My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of
our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional
and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor. This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking
and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all
who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed
with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find
essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which
will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote
and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West
Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war
period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight
years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the
Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the
national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the
business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the
Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to
do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that
has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our
own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most
influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of
this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige
depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military
strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human
betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic
purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement,
and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations.
To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any
failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to
sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened
by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention,
absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope,
atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily
the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it
successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory
sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward
steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle
-- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every
provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether
foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel
that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to
all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense;
development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a
dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other
possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only
way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader
consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs --
balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and
hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the
comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation
and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between
actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment
seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and
frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people
and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have
responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in
kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military
establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no
potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to
that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting
men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States
had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and
as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency
improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent
armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million
men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually
spend on military security more than the net income of all United States
corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a
large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence --
economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State
house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need
for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave
implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the
very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military
industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power
exists and will persist. (Emphasis added).
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger
our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only
an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge
industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and
goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in
our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during
recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also
becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is
conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has
been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing
fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead
of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the
conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government
contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every
old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by
Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and
discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and
opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a
scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to
integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our
democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element
of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government
-- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease
and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the
material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their
political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all
generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America
knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a
community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of
mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must
come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we
are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred
by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the
battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a
continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not
with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp
and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this
field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the
horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war
could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully
built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting
peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady
progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be
done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help
the world advance along that road.
VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President --
I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in
war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for
the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our
faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice.
May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with
power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression
to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations,
may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity
shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may
experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will
understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to
the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease
and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness
of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the
binding force of mutual respect and love.
No comments:
Post a Comment