We Choose to go to the moon Speech by John F Kennedy

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:
I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.
I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.
We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.
If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.
Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.
Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.
We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.
To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.
The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.
And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.
To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]
However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.
And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
Thank you.

President John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY USA MUST END ITS PAYMENTS DEFICIT by John F Kennedy

speech by John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
delivered before the International Monetary Fund,
Washington, D. C., September 30, 1963

"Mr. Dillon, Gentlemen:

This is the second time that I have had the opportunity to welcome you to Washington and I do so with the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. Yours is a very vital role in the defense of the free world. Your contribution to financial and economic stability among the nations of the world is essential and the results of these efforts will determine in a very large measure whether or how much each nation can use its resources, generous as they are, in the best interests of all of our people.

Since I last met with you, we have suffered the loss of one of the great leaders of the International Monetary Fund, Per Jacobson. He served the fund with skill and dedication and combined a great deal of wisdom with good humor. We will miss him, but the indelible mark that he left upon your work and upon the monetary systems of the world and upon the I.M.F. will continue to guide us. To his successor, Mr. Pierre-Paul Schweitzer, I extend my best wishes as he now guides the fund. We are grateful to France for releasing him for this service. His broad talents and experience equip him admirably for the heavy responsibilities which now press upon him.

I am glad, too, that the World Bank was able to find a talented successor to Mr. Eugene Black. Mr. Black's genius helped give this institution the best reputation any bank or banker can have, a reputation for combining prudence with constructive generosity. I am pleased that Mr. George Woods has been selected to sustain this tradition.

Twenty years ago, when the architects of these institutions met to design an international banking structure, the economic life of the world was polarized in overwhelming, and even alarming measure, on the United States. So were the world's monetary reserves. The United States had the only open capital in the world apart from that of Switzerland. Sixty per cent of the gold reserves of the world were here in the United States. The war-torn nations of Europe and the Far East faced difficult tasks of reconstruction with depleted and inadequate capital resources. There was a need for redistribution of the financial resources of the world and the financial strength of the free world. And there was an equal need to organize a flow of capital to the impoverished and underdeveloped countries of the world.

All this has come about. It did not come about by chance but by conscious and deliberate and responsible planning. Under the Marshall Plan and its successors, liberal assistance was given to the more advanced nations to help restore their industrial plant, and development loans were given to less developed countries. In addition, private American capital was made freely available, and there was a steady liberalization of our trade policies. In this effort, your institution, and more recently a growing number of industrialized countries, have played an increasingly important role. We are now entering upon a new era of economic and financial interdependence. The rise of trading blocs such as the Common Market offers new and greater challenge for trade liberalization. The United States has prepared itself to take advantage of those opportunities by legislation permitting an unprecedented reduction of trade restrictions and trade barriers. Our gold reserves are a healthy but not excessive 40 per cent of the world's holdings.

Largely as a result of these changes, this nation today is engaged in an effort to bring our international accounts into equilibrium, and to maintain the necessary strength behind the dollar. This is not merely, I believe, in our interest. It is in the interest of all those who have placed their faith in the dollar.

To this end we have taken several steps to reduce the drain on our balance of payments. First, we are making a major effort to increase our exports in the flow of trade between the United States and other free nations.

Secondly, we are initiating further savings in our overseas dollar expenditures.

Third, we are seeking to slow down the very rapid increase in overseas demands on our capital markets as well as to retard the outflow of short-term capital resulting from interest rate differential.

Fourth, we intend to maintain stable prices and to increase the attractiveness of investment here in the United States.

We do not seek by precipitous acts to improve our position at the expense of others. We do seek by comprehensive effort, consistent with our international responsibilities, to reduce outflows which are weakening our capacity to serve the world community. In short, every nation in the world has a direct interest, for the dollar is an international currency, and the security of the dollar therefore involves the security of us all.

The operations of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, and the International Developmenit Association all play important roles in this effort. Their techniques to cooperative action and the availability of their resources permit capital to be deployed around the world in the most effective and efficient manner.

In a special message to the Congress on the balance of payments, I announced that the United States had for the first time entered into a stand-by arrangement with the fund. The attendance of all of you at this meeting underscores the extent of world involvement in these institutions and the determination for so many nations to work together for mutual strength. We have been able to do this in so many fields and we have done it, it seems to me, with such success in recent months and years that I am confident that the intimate association will continue to grow and to prosper.

