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Public Papers of the Presidents → Global Index  → Works Index
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1929-.
Chronological compilation of the public papers and speeches of the presidents, available online at The American Presidency Project.
Dwight D. Eisenhower:
1"Inaugural Address (January 20, 1953)":
→ 149.6-11    → 149.12-16,18-20    → 150.1-5    → 150.16-17    → 150.19-20    → 150.21-22    → 150.34    → 151.14-24    → 151.26-28,31,34-35    → 151.39-42    → 152.41-153.6    → 153.15    → 153.34-35    → 154.5-7    → 154.31-32    → 155.12-13    → 155.39-40    → 156.8-10
5"Remarks Recorded for the American Legion 'Back to God' Program" (February 1, 1953):
→ 154.20-22,25-26    → 155.27-30
6"Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union" (February 2, 1953):
→ 152.34-38
8"Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership" (February 5, 1953):
→ 150.37-151.3    → 155.31-38    → 156.1-4,6-7
21"Statement by the President on the Occasion of the Swearing In of Val Peterson..." (March 4, 1953):
→ 152.5-7
22"The President's News Conference" (March 5, 1953):
→ 150.6-10    → 153.28-33
29"Remarks to the Members of the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association" (March 14, 1953):
→ 150.35    → 151.11-13    → 153.16-23
37"The President's News Conference" (March 26, 1953):
→ 156.11
45"Remarks at a Meeting of United Defense Fund Organization" (April 7, 1953):
→ Epigraph
48"Address Before the Council of the Organization of American States" (April 12, 1953):
→ 150.16,18    → 150.27-29    → 151.29-30,32-33,35-36    → 152.28-31    → 153.10-12    → 153.24-27    → 153.39-40    → 154.37-38
50"Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors" (April 16, 1953):
→ 149.4-5    → 149.17    → 151.37-38    → 152.1-4    → 152.8-10    → 152.11-13    → 153.14    → 153.40-41    → 154.26-27    → 155.25-26
69"Address at the New York Republican State Committee Dinner..." (May 7, 1953):
→ 150.36-37    → 153.36-38   → 153.41-154.2    → 154.8-14
77"The President's News Conference" (May 14, 1953):
→ 153.13
78"Remarks at the House of Burgesses, Williamsburg, Virginia" (May 15, 1953):
→ 151.4-10
79"Address at the Inauguration of the 22nd President of the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg (May 15, 1953)":
→ 154.15-18   → 154.28-30    → 154.33-34    → 154.35-36   → 155.14-17    → 156.5
82"Radio Address to the American People on the National Security and Its Costs" (May 19, 1953):
→ 149.1-4    → 150.13-15    → 151.37    → 152.13-27    → 152.39    → 154.3-4    → 155.1-11
95"Television Report to the American People by the President and Members of the Cabinet" (June 7, 1953):
→ 156.12-13
96"Letter to President Syngman Rhee of Korea, Concerning Acceptance of the Panmunjom Armistice" (June 7, 1953):
→ 153.7-9
98"Address at the Annual Convention of the National Junior Chamber of Commerce..." (June 10, 1953):
→ 150.23-26    → 152.40    → 155.18-24
101"Address at the Annual Convention of the National Young Republican Organization..." (June 11, 1953):
→ 150.30-33    → 151.25
109"The President's News Conference" (June 17, 1953):
→ 150.11-12    → 152.32-33
112"Statement by the President on the Prevention of Forest Fires" (June 18, 1953):
→ 154.22-24
January 20, 1953, "1 - Inaugural Address":    CUT UP: 152.41-153.6 [italics]
[... ...]
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 [G]good and [E]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. W[w]e 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. G[g]reat nations of Europe have fought their bloodiest wars[; ]. T[t]hrones 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?
[...]
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.

A[a]t 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 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[;]. T[t]hey tutor men in treason[;]. T[t]hey feed upon the hunger of others. W[w]hatever 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 [joins]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[c]-China, the British soldier killed in Malaya, the American life given in Korea.
[... ...]
We feel this moral strength because we know that we are not helpless prisoners of history. W[w]e are free men. W[w]e shall remain free, never to be proven guilty of the one capital offense against freedom, a lack of stanch faith.
[... ...]
Realizing that common sense and common decency alike dictate the futility of appeasement, [W]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.
[... ...]
W[w]e must be ready to dare all for our country[!]. For [H]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.
[... ...]
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: [W]whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America;.
T[t]he 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.
[...]

