fiscal integrity will fade. If we persist in living beyond our
means, we make it difficult for every family in our land to balance its own
household budget. But to live within our means would be a tangible
demonstration of the self-discipline needed to assure a stable dollar.

The Constitution entrusts the Executive with many functions, but the
Congress--and the Congress alone--has the power of the purse. Ultimately
upon Congress rests responsibility for determining the scope and amount of
Federal spending.

By working together, the Congress and the Executive can keep a balance
between income and outgo. If this is done there is real hope that we can
look forward to a time in the foreseeable future when needed tax reforms
can be accomplished.

In this hope, I am requesting the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare
appropriate proposals for revising, at the proper time, our tax structure,
to remove inequities and to enhance incentives for all Americans to work,
to save, and to invest. Such recommendations will be made as soon as our
fiscal condition permits. These prospects will be brightened if 1960
expenditures do not exceed the levels recommended.

Second, I shall recommend to the Congress that the Chief Executive be given
the responsibility either to approve or to veto specific items in
appropriations and authorization bills. This would save tax dollars.

Third, to reduce Federal operations in an area where private enterprise can
do the job, I shall recommend legislation for greater flexibility in
extending Federal credit, and in improving the procedures under which
private credits are insured or guaranteed. Present practices have
needlessly added large sums to Federal expenditures.

Fourth, action is required to make more effective use of the large Federal
expenditures for agriculture and to achieve greater fiscal control in this
area.

Outlays of the Department of Agriculture for the current fiscal year for
the support of farm prices on a very few farm products will exceed five
billion dollars. That is a sum equal to approximately two-fifths of the net
income of all farm operators in the entire United States.

By the end of this fiscal year it is estimated that there will be in
Government hands surplus farm products worth about nine billion dollars.
And by July 1, 1959, Government expenditures for storage, interest, and
handling of its agricultural inventory will reach a rate of one billion
dollars a year.

This level of expenditure for farm products could be made willingly for a
temporary period if it were leading to a sound solution of the problem. But
unfortunately this is not true. We need new legislation.

In the past I have sent messages to the Congress requesting greater freedom
for our farmers to manage their own farms and greater freedom for markets
to reflect the wishes of producers and consumers. Legislative changes that
followed were appropriate in direction but did not go far enough.

The situation calls for prompt and forthright action. Recommendation for
action will be contained in a message to be transmitted to the Congress
shortly.

These fiscal and related actions will help create an environment of price
stability for economic growth. However, certain additional measures are
needed.

I shall ask Congress to amend the Employment Act of 1946 to make it clear
that Government intends to use all appropriate means to protect the buying
power of the dollar.

I am establishing a continuing Cabinet group on Price Stability for
Economic Growth to study governmental and private policies affecting costs,
prices, and economic growth. It will strive also to build a better public
understanding of the conditions necessary for maintaining growth and price
stability.

Studies are being undertaken to improve our information on prices, wages,
and productivity.

I believe all citizens in all walks of life will support this program of
action to accelerate economic growth and promote price stability. III.

I take up next certain aspects of our international situation and our
programs to strengthen it.

America's security can be assured only within a world community strong,
stable, independent nations, in which the concepts of freedom, justice and
human dignity can flourish.

There can be no such thing as Fortress America. If ever we were reduced to
the isolation implied by that term, we would occupy a prison, not a
fortress. The question whether we can afford to help other nations that
want to defend their freedom but cannot fully do so from their own means,
has only one answer: we can and we must, we have been doing so since 1947.

Our foreign policy has long been dedicated to building a permanent and just
peace.

During the past six years our free world security arrangements have been
bolstered and the bonds of freedom have been more closely knit. Our friends
in Western Europe are experiencing new internal vitality, and are
increasingly more able to resist external threats.

Over the years the world has come to understand clearly that it is our firm
policy not to countenance aggression. In Lebanon, Taiwan, and Berlin--our
stand has been dear, right, and expressive of the determined will of a
united people.

Acting with other free nations we have undertaken the solemn obligation to
defend the people of free Berlin against any effort to destroy their
freedom. In the meantime we shall constantly seek meaningful agreements to
settle this and other problems, knowing full well that not only the
integrity of a single city, but the hope of all free peoples is at stake.

We need, likewise, to continue helping to build the economic base so
essential to the Free World's stability and strength.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have both fully proven
their worth as instruments of international financial cooperation. Their
Executive Directors have recommended an increase in each member country's
subscription. I am requesting the Congress for immediate approval of our
share of these increases.

We are now negotiating with representatives of the twenty Latin American
Republics for the creation of an inter-American financial institution. Its
purpose would be to join all the American Republics in a common institution
which would promote and finance development in Latin America, and make more
effective the use of capital from the World Bank, the Export-Import Bank,
and private sources.

Private enterprise continues to make major contributions to economic
development in all parts of the world. But we have not yet marshalled the
full potential of American business for this task, particularly in
countries which have recently attained their independence. I shall present
to this Congress a program designed to encourage greater participation by
private enterprise in economic development abroad.