During the past year many of you have cooperated either through the international organizations or through your own central banks in an improved approach to the problems of foreign exchange and gold markets. Credit facilities and reserve-holding techniques have been improved. The international monetary systems met with ease the Cuban crisis last autumn, the strains upon sterling early in 1963, and the evidence that our own payments situation had not developed as well as we hoped in the first half of this year. This performance has benefited every nation, large and small, but success should not, I believe, be an encouragement to inaction. This nation--the United States--must continue its efforts to meet the balance of payments problems now confronting us, and we must all assure ourselves by preparations now that we will be ready to meet the international monetary problems of the future.

I am pleased to learn that studies of these problems and of appropriate measures to deal with them are about to be launched. There is a sharp distinction, however, between long-term questions of international liquidity and the current problems of international imbalance. We do not intend to neglect the latter while pursuing the former.

This Government considers our tax reduction and reform program which has recently been approved by one house of the Congress to be the most important action that Congress can take now to improve our long-range position. It should help attract capital investment, improve our ability to sell goods and services in world markets, stimulate the growth of our economy and the employment of our people, give greater freedom to monetary policy and play a vital supporting role in our determination to achieve equal rights and opportunities for all of our citizens.

In other areas including the interest equalization tax, and other steps that I have noted, and the forthcoming trade negotiations, we are proceeding in our efforts to bring our payments into balance. We are fully aware of the effects of our actions on our friends, but no one should confuse caution with any lack of determination. We are determined to do whatever must be done in the interest of this country and, indeed, in the interest of all to protect the dollar as a convertible currency at its current fixed rate.

We are determined--and--I believe in your interests as well as our own--to maintain the firm relationship of gold and the dollar at the present price of $35 an ounce, and I can assure you will do just that.

We recognize that the reserve position of other countries is a mirror image of our own; and as the United States moves toward equilibrium, it will be more difficult for others to increase their reserves. Some nations will be more handicapped than others, but no nation should be forced to make drastic alterations in its domestic and trading policy because of shortrun movements in its reserve position. The United States therefore, stands ready to support such measures as may be necessary to increase international liquidity.

Patience will be required in working out these matters. The balance of payments is not a problem to be cured by a single all-purpose medicine. Each country is challenged to find the appropriate blend of fiscal, monetary, trade and other policies that will enable interest to play its proper role in sustaining, rather than straining the system of international payments. But patience is not the enemy of progress, and I think the last 20 years have provided impressive proof of the benefits of international financial cooperation. We are linked so closely together; our economies are tied so intimately. It is so essential that all of our people benefit and prosper that I am confident that you gentlemen who occupy a position of high responsibility can maintain our system so that we remain its master. For us to move in an opposite direction, of course, would be not only distressing but inimical to our common interest.

The men who gathered at Bretton Woods 20 years ago were criticized by those who said that no institutions were needed and those who said nothing useful could be done. Their effort and the success which crowned it are a warning both against pessimism and excessive self-satisfaction.

Today we all believe in the achievements of intelligent cooperation; and under the wise and imaginative leadership of the governors here assembled, I feel sure this cooperation can be enlarged and extended. There is no more important group, it seems to me, in the free world than you gentlemen who are here; no group it seems to me bears greater responsibility. If you are able to conduct your affairs with success, it benefits all of the people all around the globe and, therefore we regard this meeting as perhaps the most important that takes place in our Capital this year. Your success will make possible all of the great efforts of the free world which made such an astonishing and, I think, dazzling effect upon international relations and the security of the West. Our role, therefore, I regard as essential, and we believe in the achievements of a determined and intelligent cooperation which will benefit all of our people.

I look forward in the years ahead to continued progress, to continued gain, to continued expansion toward the goal of economic health for all nations, for this goal --second in urgency to the quest for peace, only to the necessity of peace-- is surely indispensable to the free world.

Ladies and gentlemen, I greet you with great satisfaction and we wait on your deliberations with great hope and confidence.

Thank you."

Remarks at the U.S. Naval Academy President John F. Kennedy

Annapolis, Maryland
August 1, 1963


NOTE: The President spoke in the early evening at Bancroft Hall at a ceremony honoring the new class of midshipmen. His opening word "Admiral" referred to Adm. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Superintendent of the Naval Academy. The President made minor departures in delivering these remarks. This text is from The Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1963.

Admiral, officers, members of the Brigade: I hope you will stand at ease. Perhaps the plebes will. Did you explain that to them? That comes later in the course.

