Address at the Anniversary Dinner of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners

President Hutcheson, Dr. Baxter, President Meany, Ladies and Gentlemen:

My first word is possibly a little presumptuous, but I would like, for a moment, to speak for all of you in offering felicitations to President and Mrs. Hutcheson on this their 30th wedding anniversary.

And next, I want to say to the Brotherhood, "Happy Birthday." I say this with a bit more than customary enthusiasm, because lately I have been reading so much about my advancing decrepitude and my readiness to slip on the last banana peel, that it is really inspiring to me to see a 75-year-old organization so healthy and strong. It gives me hope that my next nine years may not be completely invalidism.

Before I begin the thoughts that I wanted to express this evening I must remark on the talks of Mr. Meany and Mr. Hutcheson. As I sat here, Mr. Meany so exactly expressed my passionate belief about the position of America in the world--her responsibilities--her opportunities--and the way she should approach those, in the great spirit of freedom and idealism at home.

As I heard both these men tell about their aspirations for our people and for our country, I came to one conclusion: either I belong in their union, or they belong in my Party.

Frankly, I was deeply inspired by the thoughts that I heard expressed by both. Naturally, I am delighted by your General President's report on the state of the country, of its labor unions-and of this great Brotherhood in particular. His statements, rounded in fact, are in sharp contrast to some that have been made recently.

Now, by no means do I propose to make this brief appearance before you an opportunity for political exhortation. But before such a body as this, I cannot help mentioning one charge that you in your own experience here recited tonight, refute.

Now, this Administration and I have been described as dedicated solely to furthering the interest of big business.

I want to say that if this is true, they must be highly disappointed in me. It is not true, and I am sure big business would assert we have failed dismally in this alleged mission.

I give you two interesting facts.

During the years 1946 to 1952 inclusive, corporate profits-after taxes--averaged 7.7 percent of the entire national income.

During the period since 1953 when this Administration entered office, corporate profits--after taxes--have averaged 6.0 percent of the national income.

While this has been going on, labor's share in the national income has been rising progressively. It is now 70 percent--the highest in the past twenty years.

Now, I come here tonight, as a friend, to visit with friends. I came here to join you in this great salute to the 75th Anniversary of a great union.

Here we commemorate the establishment of an organization created to further a great American purpose. For individual freedom, rooted in human dignity and in human responsibility, is a theme that runs through the whole story of American labor. And, certainly, it is significant that the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia's Carpenters' Hall in 1774, and, in that same Hall, the Constitutional Convention assembled thirteen years later.

Now, freedom is not restricted to the fundamental rights of which we so often speak, including freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.

Your forebears in the labor movement recognized that the industrial revolution had created new problems, requiring a new approach by worker and employer alike--an approach that stressed the equal dignity, the equal responsibility of labor and management.

Consequently, your Brotherhood stands for: Freedom to organize. Freedom to bargain. Freedom to strike. Above all, freedom to vote with complete independence--that was one of the first resolutions, I am told, your Brotherhood called for 75 years ago.

In standing for those things, you help extend the boundaries of human freedom and amplify our concept of them.

Others, men like Marx and Engels, saw in a far different light and different setting the new problems created by the industrial revolution. And they came up with a completely different answer, substituting for free labor and free management the omnipotent state.

The industrial world is now divided between those who follow the philosophy of freedom and those whose lives are regimented under the philosophy of communism.

A philosophy, like a tree, can best be judged by its fruits. The fruits of our philosophy have been comprehensively and vividly described by your General President. I do not venture to enlarge on his words, but I should like to talk to you briefly on the fruits of communistic imperialism, now daily becoming evident in the satellite world. Let us take one country as an example.

The Poles, as a people, have known freedom.

For that matter, in the persons of Kosciuszko and Pulaski and countless others, they were builders of American freedom. And, by the hundreds of thousands, they helped build industrial America and the free labor movement.

But now for seventeen years, they have been victims of two tyrannies in succession.

Neither tolerated freedom.

And the Polish people rebelled against both, for the love of freedom was and is the strongest mark of Polish character.

A people, like the Poles, who have once known freedom cannot be for always deprived of their national independence and of their personal liberty. That truth applies to every people in Eastern Europe who have enjoyed independence and freedom.

For a time, that truth may be obscured. Tyranny can, for a while, effectively present a false facade of material accomplishment. But that illusion is no substitute for the freedom that men and women cherish from raising their children in family loyalty-choosing their jobs or their friends and associates--to practicing their religious faith without fear.

Eventually, as in the satellites today, the cost proves greater to a once proud and independent people than the value of the monuments or the factories or the prisons--that have been erected.

In those lands, the fruits of imperialism are discontent, unrest, riots in one place and demonstrations in another, until the tyranny exercised over them either dissolves or is expelled.

The day of liberation may be postponed where armed forces for a time make protest suicidal. But all history testifies that the memory of freedom is not erased by the fear of guns and the love of freedom is more enduring than the power of tyrants. But it is necessary that the inspiration of freedom, and the benefits enjoyed by those who possess it, are known to those oppressed.

In that light--we, as a nation--have a job to do, a mission as the champion of human freedom. This is it:

First--So to conduct ourselves in all our international relations that we never compromise the fundamental principle that all peoples who have proved themselves capable of self-government have a right to an independent government of their own full, free choice.

Second--So to help those freedom-loving peoples who need and want and can profitably use our aid that they may advance in their ability for self-support and may add strength to the security and peace of the free world.

Third--So to manage our commerce with other nations that we are joined with them in a genuine partnership of trade, fostering a spiral of mutually-shared prosperity and abundance that will be proof against all propaganda and subversion.

Fourth--So to exemplify at home the opportunities, the rewards for work well done--all the good things of a free system-that the world will recognize in human freedom the sure road to human good.

Working in this manner, we shall expand the areas in which free men, free governments can flourish. We shall help shrink the areas in which human beings can be exploited and their governments subverted.

In this mission, none should play a more important role than free American labor. Your whole-hearted support is assurance of success; your indifference, a guarantee of failure.

More than that, you can most persuasively proclaim this mission to the world. And the world will listen. For though you speak with an authentic American voice, whose accent reflects all the working places of America, you speak, too, in international tones--worker to worker.

Above all, in the struggle between the cause of freedom and the cause of communism, you are the living proof that Marx was wrong.

Free American labor has prospered in every index of life--in pocketbook and in schooling, in leisure for recreation and culture, in dignity and in spirit:

Not by engaging in a class war;

Not by abandoning to government freedoms and responsibilities;

Not by surrendering any right or duty of free men for the pottage of state guarantees;

But by joining in voluntary association to bargain and to negotiate;

By recognizing that the prosperity of agriculture and industry and labor are inseparably joined;

By demonstrating in factory and union meeting and community that American citizenship, with its freedoms and its obligations, is based on a spiritual faith in the equal dignity and equal rights of all men and women.

Therefore, as an American citizen and as President of the United States, I am proud and happy I can be here this evening to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

On its record, the Brotherhood has proved itself a worthy representative of free American labor, a dynamic builder of the free American system.

Thank you very much.