Further, all of us know that to advance the cause of freedom we must do
much more than help build sound economies. The spiritual, intellectual, and
physical strength of people throughout the world will in the last analysis
determine their willingness and their ability to resist Communism.

To give a single illustration of our many efforts in these fields: We have
been a participant in the effort that has been made over the past few years
against one of the great scourges of mankind--disease. Through the Mutual
Security program public health officials are being trained by American
universities to serve in less developed countries. We are engaged in
intensive malaria eradication projects in many parts of the world.
America's major successes in our own country prove the feasibility of
success everywhere.

By these and other means we shall continue and expand our campaign against
the afflictions that now bring needless suffering and death to so many of
the world's people. We wish to be part of a great shared effort toward the
triumph of health. IV.

America is best described by one word, freedom.

If we hope to strengthen freedom in the world we must be ever mindful of
how our own conduct reacts elsewhere. No nation has ever been so
floodlighted by world opinion as the United States is today. Everything we
do is carefully scrutinized by other peoples throughout the world. The bad
is seen along with the good.

Because we are human we err. But as free men we are also responsible for
correcting the errors and imperfections of our ways.

Last January I made comprehensive recommendations to the Congress for
legislation in the labor-management field. To my disappointment, Congress
failed to act. The McClellan Committee disclosures of corruption,
racketeering, and abuse of trust and power in labor-management affairs have
aroused America and amazed other peoples. They emphasize the need for
improved local law enforcement and the enactment of effective Federal
legislation to protect the public interest and to insure the rights and
economic freedoms of millions of American workers. Halfhearted measures
will not do. I shall recommend prompt enactment of legislation designed:

To safeguard workers' funds in union treasuries against misuse of any kind
whatsoever.

To protect the rights and freedoms of individual union members, including
the basic right to free and secret elections of officers.

To advance true and responsible collective bargaining.

To protect the public and innocent third parties from unfair and coercive
practices such as boycotting and blackmail picketing.

The workers and the public must have these vital protections.

In other areas of human rights--freedom from discrimination in voting, in
public education, in access to jobs, and in other respects--the world is
likewise watching our conduct.

The image of America abroad is not improved when school children, through
closing of some of our schools and through no fault of their own, are
deprived of their opportunity for an education.

The government of a free people has no purpose more noble than to work for
the maximum realization of equality of opportunity under law. This is not
the sole responsibility of any one branch of our government. The judicial
arm, which has the ultimate authority for interpreting the Constitution,
has held that certain state laws and practices discriminate upon racial
grounds and are unconstitutional. Whenever the supremacy of the
Constitution of the United States is challenged I shall continue to take
every action necessary to uphold it.

One of the fundamental concepts of our constitutional system is that it
guarantees to every individual, regardless of race, religion, or national
origin, the equal protection of the laws. Those of us who are privileged to
hold public office have a solemn obligation to make meaningful this
inspiring objective. We can fulfill that obligation by our leadership in
teaching, persuading, demonstrating, and in enforcing the law.

We are making noticeable progress in the field of civil rights--we are
moving forward toward achievement of equality of opportunity for all people
everywhere in the United States. In the interest of the nation and of each
of its citizens, that progress must continue.

Legislative proposals of the Administration in this field will be submitted
to the Congress early in the session. All of us should help to make clear
that the government is united in the common purpose of giving support to
the law and the decisions of the Courts.

By moving steadily toward the goal of greater freedom under law, for our
own people, we shall be the better prepared to work for the cause of
freedom under law throughout the world.

All peoples are solely tired of the fear, destruction, and the waste of
war. As never before, the world knows the human and material costs of war
and seeks to replace force with a genuine role of law among nations.

It is my purpose to intensify efforts during the coming two years in
seeking ways to supplement the procedures of the United Nations and other
bodies with similar objectives, to the end that the rule of law may replace
the rule of force in the affairs of nations. Measures toward this end will
be proposed later, including a re-examination of our own relation to the
International Court of Justice.

Finally--let us remind ourselves that Marxist scripture is not new; it is
not the gospel of the future. Its basic objective is dictatorship, old as
history. What is new is the shining prospect that man can build a world
where all can live in dignity.

We seek victory--not over any nation or people--but over the ancient
enemies of us all; victory over ignorance, poverty, disease, and human
degradation wherever they may be found.

We march in the noblest of causes--human freedom.

If we make ourselves worthy of America's ideals, if we do not forget that
our nation was founded on the premise that all men are creatures of God's
making, the world will come to know that it is free men who carry forward
the true promise of human progress and dignity.

The Address as reported from the floor appears in the Congressional Record
of January 9, 1959 (vol. 105, p. 163).

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 7, 1960

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.

The Address as reported from the floor appears in the Congressional Record
of January 7, 1960 (vol. 106, p. 135).

***

State of the Union Address
Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 12, 1961

To the Congress of the United States:

Once again it is my Constitutional duty to assess the state of the Union.

On each such previous occasion during these past eight years I have
outlined a forward course designed to achieve our mutual objective--a
better America in a world of peace. This time my function is different.