I want to express our very strong appreciation to all those of you in the plebe class who have come into the Navy. I hope that you realize how great is the dependence of our country upon the men who serve in our Armed Forces. I sometimes think that the people of this country do not appreciate how secure we are because of the devotion of the men and their wives and children who serve this country in far off places, in the sea, in the air, and on the ground, thousands and thousands of miles away from this country, who make it possible for us all to live in peace each day.

This country owes the greatest debt to our servicemen. In time of war, of course, there is a tremendous enthusiasm and outburst of popular feeling about those who fight and lead our wars, but it is sometimes different in peace. But I can assure the people of this country, from my own personal experience in the last 2 1/2 years, that more than anything, more than anything, the fact that this country is secure and at peace, the fact that dozens of countries allied with us are free and at peace, has been due to the military strength of the United States. And that strength has been directly due to the men who serve in our Armed Forces. So even though it may be at peace, in fact most especially because it is at peace, I take this opportunity to express our appreciation to all of them whether they are here at Annapolis, or whether they are out of sight of land, or underneath the sea.

I want to express our strong hope that all of you who have come to the Academy as plebes will stay with the Navy. I can think of no more rewarding a career. You will have a chance in the next 10, 20, and 30 years to serve the cause of freedom and your country all over the globe, to hold positions of the highest responsibility, to recognize that upon your good judgment in many cases may well rest not only the well-being of the men with whom you serve, but also in a very real sense the security of your country.

I can imagine a no more rewarding career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worth while, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: "I served in the United States Navy." So I congratulate you all. This is a hard job, particularly now as you make the change, but I think it develops in you those qualities which we like to see in our country, which we take pride in. I am sure you are going to stay with it. I am sure you are going to be able, by what you are now going through, to find the means to command others.

So I express our very best wishes to you and tell you that though you will be serving in the Navy in the days when most of those who hold public office have long gone from it, I can assure you in 1963 that your services are needed, that your opportunities are unlimited, and that if I were a young man in 1963 I can imagine no place to be better than right here at this Academy, or at West Point, or in the Air Force, or in some other place beginning a career of service to the United States.

There is an old story-which I will close with which will give you very valuable advice as you follow a naval career-about a young yeoman who watched a lieutenant begin a meteoric career in the Navy, and he always used to go into his office every morning and go to his drawer and take out a piece of paper and look at it. He became the youngest captain, the youngest admiral, the youngest commander-in-chief. Finally one day he had a heart attack. The yeoman said, "I want to see what is in that paper. It might help me." So he went over and opened up the safe and pulled out the paper. And it said, "Left-port; right-starboard."

If you can remember that, your careers are assured!

Thank you

Independence Day Speech 1946 John F Kennedy

Mr. Mayor; Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

We stand today in the shadow of history.

We gather here in the very Cradle of Liberty.

It is an honor and a pleasure to be the speaker of the day--an honor because of the long and distinguished list of noted orators who have preceded me on this platform, a pleasure because one of that honored list who stood here fifty years ago, and who is with us here today, is my grandfather.

It has been the custom for the speaker of the day to link his thoughts across the years to certain classic ideals of the early American tradition. I shall do the same. I propose today to discuss certain elements of the American character which have made this nation great. It is well for us to recall them today, for this is a day of recollection and a day of hope.

A nation's character, like that of an individual, is elusive. It is produced partly by things we have done and partly by what has been done to us. It is the result of physical factors, intellectual factors, spiritual factors.

It is well for us to consider our American character, for in peace, as in war, we will survive or fail according to its measure.

RELIGIOUS ELEMENT

Our deep religious sense is the first element of the American character which I would discuss this morning.

The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense.

Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American thought and action.

Our government was founded on the essential religious idea of integrity of the individual. It was this religious sense which inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."
Our earliest legislation was inspired by this deep religious sense:

"Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion."
Our first leader, Washington, was inspired by this deep religious sense:

"Of all of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
Lincoln was inspired by this deep religious sense:

"That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Our late, lamented President was inspired by this deep religious sense:

"We shall win this war, and in victory we shall seek not vengeance, but the establishment of an international order in which the spirit of Christ shall rule the hearts of men and nations."
Thus we see that this nation has ever been inspired by essential religious ideas. The doctrine of slavery which challenged these ideas within our own country was destroyed.

Recently, the philosophy of racism, which threatened to overwhelm them by attacks from abroad, was also met and destroyed.

