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Presidents 2,453 words
The Republican Party successfully promoted the
candidacy of the popular General of the Army in the 1952 election
over the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson. The oath of office
was administered by Chief Justice Frederick Vinson on two
Bibles&emdash;the one used by George Washington at the first
inauguration, and the one General Eisenhower received from his mother
upon his graduation from the Military Academy at West Point. A large
parade followed the ceremony, and inaugural balls were held at the
National Armory and Georgetown University's McDonough Hall.
"MY FRIENDS, before I begin the expression of those
thoughts that I deem appropriate to this moment, would you
permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer
of my own. And I ask that you bow your heads: Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future
associates in the Executive branch of Government join me in
beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our
dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and
their fellow citizens everywhere. Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from
wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed
thereby, and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray
that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of
station, race or calling. May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of
those who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to
differing political faiths; so that all may work for the
good of our beloved country and Thy glory. Amen. My fellow citizens: The world and we have passed the midway point of a
century of continuing challenge. We sense with all our
faculties that forces of good and evil are massed and armed
and opposed as rarely before in history. This fact defines the meaning of this day. We are
summoned by this honored and historic ceremony to witness
more than the act of one citizen swearing his oath of
service, in the presence of God. We are called as a people
to give testimony in the sight of the world to our faith
that the future shall belong to the free. Since this century's beginning, a time of tempest has
seemed to come upon the continents of the earth. Masses of
Asia have awakened to strike off shackles of the past. Great
nations of Europe have fought their bloodiest wars. Thrones
have toppled and their vast empires have disappeared. New
nations have been born. For our own country, it has been a time of recurring
trial. We have grown in power and in responsibility. We have
passed through the anxieties of depression and of war to a
summit unmatched in man's history. Seeking to secure peace
in the world, we have had to fight through the forests of
the Argonne to the shores of Iwo Jima, and to the cold
mountains of Korea. In the swift rush of great events, we find ourselves
groping to know the full sense and meaning of these times in
which we live. In our quest of understanding, we beseech
God's guidance. We summon all our knowledge of the past and
we scan all signs of the future. We bring all our wit and
all our will to meet the question: How far have we come in man's long pilgrimage from
darkness toward the light? Are we nearing the light--a day
of freedom and of peace for all mankind? Or are the shadows
of another night closing in upon us? Great as are the preoccupations absorbing us at home,
concerned as we are with matters that deeply affect our
livelihood today and our vision of the future, each of these
domestic problems is dwarfed by, and often even created by,
this question that involves all humankind. This trial comes at a moment when man's power to achieve
good or to inflict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and
the sharpest fears of all ages. We can turn rivers in their
courses, level mountains to the plains. Oceans and land and
sky are avenues for our colossal commerce. Disease
diminishes and life lengthens. Yet the promise of this life is imperiled by the very
genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth.
Labor sweats to create--and turns out devices to level not
only mountains but also cities. Science seems ready to
confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human
life from this planet. At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim
anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our
fathers. It is our faith in the deathless dignity of man,
governed by eternal moral and natural laws. This faith defines our full view of life. It establishes,
beyond debate, those gifts of the Creator that are man's
inalienable rights, and that make all men equal in His
sight. In the light of this equality, we know that the virtues
most cherished by free people--love of truth, pride of work,
devotion to country--all are treasures equally precious in
the lives of the most humble and of the most exalted. The
men who mine coal and fire furnaces, and balance ledgers,
and turn lathes, and pick cotton, and heal the sick and
plant corn--all serve as proudly and as profitably for
America as the statesmen who draft treaties and the
legislators who enact laws. This faith rules our whole way of life. It decrees that
we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve. It
asserts that we have the right to choice of our own work and
to the reward of our own toil. It inspires the initiative
that makes our productivity the wonder of the world. And it
warns that any man who seeks to deny equality among all his
brothers betrays the spirit of the free and invites the
mockery of the tyrant. It is because we, all of us, hold to these principles
that the political changes accomplished this day do not
imply turbulence, upheaval or disorder. Rather this change
expresses a purpose of strengthening our dedication and
devotion to the precepts of our founding documents, a
conscious renewal of faith in our country and in the
watchfulness of a Divine Providence. The enemies of this faith know no god but force, no
devotion but its use. They tutor men in treason. They feed
upon the hunger of others. Whatever defies them, they
torture, especially the truth. Here, then, is joined no argument between slightly
differing philosophies. This conflict strikes directly at
the faith of our fathers and the lives of our sons. No
principle or treasure that we hold, from the spiritual
knowledge of our free schools and churches to the creative
magic of free labor and capital, nothing lies safely beyond
the reach of this struggle. Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the
dark The faith we hold belongs not to us alone but to the free
of all the world. This common bond binds the grower of rice
in Burma and the planter of wheat in Iowa, the shepherd in
southern Italy and the mountaineer in the Andes. It confers
a common dignity upon the French soldier who dies in
Indo-China, the British soldier killed in Malaya, the
American life given in Korea. We know, beyond this, that we are linked to all free
peoples not merely by a noble idea but by a simple need. No
free people can for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any
safety in economic solitude. For all our own material might,
even we need markets in the world for the surpluses of our
farms and our factories. Equally, we need for these same
farms and factories vital materials and products of distant
lands. This basic law of interdependence, so manifest in the
commerce of peace, applies with thousand-fold intensity in
the event of war. So we are persuaded by necessity and by belief that the
strength of all free peoples lies in unity; their danger, in
discord. To produce this unity, to meet the challenge of our time,
destiny has laid upon our country the responsibility of the
free world's leadership. So it is proper that we assure our friends once again
that, in the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans
know and we observe the difference between world leadership
and imperialism; between firmness and truculence; between a
thoughtfully calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the
stimulus of emergencies. We wish our friends the world over to know this above
all: we face the threat--not with dread and confusion--but
with confidence and conviction. We feel this moral strength because we know that we are
not helpless prisoners of history. We are free men. We shall
remain free, never to be proven guilty of the one capital
offense against freedom, a lack of stanch faith. In pleading our just cause before the bar of history and
in pressing our labor for world peace, we shall be guided by
certain fixed principles. These principles are: 1. Abhorring war as a chosen way to balk the purposes of
those who threaten us, we hold it to be the first task of
statesmanship to develop the strength that will deter the
forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace.