The American people, in free election, have selected new leadership which
soon will be entrusted with the management of our government. A new
President shortly will lay before you his proposals to shape the future of
our great land. To him, every citizen, whatever his political beliefs,
prayerfully extends best wishes for good health and for wisdom and success
in coping with the problems that confront our Nation.

For my part, I should like, first, to express to you of the Congress, my
appreciation of your devotion to the common good and your friendship over
these difficult years. I will carry with me pleasant memories of this
association in endeavors profoundly significant to all our people.

We have been through a lengthy period in which the control over the
executive and legislative branches of government has been divided between
our two great political parties. Differences, of course, we have had,
particularly in domestic affairs. But in a united determination to keep
this Nation strong and free and to utilize our vast resources for the
advancement of all mankind, we have carried America to unprecedented
heights.

For this cooperative achievement I thank the American people and those in
the Congress of both parties who have supported programs in the interest of
our country.

I should also like to give special thanks for the devoted service of my
associates in the Executive Branch and the hundreds of thousands of career
employees who have implemented our diverse government programs.

My second purpose is to review briefly the record of these past eight years
in the hope that, out of the sum of these experiences, lessons will emerge
that are useful to our Nation. Supporting this review are detailed reports
from the several agencies and departments, all of which are now or will
shortly be available to the Congress.

Throughout the world the years since 1953 have been a period of profound
change. The human problems in the world grow more acute hour by hour; yet
new gains in science and technology continually extend the promise of a
better life. People yearn to be free, to govern themselves; yet a third of
the people of the world have no freedom, do not govern themselves. The
world recognizes the catastrophic nature of nuclear war; yet it sees the
wondrous potential of nuclear peace.

During the period, the United States has forged ahead under a constructive
foreign policy. The continuing goal is peace, liberty, and well-being--for
others as well as ourselves. The aspirations of all peoples are one--peace
with justice in freedom. Peace can only be attained collectively as peoples
everywhere unite in their determination that liberty and well-being come to
all mankind.

Yet while we have worked to advance national aspirations for freedom, a
divisive force has been at work to divert that aspiration into dangerous
channels. The Communist movement throughout the world exploits the natural
striving of all to be free and attempts to subjugate men rather than free
them. These activities have caused and are continuing to cause grave
troubles in the world.

Here at home these have been times for careful adjustment of our economy
from the artificial impetus of a hot war to constructive growth in a
precarious peace. While building a new economic vitality without inflation,
we have also increased public expenditures to keep abreast of the needs of
a growing population and its attendant new problems, as well as our added
international responsibilities. We have worked toward these ends in a
context of shared responsibility--conscious of the need for maximum scope
to private effort and for State and local, as well as Federal, governmental
action.

Success in designing and executing national purposes, domestically and
abroad, can only come from a steadfast resolution that integrity in the
operation of government and in our relations with each other be fully
maintained. Only in this way could our spiritual goals be fully advanced.

FOREIGN POLICY

On January 20, 1953, when I took office, the United States was at war.
Since the signing of the Korean Armistice in 1953, Americans have lived in
peace in highly troubled times.

During the 1956 Suez crisis, the United States government strongly
supported United Nations' action--resulting in the ending of the
hostilities in Egypt.

Again in 1958, peace was preserved in the Middle East despite new discord.
Our government responded to the request of the friendly Lebanese Government
for military help, and promptly withdrew American forces as soon as the
situation was stabilized.

In 1958 our support of the Republic of China during the all-out bombardment
of Quemoy restrained the Communist Chinese from attempting to invade the
off-shore islands.

Although, unhappily, Communist penetration of Cuba is real and poses a
serious threat, Communist dominated regimes have been deposed in Guatemala
and Iran. The occupation of Austria has ended and the Trieste question has
been settled.

Despite constant threats to its integrity, West Berlin has remained free.

Important advances have been made in building mutual security
arrangements--which lie at the heart of our hopes for future peace and
security in the world. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization has been
established; the NATO alliance has been militarily strengthened; the
Organization of American States has been further developed as an instrument
of inter-American cooperation; the Anzus treaty has strengthened ties with
Australia and New Zealand, and a mutual security treaty with Japan has been
signed. In addition, the CENTO pact has been concluded, and while we are
not officially a member of this alliance we have participated closely in
its deliberations.

The "Atoms for Peace" proposal to the United Nations led to the creation of
the International Atomic Energy Agency. Our policy has been to push for
enforceable programs of inspection against surprise attack, suspension of
nuclear testing, arms reduction, and peaceful use of outer space.

The United Nations has been vigorously supported in all of its actions,
including the condemnations of the wholesale murder of the people of Tibet
by the Chinese Communists and the brutal Soviet repression of the people of
Hungary, as well as the more recent UN actions in the Congo.

The United States took the initiative in negotiating the significant treaty
to guarantee the peaceful use of vast Antarctica.

The United States Information Agency has been transformed into a greatly
improved medium for explaining our policies and actions to audiences
overseas, answering the lies of communist propaganda, and projecting a
clearer image of American life and culture.

Cultural, technological and educational exchanges with the Soviet Union
have been encouraged, and a comprehensive agreement was made which
authorized, among other things, the distribution of our Russian language
magazine Amerika and the highly successful American Exhibition in Moscow.