Today these basic religious ideas are challenged by atheism and materialism: at home in the cynical philosophy of many of our intellectuals, abroad in the doctrine of collectivism, which sets up the twin pillars of atheism and materialism as the official philosophical establishment of the State.

Inspired by a deeply religious sense, this country, which has ever been devoted to the dignity of man, which has ever fostered the growth of the human spirit, has always met and hurled back the challenge of those deathly philosophies of hate and despair. We have defeated them in the past; we will always defeat them.

How well, then, has DeTocqueville said: "You may talk of the people and their majesty, but where there is no respect for God can there be much for man? You may talk of the supremacy of the ballot, respect for order, denounce riot, secession--unless religion is the first link, all is vain."

IDEALISTIC ELEMENT

Another element in the American character that I would bring to your attention this morning is the idealism of our native people--stemming from the strong religious beliefs of the first colonists, developed as they worked the land.

This idealism, this fixed regard for principle, has been an element of the American character from the birth of this nation to the present day.

In recent years, the existence of this element in the American character has been challenged by those who seek to give an economic interpretation to American history. They seek to destroy our faith in our past so that they may guide our future. These cynics are wrong, for, while there may be some truth in their interpretation, it does remain a fact, and a most important one, that the motivating force of the American people has been their belief that they have always stood at the barricades by the side of God.

In Revolutionary times, the cry "No taxation without representation" was not an economic complaint. Rather, it was directly traceable to the eminently fair and just principle that no sovereign power has the right to govern without the consent of the governed. Anything short of that was tyranny. It was against this tyranny that the colonists "fired the shot heard 'round the world."

This belief in principle was expressed most impressively by George Washington at the Constitutional Convention in 1783. "It is probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair, the event is in the hands of God."

This idealism, this conviction that our eyes had seen the glory of the Lord -that right was right and wrong was wrong-finally led to the ultimate clash at Bull Run and the long red years of the war between the States.

Again, the cynics may apply the economic interpretation to this conflict: the industrial North against the agricultural South; the struggle of the two economies. Say what they will, it is an undeniable fact that the Northern Army of Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were inspired by devotion to principle: on the one hand, the right of secession; on the other, the belief that the "Union must be preserved."

In 1917, this element of the American character was stimulated by the slogans "War to End War" and "A War to Save Democracy," and again the American people had as their leader a man, Woodrow Wilson, whose idealism was the traditional idealism of America. To such a degree was this true that he was able to say, "Some people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world."

It is perhaps true that the American intervention in 1917 might have been more effective if the case for American intervention had been represented on less moralistic terms. As it was, the American people eventually came to look upon themselves as giving food and guns to a general cause in which all other people had material ends and in which they alone had moral ends.

The idealism with which we had entered the battle made the subsequent disillusionment all the more bitter and revealed a dangerous facet to this element of the American character, for this bitterness, a direct result of our inflated hopes, brought a radical change in our foreign policy and a resulting withdrawal from Europe. We failed to make the adjustment between what we had hoped to win and what we actually could win. Our idealism was too strong. We would not compromise.

And thus we brought to our shoulders much of the burden of the responsibility for World War II--a burden which we would not then acknowledge but for which we have paid full price in recent years on distant shores, on faraway fields and valleys and hills, on pieces of foreign soil which will be forever ours.

It was perhaps because of this failure that the second world war never did become a crusade as did the first.

Our idealism had become tarnished, but extraordinary efforts were made to evoke it, and it is indubitably true that the great majority of Americans had strong convictions as to which side spoke for the right before our entry into the war.

It is now in the postwar world that this idealism--this devotion to principle--this belief in the natural law--this deep religious conviction that this is truly God's country and we are truly God's people--will meet its greatest trial.

Our American idealism finds itself faced by the old-world doctrine of power politics. It is meeting with successive rebuffs, and all this may result in a new and even more bitter disillusionment, in another ignominious retreat from our world destiny.

But, if we remain faithful to the American tradition, our idealism will be a steadfast thing, a constant flame, a torch held aloft for the guidance of other nations.

It will take great faith.

Our idealism, the second element of the American character, is being severely tested. Now, only time will tell whether this element of the American character will be true to its historic tradition.

PATRIOTIC ELEMENT

The third element of the American character that I would bring to your attention this morning is the great patriotic instinct of our people.

From our pioneer days, perhaps because we were a people who developed from a beachhead on a tremendous continent, this American patriotism has always had as its core a strange and almost mystical love of the land.

