Remarks at the Skowhegan Fairgrounds, Skowhegan, Maine.

Governor Muskie, Senator Smith, Senator Payne, members of Maine' s Congressional delegation here present--and my Fellow Americans:

No man can receive greater acclaim than to be received in friendly fashion by a gathering of real Americans. So, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you--the Governor for his official welcome, Senator Smith for all that she has so extravagantly said about my accomplishments, and each of you for the courtesy you have paid me by coming out here today that I might say hello.

There are no thanks due me for coming to this section of the United States, for long have I felt that my education was sadly lacking, in that I did not have an intimate acquaintanceship with this region. I have satisfied a long-felt desire to come here. And incidentally, I should like to point out one thing: the Office that I hold being what it is, I did not come alone. Now there must be millions of Americans as ignorant as I was of the beauties of this region. And think of all the newspaper people, photographers, and others that now should be educating those people and possibly they will come and get the same firsthand knowledge that I had.

Now, if this does not happen, either the power of the press is not what we thought it was, or these newspaper people that travel with me haven't the proper sensibilities to appreciate beauty when they see it.

I am grateful for the warmth of the welcome I have received all along the line, from young and old, from men and women, from workers and people who seem to be on vacation. And I might say, the most touching welcome that I received was from what the guides call "midges" and I call plain black flies. I am certain that during all these years when I did not come, they have been waiting on me, because they swarmed around me with their cannibalistic tendencies, and I am sure they will probably starve until I get back here.

My friends, as much as I have found here different, in the way of your scenery and your glorious lakes and streams and woodlands and piles of timber along the road, such as I have never seen, I find the basic fact is this: Americans are Americans everywhere. In our basic beliefs, in our basic aspirations, in our hopes for the future and for our children, we are one.

We want peace in the world. We want prosperity at home, a prosperity that is widely shared, with everybody happy in his job. We have come to realize these two aspirations are related. We cannot have prosperity without peace. And there can be no peace unless we are prosperous.

We are the world's leader--economically, productively; and because we are this, we must also take the lead in many other ways, morally and politically, in leading the free world to bind itself together in a common appreciation of these basic values: the dignity of man, his right to be free, his right to exercise all of his privileges of worship and of thought and of speech, of action and of earning. In fact, to exercise every personal privilege as long as he does not violate similar rights of others.

Now, if we are going to be bound together in these things, we must realize that we can't do that, we can't attain them all, without sacrifice. As your forefathers came into this region and built their homes, their cabins, and began to conquer the wilderness, they had to sacrifice something, they had to sacrifice the safety of the lands from which they came, they had to part from loved ones, they had to make sacrifices to give to us what we have today.

If the world is going to be bound together in a system of mutual advancement--international trade--international security--with all of us sharing in that security and in that trade, here and there we must make sacrifices.

Let us make them courageously, as our forefathers did, so that we may enjoy real and secure and permanent peace, and not merely an uneasy cessation of the firing of the guns.

We want permanent peace based upon confidence, based upon justice and decency, wherever the American government is represented. That is what we are struggling for--in every chancellery in every capital of the world, those who are our friends and those who may be hostile to us.

We are coveting nobody's property. We want to assume power and rule over no one else. We want to live a life that gives to each of us the utmost opportunity for spiritual, intellectual and material and economic development, for ourselves and for our children.

I find in my few days that I have been privileged to travel across this northern tier of the New England States, those sentiments are as widely shared and deeply felt as they are anywhere in the United States.

Indeed, may I say to you that because of this, though I come among you as a stranger, I have felt no more at home in any other town or city that I have visited in this country.

And so my real word of thanks is this: that you have let me feel that you do stand with one another shoulder to shoulder, and shoulder to shoulder with all of the other localities and States and regions of the United States--that all of us, together, may march along to that fuller life, strong, secure, but tolerant and ready to help the other fellow, as we expect him to do his part in this great venture.

Now before I leave I would like to say thanks in a little bit more intimate way. Everywhere across this State today I have encountered smiles and shouts and "Hi Ikes" and waves of the hand--as I have met them here on this fairground.

I can't reach each of you personally with a shake of the hand. I cannot even speak to all of the citizens I saw today. But if to you, and through you, I could let each of you know how sincerely I do appreciate the warmth of your friendliness, how earnestly I want to come back--as your Governor said, no matter what my job may be--then indeed I shall be content.

And now one final word. In every audience such as this, there are literally hundreds of people who have served in the Armed Services during the period I was there--men and women. Some of them have served actively in the same theater, on the same battleground as I have.

To them I just want to say this one thing: during all those years that you were abroad, while your loved ones were suffering their fears for you, and you were encountering the dangers that finally won the war, we were upheld by a belief that we were fighting for freedom, for the rights of men as individuals, and for peace.

I believe that those aspirations--slowly and tortuously it is true, but still steadily--are marching on toward achievement; and I believe that is the thought that all of us can take with us to our beds each night and thank our God that it is true.

Goodnight--goodbye--and thanks.