Address at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, New York City

Mr. Chairman, Your Eminence, Governor Dewey, Mayor Wagner--and my fellow citizens at this wonderful dinner:

I assure you that never would I have given up anything more cheerfully than a few minutes of the time that has apparently been allotted to me to His Eminence. I thoroughly objected to the sort of "military discipline" they seem to have tried to subject him to.

I would be remiss if I did not, first, try to express to you something of the gratitude I feel for the cordiality of your welcome. And here and on the streets of today, New York seems to remember that for some all too brief years I was privileged to live here. Those years are among the happiest of the lives of my wife and myself. And I want to assure you that we are grateful for every smile we see, and every time I hear "Hi Ike."

First, I would like to crave your indulgence to pay my deep respects to a lady whose early life was devoted to and intertwined with that of the man whose memory we are here to honor. His confidante, his counsellor, an admired citizen in her own right, a worthy daughter of a noble parent--Emily Smith Warner.

On such an evening as this, before such a gathering as this, our attention seems inescapably directed to three subjects, related in our thinking. They are:

First--the man whose memory we honor: Alfred Emanuel Smith.

Second--the practice of charitable giving.

Third--the government and the health of all the people.

None in our generation more warmly sympathized with the needs, the hopes, the aspirations of humanity than did Governor Smith; none more earnestly used government as an instrument for their satisfaction.

Yet none in our generation more acutely recognized the menace of bankrupting waste inherent in a centralized bureaucracy; none more firmly believed in self-dependence and initiative; and none more firmly believed that thrift and solvency are hallmarks of good government.

In all that concerned human beings, he was a true liberal; in all that concerned the economy within which they lived, he was a genuine conservative. In his daily tasks, he was a man of charitable heart; a patriot who loved America and its people. His life made manifest the challenges and opportunities, the responsibilities and rewards which America confers on those who serve their country and their fellow men.

His life did not escape the experience of defeat, but he accepted his defeats calmly, for he knew that if he were right, time would vindicate him and truth would prevail.

He faced his challenges unafraid, for he was armed in honesty of purpose and integrity of soul.

He seized his opportunities eagerly, for he was an alert steward of God-given talents.

He bore his responsibilities serenely, for he sought the counsel of the wise and the help of the Almighty.

He accepted his rewards modestly, for he felt those higher inner satisfactions known only to those who dedicate themselves to service to others.

Through a long life he served his city, his State, his country, to the limits of a great capacity. In every task he was impelled by a fiery faith in the decency and dignity of men and in the purposes of America. So impelled, he labored well. His life was a crusade against inequities rooted in such spurious criteria as ancestry and income.

Therefore, the name Alfred E. Smith is enshrined in history. So long as the Republic endures, he will not be forgotten.

But, beyond that, Al Smith, the man, the happy warrior, the American of great mind and great soul, lives in the hearts of people.

Monuments of timber and stone and metal have recorded human accomplishment through the years. In the history of America there are many who have earned such distinction. To only a few, however, in all the years of the Republic has there been paid the highest of all awards: a public resolve that the causes which they espoused shall not be permitted to die with them; that others, inspired by their memory, shall carry on the work to which those few dedicated themselves.

Our assembly this evening is an expression of that public determination, with respect to the causes espoused by Alfred E. Smith.

In our distant and diverse origins, in our present vocations and affiliations and interests, we are the infinite variety of American life. The roll call of this dinner is a roster of the races and religious creeds, the political parties, the economic enterprises, the cultural movements that constitute the Republic. But the common bond of dedication to values that Al Smith upheld converts our multitudinous variety into a purposeful unity. We are a reflection of our basic national unity that is today a towering beacon of hope to tom and divided mankind.

Our gathering to honor this man, to pay our respect to the causes for which he labored throughout his life, symbolizes our unity. We honor him because through his career he gave himself unsparingly to the American dream.

Since the beginning of time men have deluded themselves--or have been deluded by other men--with fantasies of life free from labor or pain or sacrifice, of limitless reward that requires no risk, of pleasure untainted by suffering. From such dreams, the awakening has always been rude and the penalty a nightmare of disillusionment.

The American dream is a goal that can be achieved only in work and wise thought, in unity among men and faith in God.