February 1, 1953, "5 - Remarks Recorded for the American Legion 'Back to God' Program":
My grateful thanks go out to each of you for your prayers, because your prayers for divine guidance on my behalf are the greatest gift you could possibly bring to me.
As your prayers come from your hearts, so there comes from mine a very earnest one – that all of us by our combined dedication and devotion may merit the great blessings that T[t]he Almighty has brought to this land of ours[!].
We think often of these blessings in terms of material values-of broad acres, our great factories – all of those things which make a life a more convenient and finer thing in the material sense. But when we think about the matter very deeply, we know that the blessings that we are really thankful for are a different type. They are what our forefathers called our rights – our human rights – the right to worship as we please, to speak and to think, and to earn, and to save. Those are the rights that we must strive so mightily to merit.
One reason that we cherish these rights so sincerely is because they are God-given. T[t]hey belong to the people who have been created in His image[:].

[... ...]

February 2, 1953, "6 - Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union":
[... ...]
This war is, for Americans, the most painful phase of Communist aggression throughout the world. I[i]t 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.
[... ...]

February 5, 1953, "8 - Remarks at the Dedicatory Prayer Breakfast of the International Christian Leadership":    CUT UP: 155.31-38 [italics]
[... ...]
First, there is a need we all have in these days and times for some help which comes from outside ourselves as we face the multitude of problems that are part of this confusing situation. I do not mean merely help for your leaders or the people in Congress, in the Cabinet and others in authority, because these problems are part of all of us. They face each one of us because we are a free country. Each of us realizes that he has responsibilities that are equal to his privileges and to his rights.
[... ...]
[w]When we came to that turning point in history, when we intended to establish a government for free men and a Declaration and Constitution to make it last, in order to explain such a system we had to say: "We hold that all men are endowed by their Creator."
In one sentence we established that every free government is imbedded soundly in a deeply-felt religious faith or it makes no sense. Today if we recall those things and if, in that sense, we can back off from our problems and depend upon a [P]power greater than ourselves, I believe that we begin to draw these problems into focus.
As Benjamin Franklin said at one time during the course of the stormy consultation at the Constitutional Convention, because he sensed that the convention was on the point of breaking up: "Gentlemen, I suggest that we have a word of prayer." And strangely enough, after a bit of prayer the problems began to smooth out and the convention moved to the great triumph that we enjoy today – the writing of our Constitution.
Today I think that prayer is just simply a necessity, because by prayer I believe we mean an effort to get in touch with the Infinite. We know that even our prayers are imperfect. Even our supplications are imperfect. Of course they are. We are imperfect human beings. But if we can back off from those problems and make the effort, then there is something that ties us all together.
We have begun in our grasp of that basis of understanding, which is that all free government is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious faith[:].
[...]
I think my little message this morning is merely this: I have the profound belief that if we remind ourselves once in a while of this simple basic truth that our forefathers in 1776 understood so well, we can hold up our heads and be certain that we in our time are going to be able to preserve the essentials, to preserve as a free government and pass it on, in our turn, as sound, as strong, as good as ever. That, it seems to me, is the prayer that all of us have today[:].
[...]

March 4, 1953, "21 - Statement by the President on the Occasion of the Swearing In of Val Peterson as Administrator, Federal Civil Defense Administration":
The task of civil defense is vital to our national life. It demands a preparedness that can do more than limit the damage of a wartime disaster. It means developing a preparedness, a vigilance, so impressive as to deter aggression itself.
Here – as throughout our national policy – [W]we must act from a lesson learned at terrible cost. That lesson is: to serve our reasoned hope for the best, we must be ready steadfastly to meet the worst.
[... ...]