This country has continued to withhold recognition of Communist China and
to oppose vigorously the admission of this belligerent and unrepentant
nation into the United Nations. Red China has yet to demonstrate that it
deserves to be considered a "peace-loving" nation.

With communist imperialism held in check, constructive actions were
undertaken to strengthen the economies of free world nations. The United
States government has given sturdy support to the economic and technical
assistance activities of the UN. This country stimulated a doubling of the
capital of the World Bank and a 50 percent capital increase in the
International Monetary Fund. The Development Loan Fund and the
International Development Association were established. The United States
also took the lead in creating the Inter-American Development Bank.

Vice President Nixon, Secretaries of State Dulles and Herter and I
travelled extensively through the world for the purpose of strengthening
the cause of peace, freedom, and international understanding. So rewarding
were these visits that their very success became a significant factor in
causing the Soviet Union to wreck the planned Summit Conference of 1960.

These vital programs must go on. New tactics will have to be developed, of
course, to meet new situations, but the underlying principles should be
constant. Our great moral and material commitments to collective security,
deterrence of force, international law, negotiations that lead to
self-enforcing agreements, and the economic interdependence of free nations
should remain the cornerstone of a foreign policy that will ultimately
bring permanent peace with justice in freedom to all mankind. The
continuing need of all free nations today is for each to recognize clearly
the essentiality of an unbreakable bond among themselves based upon a
complete dedication to the principles of collective security, effective
cooperation and peace with justice.

NATIONAL DEFENSE

For the first time in our nation's history we have consistently maintained
in peacetime, military forces of a magnitude sufficient to deter and if
need be to destroy predatory forces in the world.

Tremendous advances in strategic weapons systems have been made in the past
eight years. Not until 1953 were expenditures on long-range ballistic
missile programs even as much as a million dollars a year; today we spend
ten times as much each day on these programs as was spent in all of 1952.

No guided ballistic missiles were operational at the beginning of 1953.
Today many types give our armed forces unprecedented effectiveness. The
explosive power of our weapons systems for all purposes is almost
inconceivable.

Today the United States has operational ATLAS missiles which can strike a
target 5000 miles away in a half-hour. The POLARIS weapons system became
operational last fall and the TITAN is scheduled to become so this year.
Next year, more than a year ahead of schedule, a vastly improved ICBM, the
solid propellant MINUTEMAN, is expected to be ready.

Squadrons of accurate Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles are now
operational. The THOR and JUPITER IRBMs based in forward areas can hit
targets 1500 miles away in 18 minutes.

Aircraft which fly at speeds faster than sound were still in a
developmental stage eight years ago. Today American fighting planes go
twice the speed of sound. And either our B-58 Medium Range Jet Bomber or
our B-52 Long Range Jet Bomber can carry more explosive power than was used
by all combatants in World War II--Allies and Axis combined.

Eight years ago we had no nuclear-powered ships. Today 49 nuclear warships
have been authorized. Of these, 14 have been commissioned, including three
of the revolutionary POLARIS submarines. Our nuclear submarines have
cruised under the North Pole and circumnavigated the earth while submerged.
Sea warfare has been revolutionized, and the United States is far and away
the leader.

Our tactical air units overseas and our aircraft carriers are alert; Army
units, guarding the frontiers of freedom in Europe and the Far East, are in
the highest state of readiness in peacetime history; our Marines, a third
of whom are deployed in the Far East, are constantly prepared for action;
our Reserve establishment has maintained high standards of proficiency, and
the Ready Reserve now numbers over 2 1/2 million citizen-soldiers.

The Department of Defense, a young and still evolving organization, has
twice been improved and the line of command has been shortened in order to
meet the demands of modern warfare. These major reorganizations have
provided a more effective structure for unified planning and direction of
the vast defense establishment. Gradual improvements in its structure and
procedures are to be expected.

United States civil defense and nonmilitary defense capacity has been
greatly strengthened and these activities have been consolidated in one
Federal agency.

The defense forces of our Allies now number five million men, several
thousand combatant ships, and over 25,000 aircraft. Programs to strengthen
these allies have been consistently supported by the Administration. U.S.
military assistance goes almost exclusively to friendly nations on the rim
of the communist world. This American contribution to nations who have the
will to defend their freedom, but insufficient means, should be vigorously
continued. Combined with our Allies, the free world now has a far stronger
shield than we could provide alone.

Since 1953, our defense policy has been based on the assumption that the
international situation would require heavy defense expenditures for an
indefinite period to come, probably for years. In this protracted struggle,
good management dictates that we resist overspending as resolutely as we
oppose under-spending. Every dollar uselessly spent on military mechanisms
decreases our total strength and, therefore, our security. We must not
return to the "crash-program" psychology of the past when each new feint by
the Communists was responded to in panic. The "bomber gap" of several years
ago was always a fiction, and the "missile gap" shows every sign of being
the same.