Early in our history we acquired, as James Truslow Adams has pointed out, "a sense of unlimited energy face to face with unlimited resources."

Land, land, land, stretching with incredible richness across half a world. Its sheer vastness has made it a challenge to the American spirit. The endless land stretching to, the western sun caught the imagination of men who founded this nation and awakened the patriotic spirit that has become a characteristic of the American people.

In the words of America's poet, Walt Whitman, we note this deep sense of the land:

"Land of the pastoral plains, the grass-field of the world, land of those sweet-air'd interminable plateaus!
Land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of adobe!
Land where the northwest Columbia winds, and where the southwest Colorado winds!
Land of the eastern Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!
Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan! Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land! Land of Vermont and Connecticut!
Land of the ocean shores! Land of sierras and peaks!
Land of boatmen and sailors! Fishermen's land!"
This preoccupation with the land records itself in the catalogue of the colonists' grievances against George III. It has always been reflected in the highest moments of our patriotism, for, throughout the years, in the early days here at home and in recent years abroad, Americans have been ever ready to defend this native land.

From the birth of the nation to the present day, from the Heights of Dorchester to the broad meadows of Virginia, from Bunker Hill to the batteries of Saratoga, from Bergen's Neck, where Wayne and Maylan's troops achieved such martial wonders, to Yorktown, where Britain's troops surrendered, Americans have heroically embraced the soldier's alternative of victory or the grave. American patriotism was shown at the Halls of Montezuma. It was shown with Meade at Gettysburg, with Sheridan at Winchester, with Phil Carney at Fair Oaks, with Longstreet in the Wilderness, and it was shown by the flower of the Virginia Army when Pickett charged at Gettysburg. It was shown by Captain Rowan, who plunged into the jungles of Cuba and delivered the famous message to Garcia, symbol now of tenacity and determination. It was shown by the Fifth and Sixth Marines at Belleau Wood, by the Yankee Division at Verdun, by Captain Leahy, whose last order as he lay dying was "The command is forward." And in recent years it was shown by those who stood at Bataan with Wainwright, by those who fought at Wake Island with Devereaux, who flew in the air with Don Gentile. It was shown by those who jumped with Gavin, by those who stormed the bloody beaches at Salerno with Commando Kelly; it was shown by the First Division at Omaha Beach, by the Second Ranger Battalion as it crossed the Purple Heart Valley, by the 101st as it stood at Bastogne; it was shown at the Bulge, at the Rhine, and at victory.

Wherever freedom has been in danger, Americans with a deep sense of patriotism have ever been willing to stand at Armageddon and strike a blow for liberty and the Lord.

INDIVIDUALISTIC ELEMENT

The American character has been not only religious, idealistic, and patriotic, but because of these it has been essentially individual.

The right of the individual against the State has ever been one of our most cherished political principles.

The American Constitution has set down for all men to see the essentially Christian and American principle that there are certain rights held by every man which no government and no majority, however powerful, can deny.

Conceived in Grecian thought, strengthened by Christian morality, and stamped indelibly into American political philosophy, the right of the individual against the State is the keystone of our Constitution. Each man is free.

He is free in thought.

He is free in expression.

He is free in worship.

To us, who have been reared in the American tradition, these rights have become part of our very being. They have become so much a part of our being that most of us are prone to feel that they are rights universally recognized and universally exercised. But the sad fact is that this is not true. They were dearly won for us only a few short centuries ago and they were dearly preserved for us in the days just past. And there are large sections of the world today where these rights are denied as a matter of philosophy and as a matter of government.

We cannot assume that the struggle is ended. It is never-ending.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It was the price yesterday. It is the price today, and it will ever be the price.

The characteristics of the American people have ever been a deep sense of religion, a deep sense of idealism, a deep sense of patriotism, and a deep sense of individualism.

Let us not blink the fact that the days which lie ahead of us are bitter ones.

May God grant that, at some distant date, on this day, and on this platform, the orator may be able to say that these are still the great qualities of the American character and that they have prevailed.

Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy

Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy
Washington, D.C.
January 20, 1961

Listen to this speech

Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens:

We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom--symbolizing an end as well as a beginning--signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge--and more.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do--for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge--to convert our good words into good deeds--in a new alliance for progress--to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support--to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective--to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak--and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course--both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.

So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms--and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah--to "undo the heavy burdens . . . (and) let the oppressed go free."

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

Now the trumpet summons us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need--not as a call to battle, though embattled we are-- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"--a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.