March 5, 1953, "22 - The President's News Conference":    CUT UP: 153.28-33 [italics]
[... ...]
Q. Meriman Smith, United Press: Mr. President, in view of what seems to be an inevitable change in Russian leadership, do you think that such a change will worsen or improve the anti-Semitic situation which Russia seems responsible for now?
[... ...] Now, as to exactly what effect this change will have on that, Mr. Smith, I am just not prepared to say. But certainly, we can hope for the best. And [Y]you are even puzzled as to whether it is wise to say anything, because anything that one in my position might say could be used as an excuse to make these conditions worse. So it comes down to it that it is a part, again, of this whole world effort that we are making, and which is going to be successful only as ll America – indeed, all the free world – keeps its heart right into the job.
[... ...]
Q. Arthur Sylvester, Newark News: Mr. President, do you, by considering Iran an internal problem, relinquish the initiative to the Russian Communists operating through the Tudeh Party?
Very naturally--we are represented there. W[w]e do every single thing we can to protect the interests of the United States everywhere on the globe,
including Iran. What I meant was, that it is not proper for me here to comment on things that are internal and which could be properly resented. But [M]make no mistake: the reason we have representatives around the world is to protect American interests wherever they may be endangered or in difficulties.[;]
[... ...]

March 14, 1953, "29 - Remarks to the Members of the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association":
[...]
I have found, in the past few years, that I have certain philosophical bonds with doctors. I don't like the word "compulsory."[;] I am against the word "socialized."[;] E[e]verything about such words seems to me to be a step toward the thing that we are spending so many billions to prevent; that is, [—]the overwhelming of this country by any force, power, or idea that leads us to forsake our traditional system of free enterprise.
Now, that is the doctrine of the administration. It is most certainly the doctrine of the Republican Party and those Republican leaders in Congress. They are here to speak for themselves, but I am sure they will allow me that one word. W[w]e live by it, and we intend to practice it.
[... ...]

March 26, 1953, "37 - The President's News Conference":
[... ...]
I can only say this: in my brief but rather intensive career in the civil service of government, I have encouraged young men to go into it. I believe in them. I think they should go into it, and I believe if we are going to have fine, splendid operation of our form of government here, we have to get young men into it.
Now, we are going to have, in a government such as ours, often the kind of thing that Senator Lehman seemed to be criticizing. People have to "take it" and go on and do the best they can for the United States of America. That is the way I see it.
[... ...]

April 7, 1953, "45 - Remarks at a Meeting of the United Defense Fund Organization":
[...]
I did not come over this morning in the role of a professor to give you a lecture. I did not come to tell you things that you know as well as I. Certainly I did not come in any effort to inspire. Your presence here, and the work that you are now doing as a service to your country, is evidence enough of the inspiration that you carry, each of you, within your own heart.
[... ...]

April 12, 1953, "48 - Address Before the Council of the Organization of American States":    CUT UP: 153.24-27 [italics]
[... ...]
The vitality of this unity springs, first of all, from our common acceptance of basic moral and juridical principles. But it is inspired no less by our recognition of the rights of each of our nations, under these principles, to perfect its own individual life and culture. Ours is no compulsory unity of institutions. Ours is a unity that welcomes the diversity, the initiative and the imagination that make our common association progressive and alive. T[t]his is the true way of the Americas – the free way – by which people are bound together for the common good.
I know that these facts, these simple ideals, are not new[;]. But they are given a new, a sharp meaning, by the nature of the tension tormenting our whole world. For it is not possible for this hemisphere to seek security or salvation in any kind of splendid isolation.
The forces threatening this continent strike at the very ideals by which our peoples live[!]. These forces seek to bind nations not by trust but by fear. They seek to promote, among those of us who remain free and unafraid, the deadliest divisions[:] class against class, people against people, nation against nation. [t]They seek not to eradicate poverty and its causes but to exploit it and those who suffer it.
Against these forces the widest oceans offer no sure defense.
The seeds of hate and of distrust can be born on winds that heed no frontier or shore.
O[o]ur defense, our only defense, is in our own spirit and our own will[!]. We who are all young nations, in whom the pioneering spirit is still vitally alive, need neither to fear the future nor be satisfied with the present. In our spiritual, cultural and material life, in all that concerns our daily bread and our daily learning, we do and should seek an ever better world.