The nation can ill afford to abandon a national policy which provides for a
fully adequate and steady level of effort, designed for the long pull; a
fast adjustment to new scientific and technological advances; a balanced
force of such strength as to deter general war, to effectively meet local
situations and to retaliate to attack and destroy the attacker; and a
strengthened system of free world collective security.

THE ECONOMY

The expanding American economy passed the half-trillion dollar mark in
gross national product early in 1960. The Nation's output of goods and
services is now nearly 25 percent higher than in 1952.

In 1959, the average American family had an income of $6,520, 15 percent
higher in dollars of constant buying power than in 1952, and the real wages
of American factory workers have risen 20 percent during the past eight
years. These facts reflect the rising standard of individual and family
well-being enjoyed by Americans.

Our Nation benefits also from a remarkable improvement in general
industrial peace through strengthened processes of free collective
bargaining. Time lost since 1952 because of strikes has been half that lost
in the eight years prior to that date. Legislation now requires that union
members have the opportunity for full participation in the affairs of their
unions. The Administration supported the Landrum-Griffin Act, which I
believe is greatly helpful to the vast bulk of American Labor and its
leaders, and also is a major step in getting racketeers and gangsters out
of labor-management affairs.

The economic security of working men and women has been strengthened by an
extension of unemployment insurance coverage to 2.5 million ex-servicemen,
2.4 million Federal employees, and 1.2 million employees of small
businesses, and by a strengthening of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance
Act. States have been encouraged to improve their unemployment compensation
benefits, so that today average weekly benefits are 40 percent higher than
in 1953.

Determined efforts have improved workers' safety standards. Enforceable
safety standards have been established for longshoremen and ship repair
workers; Federal Safety Councils have been increased from 14 to over 100;
safety awards have been initiated, and a national construction safety
program has been developed.

A major factor in strengthening our competitive enterprise system, and
promoting economic growth, has been the vigorous enforcement of antitrust
laws over the last eight years and a continuing effort to reduce artificial
restraints on competition and trade and enhance our economic liberties.
This purpose was also significantly advanced in 1953 when, as one of the
first acts of this Administration, restrictive wage and price controls were
ended.

An additional measure to strengthen the American system of competitive
enterprise was the creation of the Small Business Administration in 1953 to
assist existing small businesses and encourage new ones. This agency has
approved over $1 billion in loans, initiated a new program to provide
long-term capital for small businesses, aided in setting aside $31/2 billion
in government contracts for award to small business concerns, and brought
to the attention of individual businessmen, through programs of information
and education, new developments in management and production techniques.
Since 1952, important tax revisions have been made to encourage small
businesses.

Many major improvements in the Nation's transportation system have been
made:

--After long years of debate, the dream of a great St. Lawrence Seaway,
opening the heartland of America to ocean commerce, has been fulfilled.

--The new Federal Aviation Agency is fostering greater safety in air
travel.

--The largest public construction program in history--the 41,000 mile
national system of Interstate and Defense highways--has been pushed rapidly
forward. Twenty-five percent of this system is now open to traffic.

Efforts to help every American build a better life have included also a
vigorous program for expanding our trade with other nations. A 4-year
renewal of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act was passed in 1958, and a
continuing and rewarding effort has been made to persuade other countries
to remove restrictions against our exports. A new export expansion program
was launched in 1960, inaugurating improvement of export credit insurance
and broadening research and information programs to awaken Americans to
business opportunities overseas. These actions and generally prosperous
conditions abroad have helped push America's export trade to a level of $20
billion in 1960.

Although intermittent declines in economic activity persist as a problem in
our enterprise system, recent downturns have been moderate and of short
duration. There is, however, little room for complacency. Currently our
economy is operating at high levels, but unemployment rates are higher than
any of us would like, and chronic pockets of high unemployment persist.
Clearly, continued sound and broadly shared economic growth remains a major
national objective toward which we must strive through joint private and
public efforts.

If government continues to work to assure every American the fullest
opportunity to develop and utilize his ability and talent, it will be
performing one of its most vital functions, that of advancing the welfare
and protecting the dignity, rights, and freedom of all Americans.

GOVERNMENT FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION

In January 1953, the consumer's dollar was worth only 52 cents in terms of
the food, clothing, shelter and other items it would buy compared to 1939.
Today, the inflationary spiral which had raised the cost of living by 36
percent between 1946 and 1952 has all but ceased and the value of the
dollar virtually stabilized.

In 1954 we had the largest tax cut in history, amounting to $7.4 billion
annually, of which over 62 percent went to individuals mostly in the small
income brackets.

This Administration has directed constant efforts toward fiscal
responsibility. Balanced budgets have been sought when the economy was
advancing, and a rigorous evaluation of spending programs has been
maintained at all times. Resort to deficit financing in prosperous times
could easily erode international confidence in the dollar and contribute to
inflation at home. In this belief, I shall submit a balanced budget for
fiscal 1962 to the Congress next week.

There has been a firm policy of reducing government competition with
private enterprise. This has resulted in the discontinuance of some 2,000
commercial industrial installations and in addition the curtailment of
approximately 550 industrial installations operated directly by government
agencies.