For, as it must be the supreme purpose of all free men, so
it must be the dedication of their leaders, to save humanity
from preying upon itself. In the light of this principle, we stand ready to engage
with any and all others in joint effort to remove the causes
of mutual fear and distrust among nations, so as to make
possible drastic reduction of armaments. The sole requisites
for undertaking such effort are that--in their purpose--they
be aimed logically and honestly toward secure peace for all;
and that--in their result--they provide methods by which
every participating nation will prove good faith in carrying
out its pledge. 2. Realizing that common sense and common decency alike
dictate the futility of appeasement, we shall never try to
placate an aggressor by the false and wicked bargain of
trading honor for security. Americans, indeed, all free men,
remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so
heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains. 3. Knowing that only a United States that is strong and
immensely productive can help defend freedom in our world,
we view our Nation's strength and security as a trust upon
which rests the hope of free men everywhere. It is the firm
duty of each of our free citizens and of every free citizen
everywhere to place the cause of his country before the
comfort, the convenience of himself. 4. Honoring the identity and the special heritage of each
nation in the world, we shall never use our strength to try
to impress upon another people our own cherished political
and economic institutions. 5. Assessing realistically the needs and capacities of
proven friends of freedom, we shall strive to help them to
achieve their own security and well-being. Likewise, we
shall count upon them to assume, within the limits of their
resources, their full and just burdens in the common defense
of freedom. 6. Recognizing economic health as an indispensable basis
of military strength and the free world's peace, we shall
strive to foster everywhere, and to practice ourselves,
policies that courage productivity and profitable trade. For the
impoverishment of any single people in the world means
danger to the well-being of all other peoples. 7. Appreciating that economic need, military security and
political wisdom combine to suggest regional groupings of
free peoples, we hope, within the framework of the United
Nations, to help strengthen such special bonds the world
over. The nature of these ties must vary with the different
problems of different areas. In the Western Hemisphere, we enthusiastically join with
all our neighbors in the work of perfecting a community of
fraternal trust and common purpose. In Europe, we ask that enlightened and inspired leaders
of the Western nations strive with renewed vigor to make the
unity of their peoples a reality. Only as free Europe
unitedly marshals its strength can it effectively safeguard,
even with our help, its spiritual and cultural heritage.
8. Conceiving the defense of freedom, like freedom
itself, to be one and indivisible, we hold all continents
and peoples in equal regard and honor. We reject any
insinuation that one race or another, one people or another,
is in any sense inferior or expendable. 9. Respecting the United Nations as the living sign of
all people's hope for peace, we shall strive to make it not
merely an eloquent symbol but an effective force. And in our
quest for an honorable peace, we shall neither compromise,
nor tire, nor ever cease. By these rules of conduct, we hope to be known to all
peoples. By their observance, an earth of peace may become not a
vision but a fact. This hope--this supreme aspiration--must rule the way we
live. We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history
does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the
timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display
stamina in purpose. We must be willing, individually and as a Nation, to
accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us. A people
that values its privileges above its principles soon loses
both. These basic precepts are not lofty abstractions, far
removed from matters of daily living. They are laws of
spiritual strength that generate and define our material
strength. Patriotism means equipped forces and a prepared
citizenry. Moral stamina means more energy and more
productivity, on the farm and in the factory. Love of
liberty means the guarding of every resource that makes
freedom possible--from the sanctity of our families and the
wealth of our soil to the genius of our scientists. And so each citizen plays an indispensable role. The
productivity of our heads, our hands and our hearts is the
source of all the strength we can command, for both the
enrichment of our lives and the winning of the peace. No person, no home, no community can be beyond the reach
of this call. We are summoned to act in wisdom and in
conscience, to work with industry, to teach with persuasion,
to preach with conviction, to weigh our every deed with care
and with compassion. For this truth must be clear before us:
whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must
first come to pass in the heart of America. The peace we seek, then, is nothing less than the
practice and fulfillment of our whole faith among ourselves
and in our dealings with others. This signifies more than
the stilling of guns, casing the sorrow of war. More than
escape from death, it is a way of life. More than a haven
for the weary, it is a hope for the brave. This is the hope that beckons us onward in this century
of trial. This is the work that awaits us all, to be done
with bravery, with charity, and with prayer to Almighty God.
My citizens--I thank you.
Jan. 20, 1953