[... ...]
Private investment has been the major stimulus for economic development throughout this hemisphere[;]. Beyond this, the United States government is today engaged with our sister republics in important efforts to increase agricultural productivity, improve health conditions, encourage new industries, extend transportation facilities, and develop new sources of power.
[... ...]
We are Christian nations, deeply conscious that the foundation of all liberty is religious faith[:].
U[u]pon all our peoples and nations there rests, with equal weight, a responsibility to serve worthily the faith we hold and the freedom we cherish to combat demagoguery with truth, to destroy prejudice with understanding and, above all, to thwart our common enemies by our fervent dedication to our common cause.
[...]

April 16, 1953, "50 - Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors.":
In this spring of 1953 the free world weighs one question above all others: the chance for a just peace for all peoples.
To weigh this chance is to summon instantly to mind another recent moment of great decision. It came with that yet more hopeful spring of 1945, bright with the promise of victory and of freedom. The hope of all just men in that moment too was a just and lasting peace.
The 8 years that have passed have seen that hope waver, grow dim, and almost die. And [T]the shadow of fear again has darkly lengthened across the world.
[... ...]
It instilled in the free nations – and [L]let none doubt this: – the unshakable conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war[!].
It inspired them--and let none doubt this --to attain a unity of purpose and will beyond the power of propaganda or pressure to break, now or ever.
[...]
The free nations, most solemnly and repeatedly, have assured the Soviet Union that their firm association has never had any aggressive purpose whatsoever. Soviet leaders, however, have seemed to persuade themselves, or tried to persuade their people, otherwise.
And so it has come to pass that the Soviet Union itself has shared and suffered the very fears it has fostered in the rest of the world.
This has been the way of life forged by 8 years of fear and force.
What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?
The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated[:].
The worst is atomic war[ . . .].
[t]The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension[.];
a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
[... ...]
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace.
It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty.
It calls upon them to answer the question that stirs the hearts of all sane men: is there no other way the world may live?
[... ...]
The peace we seek, [f]ounded upon decent trust and cooperative effort among nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat and by timber and by rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth. These are needs that challenge this world in arms.
T[t]his idea of a just and peaceful world is not new or strange to us. It inspired the people of the United States to initiate the European Recovery Program in 1947. That program was prepared to treat, with like and equal concern, the needs of Eastern and Western Europe.
[... ...]
We are ready, in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world.
We are ready, by these and all such actions, to make of the United Nations an institution that can effectively guard the peace and security of all peoples.
I know of nothing I can add to make plainer the sincere purpose of the United States.
[... ...]
If we strive but fail and [T]the world[,] remains armed against itself, it at least[,] need be divided no longer in its clear knowledge of who has condemned humankind to this fate.
[... ...]

May 7, 1953, "69 - Address at the New York Republican State Committee Dinner, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City":
[... ...]
Now, along with this, if it is to be durable, we must create conditions in which freedom can survive, and thrive. If we allow any section of the world that is vital to us, because of what it provides us, through trade – say, manganese, or uranium, or cobalt – anything that we need, or if we allow any of those areas either to become so impoverished it cannot produce the things we need, or if we allow it to fall to a form of government inimical to us, that wants to see freedom abolished from the earth, then we have trouble indeed[!].
It is on such simple facts as these, ladies and gentlemen, that your foreign policy is [f]ounded and established and maintained. There is nothing mysterious about it. A[a]ll of this springs from the enlightened self-interest of the United States of America. But it does, fortunately for us, lead us into fields in which our whole moral cells approve of the actions that we take for collective security, strength and health. And so we have the satisfaction of approval of our own conscience, as we proceed along this direction. [... ...]
Which brings me to say that this group of men and women working for you are acutely aware of one basic fact. It is this: free government is founded primarily in a deeply-felt religious faith. I think that is not hard to prove in the case of America[:]. Our own founders, you will recall, in their Declaration, thought it necessary to explain to the world the reason for this new form of government, on what it was based, its nature, its character. They said, you will remember, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind impels them to declare the reasons which led to the separation. And then, they said, "We hold that all men are endowed by their Creator." They did not try to say that these rights came about because people had moved to the shores of America. They said "are endowed by their Creator," because they knew no other simple, direct and positive way to explain this new form of government.
[... ...]