Also an aggressive surplus disposal program has been carried on to Identify
and dispose of unneeded government-owned real property. This has resulted
in the addition of a substantial number of valuable properties to local tax
rolls, and a significant monetary return to the government.

Earnest and persistent attempts have been made to strengthen the position
of State and local governments and thereby to stop the dangerous drift
toward centralization of governmental power in Washington.

Significant strides have been made in increasing the effectiveness of
government. Important new agencies have been established, such as the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Federal Aviation Agency,
and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Council of
Economic Advisers was reconstituted.

The operation of our postal system has been modernized to get better and
more efficient service. Modernized handling of local mail now brings
next-day delivery to 168 million people in our population centers, expanded
carrier service now accommodates 9.3 million families in the growing
suburbs, and 1.4 million families have been added to the rural delivery
service. Common sense dictates that the Postal Service should be on a
self-financing basis.

The concept of a trained and dedicated government career service has been
strengthened by the provision of life and health insurance benefits, a
vastly improved retirement system, a new merit promotion program, and the
first effective incentive awards program. With no sacrifice in efficiency,
Federal civilian employment since 1953 has been reduced by over a quarter
of a million persons.

I am deeply gratified that it was under the urging of this Administration
that Alaska and Hawaii became our 49th and 50th States.

AGRICULTURE

Despite the difficulties of administering Congressional programs which
apply outmoded prescriptions and which aggravate rather than solve
problems, the past eight years brought notable advances in agriculture.

Total agricultural assets are approximately $200 billion--up $36 billion in
eight years.

Farm owner equities are at the near record high of $174 billion.

Farm ownership is at a record high with fewer farmers in a tenant and
sharecropper status than at any time in our nation's history.

The "Food-for-Peace" program has demonstrated how surplus of American food
and fiber can be effectively used to feed and clothe the needy abroad.
Aided by this humanitarian program, total agricultural exports have grown
from $2.8 billion in 1953 to an average of about $4 billion annually for
the past three years. For 1960, exports are estimated at $4.5 billion, the
highest volume on record. Under the Food-for-Peace program, the largest
wheat transaction in history was consummated with India in 1960.

The problems of low-income farm families received systematic attention for
the first time in the Rural Development Program. This program has gone
forward in 39 States, yielding higher incomes and a better living for rural
people most in need.

The Rural Electrification Administration has helped meet the growing demand
for power and telephones in agricultural areas. Ninety-seven percent of all
farms now have central station electric power. Dependence upon Federal
financing should no longer be necessary.

The Farm Credit Administration has been made an independent agency more
responsive to the farmer's needs.

The search for new uses for our farm abundance and to develop new crops for
current needs has made major progress. Agricultural research appropriations
have increased by 171 percent since 1953.

Farmers are being saved approximately $80 million a year by the repeal in
1956 of Federal taxes on gasoline used in tractors and other machinery.

Since 1953, appropriations have been doubled for county agents, home agents
and the Extension Service.

Eligibility for Social Security benefits has been extended to farmers and
their families.

Yet in certain aspects our agricultural surplus situation is increasingly
grave. For example, our wheat stocks now total 1.3 billion bushels. If we
did not harvest one bushel of wheat in this coming year, we would still
have all we could eat, all we could sell abroad, all we could give away,
and still have a substantial carryover. Extraordinary costs are involved
just in management and disposal of this burdensome surplus. Obviously
important adjustments must still come. Congress must enact additional
legislation to permit wheat and other farm commodities to move into regular
marketing channels in an orderly manner and at the same time afford the
needed price protection to the farmer. Only then will agriculture again be
free, sound, and profitable.

NATURAL RESOURCES

New emphasis has been placed on the care of our national parks. A ten year
development program of our National Park System--Mission 66--was initiated
and 633,000 acres of park land have been added since 1953.

Appropriations for fish and wildlife operations have more than doubled.
Thirty-five new refuges, containing 11,342,000 acres, have been added to
the national wildlife management system.

Our Nation's forests have been improved at the most rapid rate in history.

The largest sustained effort in water resources development in our history
has taken place. In the field of reclamation alone, over 50 new projects,
or project units, have been authorized since 1953--including the billion
dollar Colorado River Storage Project. When all these projects have been
completed they will have a storage capacity of nearly 43 million
acre-feet--an increase of 50 percent over the Bureau of Reclamation's
storage capacity in mid-1953. In addition, since 1953 over 450 new
navigation flood control and multiple purpose projects of the Corps of
Engineers have been started, costing nearly 6 billion dollars.

Soil and water conservation has been advanced as never before. One hundred
forty-one projects are now being constructed under the Watershed Protection
Program.

Hydroelectric power has been impressively developed through a policy which
recognizes that the job to be done requires comprehensive development by
Federal, State, and local governments and private enterprise. Teamwork is
essential to achieve this objective.

The Federal Columbia River power system has grown from two multipurpose
dams with a 2.6 million kilowatt capacity to 17 multipurpose projects
completed or under construction with an ultimate installed capacity of 8.1
million kilowatts. After years of negotiation, a Columbia River Storage
Development agreement with Canada now opens the way for early realization
of unparalleled power, flood control and resource conservation benefits for
the Pacific Northwest. A treaty implementing this agreement will shortly be
submitted to the Senate.

