Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Address at the Signing of the Declaration of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama City

July 22, 1956

[Broadcast over the Panama radio and the Armed Forces television in the Canal Zone.]

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen--All my friends everywhere that my voice may reach:

To address a thought to the heads of the American States here assembled is indeed a unique opportunity and a unique honor. I profoundly appreciate it.

We here commemorate the most successfully sustained adventure in international community living that the world has seen. In spite of inescapable human errors in our long record, the Organization of American States is a model in the practice of brotherhood among nations. Our cooperation has been fruitful because all of our peoples hold certain spiritual convictions. We believe:

That all men are created equal;

That all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;

That government is the creation of man, to serve him; not to enslave him;

That those who demonstrate the capacity for self-government thereby win the right to self-government;

That sovereign states shall be free from foreign interference in the orderly development of their internal affairs.

Now, inspired by our faith in these convictions, our nations have developed in this hemisphere institutional relations and a rule of international law to protect the practice of that faith.

Our association began as we experienced the solemn but glorious transition from colonialism to national independence. Our association was intensified as we sought to maintain that independence against recurrent efforts of colonial powers to reassert their rule. More recently it has been perfected to protect against encroachments from the latter day despotisms abroad.

We are pledged to one another by the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance of 1947 to treat an armed attack by any State against an American State as an attack against all of us. We are joined in the 1954 Declaration of Solidarity for the Preservation of the Political Integrity of the American States against International Communist Intervention.

Furthermore, we are organized to assure peace among ourselves. The time is past, we earnestly believe, when any of our members would use force to resolve hemispheric disputes. Our solemn promises to each other foresee that the community will take whatever measures may be needed to preserve peace within America.

In all of these matters, our nations act as sovereign equals. Never will peace and security be sought at the price of subjecting any nation to coercion or interference in its internal affairs.

Thus, much has been done to assure the kind of national life which was the lofty vision of those early patriots who, in each of our countries, rounded our Republics and foresaw the values inherent in hemispheric cooperation.

And so we reach today. May it not be that we can now look forward to a new phase of association, in which we shall dedicate to individual human welfare the same measure of noble effort that heretofore has protected and invigorated the corporate life of our nations?

I do not suggest that the initial task is ended. A nation's peace and liberty can never be taken for granted. We must constantly be vigilant, individually and collectively. But we can, I believe, in the coming years, consecrate more effort to enriching the material, intellectual and spiritual welfare of the individual.

Since the day of creation, the fondest hopes of men and women have been to pass on to their children something better than they themselves enjoyed. That hope represents a spark of the Divine which is implanted in every human breast.

Too often, from the beginning, those hopes have been frustrated and replaced by bitterness or apathy.

Of course, the problems thus presented are primarily those of the particular country in which the affected individuals reside. But I believe we can be helpful to each other. The possibilities of our partnership are not exhausted by concentration in the political field. Indeed our Organization has already begun to apply the principle that material welfare and progress of each member is vital to the well-being of every other. But we can, I think, do more.

On this matter a simple thought which I have had an opportunity to express to some other American Presidents here has been viewed generously by them. It is that each of us, as President of an American Republic, should name a special representative to join in preparing for us concrete recommendations for making our Organization of American States a more effective instrument in those fields of cooperative effort that affect the welfare of the individual. To those representatives of ours we could look for practical suggestions in the economic, financial, social and technical fields which our Organization might appropriately adopt. As one useful avenue of effort they could give early thought to ways in which we could hasten the beneficial use of nuclear forces throughout the hemisphere, both in industry and in combatting disease.

So earnestly, my friends, do I believe in the possibilities of such an organization for benefiting all our people, that in my own case and with the agreement of the other Presidents to this Organization, I shall ask my brother, Milton Eisenhower--already -known to nearly all the Presidents here--to be my Representative on such an organization. He would, of course, in the necessary cases, be supported by the professional and technical men whose assistance would be required.

Now, the coming years will bring to mankind limitless ways in which this nuclear science can advance human welfare. Let us progress together, as one family, in achieving for our peoples these results.

Our Organization can never be static. We are here to commemorate a dynamic concept initiated at the first Inter-American Conference of 1826 convoked by Simon Bolivar. We here pay tribute to the faith of our fathers, which was translated into new institutions and new works. But we cannot go on forever merely on the momentum of their faith. We, too, must have our faith and see that it is translated into works. So, just as our nations have agreed that we should join to combat armed aggression, let us also join to find the ways which will enable our peoples to combat the ravages of disease, poverty and ignorance. Let us give them, as individuals, a better opportunity not only to pursue happiness, but to gain it.

A great family history has drawn together this unprecedented assemblage of the Presidents of the Americas. Perhaps, in our day, it may be given us to help usher in a new era which will add worthily to that history. Thus, we too will have served the future, as we have been greatly served by the past that we honor here today.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke in the Bolivar Salon at 3:24 p.m. The Declaration of Principles, signed by the Presidents of 20 American Republics, is published in the Department of State Bulletin (vol. 35, p. 220).

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Address at the Signing of the Declaration of Principles at the Meeting of the Presidents in Panama City Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232965

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