May 14, 1953, "77 - The President's News Conference":
[... ...]
Finally, the basic problem of how do you preserve an independent life at the same time that some of the measures that you are forced to adopt would tend to lead you toward a garrison state? We don't want to become a garrison state. We want to remain free. Our plans, our programs, therefore, must conform to the practices of a free people, which means essentially a free economy. That is the problem that, frankly, this administration meets on, discusses, works on, every day of its life. There is no easy problem.
[... ...]

May 15, 1953, "78 - Remarks at the House of Burgesses, Williamsburg, Virginia":
[...]
One hundred and seventy-seven years in some countries, in some histories, is only a moment. With us it is still a very measurable length of time. And 177 years ago Virginians, seeing that it was hopeless to gain through conflict their rights as British citizens, decided the time had come to declare their independence. And in the later version of that Declaration, you will recall that Jefferson wrote: "We hold that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," thus establishing once and for all that our civilization and our form of government is deeply imbedded in a religious faith.
Indeed, those men felt that unless we recognized that relationship between our form of government and religious faith, that form of government made no sense[!].
Because, remember, they were trying to explain this form of government to mankind, because they started out that Declaration by saying, "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
[... ...]

May 15, 1953, "79 - Address at the Inauguration of the 22nd President of the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg":
[... ...] I want to pay a tribute to President Chandler, a man who, forsaking a life-long and honorable record in the armed services, has shown by his acceptance of this new responsibility that he well recognizes that there is no security for a free nation in the sword alone[.], that [S]security must spring from the hearts and minds of free men. And he has shown, in his acceptance of this responsibility and this opportunity, that he appreciates that fact.
[... ...]
I[i]f we understand, then we won't have [C]communism. It may be necessary today, and [I]it is necessary, that we earnestly seek out and uproot any traces of communism at any place where it can affect our national life[,]. But the true way to uproot [C]communism in this country is to understand what freedom means, and thus develop such an impregnable wall, that no thought of [C]communism can enter[;]. In other words, if I may state it in an utterly simple way, I believe this: the true purpose of education is to prepare young men and women for effective citizenship in a free form of government.
If we can do that, we will have accomplished and included all of the techniques and the sciences, disciplines, because they will all be necessary in our security and in our advancement.
But above all, [I]in that way only, I believe, can we permanently aspire to remain a free, independent and powerful people, living humbly under our God. Thank you.

May 19, 1953, "82 - Radio Address to the American People on the National Security and Its Costs":    CUT UP: 152.13-27 [italics]
Tonight, as you sit in your homes all across this broad land, I want to talk [to]with you about an issue affecting all our lives. It is the defense of our country, and its cost.
If we ponder this a moment, we all know that this really means the defense of those spiritual values and moral ideals cherished by generations of Americans – the true treasure of our people[; t]. This treasure of the spirit must be defended, above all, with weapons of the spirit: our patriotism, our devotion, our readiness to sacrifice.
If we think further, we also know that this defense of America demands still other weapons. We must, of course, want to be free. But this is not enough. T[t]o be free and to stay free, we must be strong – and we must stay strong!.
[... ...]
W[w]e all know something of the long record of deliberately planned Communist aggression[!]. There has been, to this moment, no reason to believe that Soviet policy has changed its frequently announced hope and purpose – the destruction of freedom everywhere[!].
There is, therefore, no reason for the free nations to alter their course: to hope and work for the best, to arm and be ready for the worst.
We must see, clearly and steadily, just exactly what is the danger before us.[: i]It is more than merely a military threat.
It has been coldly calculated by the Soviet leaders, for by their military threat they have hoped to force upon America and the free world an unbearable security burden leading to economic disaster[!]. They have plainly said that free people cannot preserve their way of life and at the same time provide enormous military establishments[—]. Communist guns, in this sense, have been aiming at an economic target no less than a military target[:].
[... ...]
The truth is that our danger cannot be fixed or confined to one specific instant. We live in [a time]an age of peril.
[...]
To watch vigilantly on the military front must never mean to be blind on the domestic front. In our present world--in this kind of prolonged tension and struggle--a crippled industry or a demoralized working force could be the equivalent of a lost battle.
P[p]rolonged inflation could be as destructive of a truly free economy as could a chemical attack against an army in the field[!]. If, in today's continuing danger, we were to strain our capacity until rigid governmental controls, indefinitely or permanently continued, became mandatory--where then would be the freedom we defend?
[... ...]