A farsighted and highly successful program for meeting urgent water needs
is being carded out by converting salt water to fresh water. A 75 percent
reduction in the cost of this process has already been realized.

Continuous resource development is essential for our expanding economy. We
must continue vigorous, combined Federal, State and private programs, at
the same time preserving to the maximum extent possible our natural and
scenic heritage for future generations.

EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

The National Defense Education Act of 1958 is already a milestone in the
history of American education. It provides broad opportunities for the
intellectual development of all children by strengthening courses of study
in science, mathematics, and foreign languages, by developing new graduate
programs to train additional teachers, and by providing loans for young
people who need financial help to go to college.

The Administration proposed on numerous occasions a broad new five-year
program of Federal aid to help overcome the classroom shortage in public
elementary and secondary schools. Recommendations were also made to give
assistance to colleges and universities for the construction of academic
and residential buildings to meet future enrollment increases.

This Administration greatly expanded Federal loans for building dormitories
for students, teachers, and nurses training, a program assisting in the
construction of approximately 200,000 living accommodations during the past
8 years.

There has been a vigorous acceleration of health, resource and education
programs designed to advance the role of the American Indian in our
society. Last fall, for example, 91 percent of the Indian children between
the ages of 6 and 18 on reservations were enrolled in school. This is a
rise of 12 percent since 1953.

In the field of science and technology, startling strides have been made by
the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In little more than
two years, NASA has successfully launched meteorological satellites, such
as Tiros I and Tiros II, that promise to revolutionize methods of weather
forecasting; demonstrated the feasibility of satellites for global
communications by the successful launching of Echo I; produced an enormous
amount of valuable scientific data, such as the discovery of the Van Allen
Radiation Belt; successfully launched deep-space probes that maintained
communication over the greatest range man has ever tracked; and made real
progress toward the goal of manned space flights.

These achievements unquestionably make us preeminent today in space
exploration for the betterment of mankind. I believe the present
organizational arrangements in this area, with the revisions proposed last
year, are completely adequate for the tasks ahead.

Americans can look forward to new achievements in space exploration. The
near future will hold such wonders as the orbital flight of an astronaut,
the landing of instruments on the moon, the launching of the powerful giant
Saturn rocket vehicles, and the reconnaissance of Mars and Venus by
unmanned vehicles.

The application of atomic energy to industry, agriculture, and medicine has
progressed from hope and experiment to reality. American industry and
agriculture are making increasing use of radioisotopes to improve
manufacturing, testing, and crop-raising. Atomic energy has improved the
ability of the healing professions to combat disease, and holds promise for
an eventual increase in man's life span.

Education, science, technology and balanced programs of every kind-these
are the roadways to progress. With appropriate Federal support, the States
and localities can assure opportunities for achieving excellence at all
levels of the educational system; and with the Federal government
continuing to give wholehearted support to basic scientific research and
technology, we can expect to maintain our position of leadership in the
world.

CIVIL RIGHTS

The first consequential Federal Civil Rights legislation in 85 years was
enacted by Congress on recommendation of the Administration in 1957 and
1960.

A new Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice has already moved
to enforce constitutional rights in such areas as voting and the
elimination of Jim Crow laws.

Greater equality of job opportunity in Federal employment and employment
with Federal contractors has been effectively provided through the
President's Committees on Government Contracts and Government Employment
Practices.

The Civil Rights Commission has undertaken important surveys in the fields
of housing, voting, and education.

Segregation has been abolished in the Armed Forces, in Veterans' Hospitals,
in all Federal employment, and throughout the District of
Columbia--administratively accomplished progress in this field that is
unmatched in America's recent history.

This pioneering work in civil rights must go on. Not only because
discrimination is morally wrong, but also because its impact is more than
national--it is world-wide.

HEALTH AND WELFARE

Federal medical research expenditures have increased more than fourfold
since 1954.

A vast variety of the approaches known to medical science has been explored
to find better methods of treatment and prevention of major diseases,
particularly heart diseases, cancer, and mental illness.

The control of air and water pollution has been greatly strengthened.

Americans now have greater protection against harmful, unclean, or
misrepresented foods, drugs, or cosmetics through a strengthened Food and
Drug Administration and by new legislation which requires that food
additives be proved safe for human consumption before use.

A newly established Federal Radiation Council, along with the Department of
Health, Education, and Welfare, analyzes and coordinates information
regarding radiological activities which affect the public health.

Medical manpower has been increased by Federal grants for teaching and
research.

Construction of new medical facilities has been stepped up and extended to
include nursing homes, diagnostic and treatment centers, and rehabilitation
facilities.

The vocational rehabilitation program has been significantly expanded.
About 90,000 handicapped people are now being rehabilitated annually so
they are again able to earn their own living with self-respect and
dignity.

New legislation provides for better medical care for the needy aged,
including those older persons, who, while otherwise self-sufficient, need
help in meeting their health care costs. The Administration recommended a
major expansion of this effort.