Our forefathers dreamed in terms of hard fact and high ideals. Then, they devised a system for man's self-government. Their system has succeeded beyond all others because it is the political expression of a religious faith that man is free; that man is responsive to the call of conscience and duty; that man is endowed at birth with certain capacities and rights. But they knew that man must earn his freedom, his rights, his way throughout his life.

Al Smith was both a product and an apostle of these concepts and this system. His undivided and passionate loyalty was given to America, and to the spiritual and moral values that mean Americanism. Sympathetic as he was toward differing convictions based in conscience, he was incapable of entertaining or of tolerating a thought directed toward the violent destruction of the governmental system of our free country. He was a deadly foe of such things as communism and fascism. Who can doubt that he would have supported and applauded, if alive in 1954, every one of the laws of the recent Congress to make more certain the discovery of subversives, to speed their removal from influential positions, to mete out to them legal punishment. Though he would have repudiated injustice toward or persecution of any individual, yet he would have been as stern as George Washington in dealing with any properly convicted of betraying this Nation.

Among the fruits enjoyed by those who live under the fundamental concepts and principles that define our system--are an abundance in all that makes a good life, unparalleled in the entire history of tribes and nations and empires.

But, since the earliest days, never has the factual realization of the dream been devoid of imperfections. Happily, their correction has been constant and ceaseless. In every generation there have been mighty voices crying out insistently that this evil be eradicated or that wrong be righted. Al Smith was such a voice. He was a man of many concerns for the betterment of human living.

Not the least of his many concerns is the direct inspiration for our gathering here tonight--the care and the cure of the sick and the ailing.

Created for productive life, endowed with talents of mighty potential, man has the right to enjoy adequate means for the preservation of good health and its restoration whenever injured or lost. The community, whether it be tribe or empire, that ignores this right commits slow suicide.

You, in this room this evening, act in an ancient and firmly rooted tradition of the Jewish and Christian faiths. You are engaged in a noble work of mercy. By your presence here you are witnesses to the everlasting truth of our spiritual brotherhood. This brotherhood requires of us that the fortunate be quick in their aid to the unfortunate.

And here may I salute another lady--the sponsor of this dinner. Hers is truly the spirit that seeks no reward beyond the knowledge of a good task well done. For her name is, at her own request, unknown to us. But, because of her generosity in paying the costs of this dinner, every penny raised goes to the cause of the sick, a cause so close to the life of Al Smith. I know that, with all your hearts, you join me in salute to. this bountiful lady.

But the preachers of materialism brand such acts as hers, and the spirit that animates you around these tables, as an obsolescent manifestation of that spiritual force which they term "the opiate of the people."

But should we ourselves ever permit the spirit of charity to weaken among us, we shall by that much weaken America. Thereby, we can lose that will to sacrifice, which in hospital ward and on battlefield, in the daily living of the home and the bustle of an industrial world, only arouses men and women to the heights of greatness. Thereby we can lose the recognition of our spiritual brotherhood, of our duty that the more fortunate help those less fortunate amid the accidents of life. And that recognition is a tie binding tens of millions of Americans into a single family.

There is a responsibility on every one of us that we, by word and deed, further the practice of voluntary giving. This practice is rooted in a spirit that is at once a mark of the American dream and an essential influence toward its eventual realization.

Yet, so important, so grave, is this responsibility for the care of the unfortunate, that it must be borne not only individually but collectively. In these days of complex and mass living, we must recognize that disease and calamity, their prevention and correction, require a broad and concentrated effort, in which the Government has a significant role.

The health of a people, Al Smith realized, is intertwined with and affected by their schooling, their opportunities for leisure and play, their access to hospitals and medicine. Their health concerns their ability to afford more than the bare bones of existence, their hours and their conditions of work; it colors all their present circumstances and all their plans for the future. Within the State of New York, on a many-sided front, Governor Smith fought a long war for man's right to enjoy the best means for the preservation of good health and its restoration whenever injured or lost.

No one dared call his program a wedge for socialism. Rather, we see him as a champion of freedom and opportunity for the individual to plan his own life, in his own way, according to his own conscience. This right is limited only by the equal rights of all others. But we see him, too, as a man of conscience and good will who realized that within an industrialized society no man, no family, no community, no State can stand entirely alone. Illness within a home may be beyond relief by available local measures. Our Government, founded on the free individual, cannot ignore a single home in such plight.

In these late years, another Governor of New York has earned for himself the gratitude of millions by carrying on, in the tradition of Al Smith, the development of state medical facilities. Obviously, I refer to the distinguished leader--Thomas E. Dewey.