June 7, 1953, "95 - Television Report to the American People by the President and Members of the Cabinet":
[... ...]
Now, we are going to keep reviewing these plans. We are going to report to you from time to time with these, or with other people with me, so that you know what is going on. Because our effort is to secure peace, and prosperity in peace.
My friends, thank you for being with us. Good night. God bless you.

June 7, 1953, "96 - Letter to President Syngman Rhee of Korea, Concerning Acceptance of the Panmunjom Armistice":
[...]
The Republic of Korea has engaged all of its resources, human and material, in a struggle which will go down in history as one of the epic struggles of all time. You have dedicated your all without reservation to the principle that h[H]uman liberty and national liberty must survive against [C]communist aggression which tramples upon human dignity[;] and which replaces national sovereignty with a humiliating satellite status. The principles for which your nation has fought and for which so many of your youth have died are principles which defend free men and free nations everywhere.
[... ...]

June 10, 1953, "98 - Address at the Annual Convention of the National Junior Chamber of Commerce, Minneapolis, Minnesota":
[... ...]
It is [, friends,] a spiritual struggle[.] – for one of communism's basic assumptions about the nature of men is that they are incapable of ruling themselves, incapable, the Communists say, of attaining the spiritual standards and strength to solve national problems when these require voluntary personal sacrifice for the common good. That is the Communist's justification for regimentation--for dictatorship, called in his language, the dictatorship of the proletariat. All this we deny.
A[a]nd we must seek in our churches, our schools, our homes and our daily lives the clearness of mind and strongness of heart to guard the chance to live in freedom.
F[f]or this whole struggle, in the deepest sense, is waged neither for land nor for food nor for power – but for the [S]soul of [M]man himself[!].
[... ...]

June 11, 1953, "101 - Address at the Annual Convention of the National Young Republican Organization, Mount Rushmore National Monument, South Dakota":
[... ...]
The simple words that must ever guide us are those I have repeated so often today. We believe. We have faith. For the very foundation of our Government is this:
we trust in the merciful providence of God, whose image, within every man, is the source and substance of each man's dignity and freedom.
[...]

June 17, 1953, "109 - The President's News Conference":
[... ...]
There is one other point: the possibility of these latest attacks of the Communists delaying or interfering with the signing of an armistice. Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I am not exactly certain what that effect will be, but I would like to call your attention to this one thing. Let us assume that the North Koreans and the Chinese Communists are definitely sincere in their desire for an armistice. Then, I believe, we cannot escape theis implication of these attacks: their complete indifference to human life and to the individual[;], because what would be the purpose of these attacks if they are definitely sincere in wanting an armistice, attacks obviously designed for taking a hill here or a little portion of a position there, and willing to waste the human lives that are involved in such attacks? Those defensive lines are strong, and even little portions of them are taken only at terrific cost in lives.
[... ...]
The facts of communism are one thing. Lay it out in front of us. [d]Do you cure cancer by pretending it does not exist? To my mind, this thing has got to be understood. What is its appeal for man? It does no good for me just to get up and shout, "I am against communism." What is it? To some people that actually believe in it, it is practically a religion--although it calls religion in our sense an opiate of the masses, an opiate of the people.
[... ...]

June 18, 1953, "112 - Statement by the President on the Prevention of Forest Fires":
[...]
I am greatly concerned over the continuing heavy loss of our natural resources by forest fires, and over the fact that nine out of every ten of these fires are caused by human carelessness or thoughtlessness. It is squarely up to every American to realize that he has a definite personal responsibility in the protection of these resources.
[...]
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