The coverage of the Social Security Act has been broadened since 1953 to
make 11 million additional people eligible for retirement, disability or
survivor benefits for themselves or their dependents, and the Social
Security benefits have been substantially improved.

Grants to the States for maternal and child welfare services have been
increased.

The States, aided by Federal grants, now assist some 6 million needy people
through the programs of Old Age Assistance, Aid to Dependent Children, Aid
to the Blind, and Aid to the Totally and Permanently Disabled.

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

More houses have been built during the past eight years--over nine
million--than during any previous eight years in history.

An historic new approach--Urban Renewal--now replaces piecemeal thrusts at
slum pockets and urban blight. Communities engaged in urban renewal have
doubled and renewal projects have more than tripled since 1953. An
estimated 68 projects in 50 cities will be completed by the end of the
current fiscal year; another 577 projects will be underway, and planning
for 310 more will be in process. A total of $2 billion in Federal grants
will ultimately be required to finance these 955 projects.

New programs have been initiated to provide more and better housing for
elderly people. Approximately 25,000 units especially designed for the
elderly have been built, started, or approved in the past three years.

For the first time, because of Federal help and .encouragement, 90
metropolitan areas and urban regions and 1140 smaller towns throughout the
country are making comprehensive development plans for their future growth
and development.

American communities have been helped to plan water and sanitation systems
and schools through planning advances for 1600 public works projects with a
construction cost of nearly $2 billion.

Mortgage insurance on individual homes has been greatly expanded. During
the past eight years, the Federal Housing Administration alone insured over
21/2 million home mortgages valued at $27 billion, and in addition, insured
more than ten million property improvement loans.

The Federal government must continue to provide leadership in order to make
our cities and communities better places in which to live, work, and raise
families, but without usurping rightful local authority, replacing
individual responsibility, or stifling private initiative.

IMMIGRATION

Over 32,000 victims of Communist tyranny in Hungary were brought to our
shores, and at this time our country is working to assist refugees from
tyranny in Cuba.

Since 1953, the waiting period for naturalization applicants has been
reduced from 18 months to 45 days.

The Administration also has made legislative recommendations to liberalize
existing restrictions upon immigration while still safeguarding the
national interest. It is imperative that our immigration policy be in the
finest American tradition of providing a haven for oppressed peoples and
fully in accord with our obligation as a leader of the free world.

VETERANS

In discharging the nation's obligation to our veterans, during the past
eight years there have been:

The readjustment of World War II veterans was completed, and the five
million Korean conflict veterans were assisted in achieving successful
readjustment to civilian life;

Increases in compensation benefits for all eligible veterans with service
connected disabilities;

Higher non-service connected pension benefits for needy veterans;

Greatly improved benefits to survivors of veterans dying in or as a result
of service;

Authorization, by Presidential directive, of an increase in the number of
beds available for sick and disabled veterans;

Development of a 12-year, $900 million construction program to modernize
and improve our veterans hospitals;

New modern techniques brought into the administration of Veterans Affairs
to provide the highest quality service possible to those who have defended
us.

CONCLUSION

In concluding my final message to the Congress, it is fitting to look back
to my first--to the aims and ideals I set forth on February 2, 1953: To use
America's influence in world affairs to advance the cause of peace and
justice, to conduct the affairs of the Executive Branch with integrity and
efficiency, to encourage creative initiative in our economy, and to work
toward the attainment of the well-being and equality of opportunity of all
citizens.

Equally, we have honored our commitment to pursue and attain specific
objectives. Among them, as stated eight years ago: strengthening of the
mutual security program; development of world trade and commerce; ending of
hostilities in Korea; creation of a powerful deterrent force; practicing
fiscal responsibility; checking the menace of inflation; reducing the tax
burden; providing an effective internal security program; developing and
conserving our natural resources; reducing governmental interference in the
affairs of the farmer; strengthening and improving services by the
Department of Labor, and the vigilant guarding of civil and social fights.

I do not close this message implying that all is well--that all problems
are solved. For progress implies both new and continuing problems and,
unlike Presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

Abroad, there is the continuing Communist threat to the freedom of Berlin,
an explosive situation in Laos, the problems caused by Communist
penetration of Cuba, as well as the many problems connected with the
development of the new nations in Africa. These areas, in particular, call
for delicate handling and constant review.

At home, several conspicuous problems remain: promoting higher levels of
employment, with special emphasis on areas in which heavy unemployment has
persisted; continuing to provide for steady economic growth and preserving
a sound currency; bringing our balance of payments into more reasonable
equilibrium and continuing a high level of confidence in our national and
international systems; eliminating heavily excessive surpluses of a few
farm commodities; and overcoming deficiencies in our health and educational
programs.

Our goal always has been to add to the spiritual, moral, and material
strength of our nation. I believe we have done this. But it is a process
that must never end. Let us pray that leaders of both the near and distant
future will be able to keep the nation strong and at peace, that they will
advance the well-being of all our people, that they will lead us on to
still higher moral standards, and that, in achieving these goals, they will
maintain a reasonable balance between private and governmental
responsibility.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "State of the Union Addresses" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.