It was in full harmony with the convictions of these two great champions of the public good, that 18 months ago there was established in Washington a new cabinet position and the new Executive Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In many fields of great human concern, this new department of Government helps the individual, the family, the community, the State to do those essential things that they cannot, by themselves, otherwise accomplish. In time, by means of this new department, we can bring into focus the knowledge, techniques, and scientific resources of State, local, and private groups, as a step toward affording every American full opportunity for good hospitalization and adequate medical care.

In recent months, much that is new has already been done.

Newly passed by Congress is a 3-year $180 million program to build diagnostic and treatment centers, hospitals for the chronically ill and impaired, nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. Through this program, which supplements other funds for general hospital construction, we at last recognize the growing proportion of aged persons in our population and the resulting increases in chronic illnesses.

Newly passed legislation provides more generous tax treatment of some 8,500,000 individuals and families with heavy medical, dental or hospital bills, saving them some $80 million a year in taxes. This new law also liberalizes the tax treatment of sickness or accident benefits.

Newly passed by Congress is a major expansion of Federal-State rehabilitation services to restore disabled people to useful, productive lives--a program of tremendous humanitarian importance. With the cooperation of those concerned in private groups and on all levels of government we expect that in 5 years we will have progressed from the rehabilitation program of about 55,000 persons annually in this program to some 200,000 a year. Our goal is to afford opportunity for rehabilitation to every American who is disabled and can be restored to a useful, self-supporting life.

There is expansion, too, in the crucial field of health research--an intensification of direct governmental research in cancer, blindness, and neurological diseases, and many other ills--all this at the National Institutes of Health. Of special importance to every worker was the opening in Cincinnati this year of the new Taft Sanitary Engineering Center to augment research in environmental and occupational health hazards.

And recent amendments to food and related laws assure better protection of the health of consumers who each year make purchases of $50 billion in this field.

Finally, there was the proposal to encourage the growth and improvement of voluntary health insurance.

This was not passed, but by its passage, millions would have had the opportunity--out of their own provident thrift--to increase their protection against the cost of sickness. In this way we would help ease the catastrophic shock of illness and injury on the individual citizens and families of America.

Some extremists of the bureaucratic type challenge the plan because it does not attempt to remove all local and individual responsibility for the care of the sick and the unfortunate. Our refusal to centralize all responsibility and authority in the Federal Government is deliberate; it is an expression of active conviction that though the central Government may aid and coordinate, local authority and private initiative must be supreme in the normal procedure of daily living, else freedom--unless this is so, we all realize freedom and self-government will be lost.

Others--of the opposite extreme--oppose this legislation on the ground that it might become the entering wedge of socialized medicine. To that kind of service in America, my co-workers and I are emphatically opposed. But I hope that none of us confuses social progress with socialism.

We know that the American people will not long be denied access to adequate medical facilities. And they should not be. The program for voluntary health insurance is one further step in achieving this objective in the American way. It is the logical alternative to. socialized medicine. We cannot rest content knowing that modern health services are beyond the financial or physical reach of many millions of our fellow citizens. We must correct these defects. I know that in this purpose the Nation has the full support of our unexcelled medical profession which, like all of us, wants better health for all of America.

A proposal to establish a sound reinsurance program will be submitted to the next session of the Congress. It will be an important part of a health program to fill the great gaps in this field of health preservation.

The start now made is only a first beginning on a vast human enterprise--the health of our Nation. This is a task for the individual citizen, the city, the county, the State, and finally, the Federal Government. We Americans have accomplished near miracles in material things. But we are years behind our potential achievement in the availability and adequacy of health services.

But I repeat, the task does not belong exclusively or even primarily to the Congress and the Government. It belongs to each of us--each of us here--and to the communities in which we live. The inadequacy will be fully remedied only as we--each of us--performs his full duty as an American citizen, certain that in so doing he is not only relieving distress but making a more durable contribution to the Republic.

Our goal is a healthier and therefore a stronger America--

Let us, then, resolve that--

Our forward march will be in the tradition of men like Al Smith:

Using Government as the servant of the people--

And cherishing personal sacrifice and the practice of charitable giving.

And, my friends, we will be confident that a healthier and stronger America will better sustain our freedom; better promote our individual and national prosperity; make more certain our security and constantly enlarge our spiritual stature.

I thank you very much.