Remarks at Dorado, Puerto Rico, at a Meeting of the American Assembly.

Governor Munoz Marin, President Wriston, members of the Assembly, and fellow citizens of this hemisphere:

I should apologize, I think, before beginning this little talk, because I face a distinguished people who know a very great deal about the subject that I expect to talk about; and the other is that I have just learned, while sitting at the head table, that your report has been completed. And after I gave my conclusions, they said, "Well, it's identical," and I think they should have added, "Well, then, you don't have to give the speech"! But in the hope that there may be one or two points of some interest, I will indulge myself to take advantage of you for a few minutes.

When I first visited the proposed site for the American Assembly at Arden House 10 years ago, I could hardly have foreseen that in the year 1960 I should be addressing a regional meeting of the Assembly in Puerto Rico; or that I would come before you having just completed 2 journeys, totaling almost 40,000 miles, with visits to 15 countries on 4 continents.

But I assure you I am delighted to be with you here in a renewal of my personal association with the American Assembly. And I must confess to some pride that this meeting is a major expansion of what was for me little more than a dream 10 years ago.

You will permit me, I hope, a few minutes of reminiscence about my early thinking on the Assembly and my participation in its establishment.

Even before I went to Columbia as its President, out of some experience in war and in Washington I had come to feel very strongly that there was a need for a forum or council in which could be utilized the best minds of the Nation.

To do this, my associates and I believed we should attempt to set up specific problems of national interest, where in a proper setting the best academic and practical minds could be assembled for the necessary analyses. Their examination of each of these could take place in an atmosphere free from the pressures of partisan politics and special interests. Then, solutions might be suggested, rounded in sound principle and wide knowledge, undistorted by pleas for the expedient and immediately popular.

We felt that many of the problems confronting the American people often were apparently impossible of solution, and hopelessly confused, because even the most critical question could easily become a political football or an excuse for sensationalism and even hysteria.

Matters affecting the future of the Republic, its world leadership and responsibilities deserved, we thought, the serious, deliberate, calm study their importance merited.

Shortly after my arrival at Columbia, I was invited by the present President of the American Assembly, my friend, Henry Wriston, to participate in the monthly deliberations of the Council on Foreign Relations. There in our discussions of various international concerns we tried, with the help of expert and specialized counsel, to suggest courses of action in the field of foreign relations that were designed directly for the correction, improvement, or clarification of the situation under study. Our proposals were formulated within the context of the enlightened self-interest of the United States of America. They were not reached under the influence of the politically palatable, the quick and easy, the supposedly popular.

The same quality of work on a much larger scale--the study of all problems affecting our people and the future of the Republic--could be ideally undertaken, I thought, at Columbia University. There we had available immense resources in the faculty and libraries and trained research people--a unique pool of human knowledge and written knowledge. By testing faculty proposals before groups of businessmen and leaders in all professions, we felt we would provide for such proposals a validity not otherwise likely to be had.

In 1949, with the trustees and my associates on the campus, we began work on this idea. By early 1950 we had a home for the American Assembly, at Arden House, given to the University by Governor Averell Harriman. I thought this venture so important that I wrote hundreds of letters and flew the length and breadth of this country time and again to raise the necessary money. It came in--often in generous amounts-and before I left for SHAPE in January of 1951 a healthy start for the American Assembly was assured.

As you know, the studies of the Assembly have been many and varied, ranging from our relations with Western Europe to wages, prices, profits and productivity. They have had a substantial impact on American thinking throughout Government and in the communities of our own country.

But even in the planning days, a decade ago, I felt that the Assembly's deliberations eventually should be concerned with the subject on which I expect to speak briefly today--the common destiny, the common interests, the common aspirations of the American Republics and Commonwealth members, Netherlands and French communities.

Our hemisphere, from the polar cap to the Antarctic ice, is a geographical unity. For the advantages of all its nations the hemispheres should be characterized by mutually-helpful economic cooperation. With proper respect to the sovereignty of its states and the cultural heritages of its peoples, there should be a mutual security unity and, in its philosophy of representative free government, complete political harmony. These purposes, it seems to me, indicate a need to exploit for the good of almost half a billion people of the Americas--and their numbers daily increase--the new mastery of space and natural resources, of science and machines.

If I have to apologize for my voice, I could do so by saying I left most of it in South America.

Ignorance of each other, misunderstanding of each other, lack of mutual and cooperative planning in our common purposes: these, I think, are the principal obstacles in our path. To do something toward their reduction was a principal purpose of the journey I have just finished.

Wherever I went, I stated again and again the basic principles and attitudes that govern our country's relationships in this hemisphere.

For example: our good neighbor--good partner policy is a permanent guide, encompassing nonintervention, mutual respect, and juridical equality of states.

We wish, for every American nation, a rapid economic progress with its blessings reaching all the people.

We are always eager to cooperate in fostering sound development within the limits of practical capabilities; further, we shall continue to urge every nation to join in help to the less fortunate.

We declare our faith in the rule of law, our determination to abide by treaty commitments, and our insistence that other nations do likewise.

Everywhere I found in the nations I visited a general agreement that these principles have been actually practiced by the United States. I found, too, inescapable evidence that many in every country knew little of our record and more who misunderstand our purposes. But identically the same can be said of North Americans in their ignorance and misunderstanding of Latin America.

Here the American Assembly can play a tremendous and useful role. Its participants are recognized everywhere for their experience in human affairs, their broad knowledge, their professional competence--and above all their good will and their dedication to truth. Particularly to the young people, those who will manage the affairs of this hemisphere in a few years, the members of the Assembly can be honest teachers and wise counsellors.

And the problems that confront us are immense. Many countries of Latin America desperately need long-term financing of their development projects; technical assistance in their planning and execution; escape from dependence on one crop or one mineral; help in balancing budgets and substituting productive work for bureaucratic make-work; an end to inflation and a start on solidly, widely based economics. And their needs must be answered soon and effectively.

Panacea proposals, facile solutions, will lead only to disillusionment.

Above all, any thought of the United States alone developing a so-called master plan for the raising of living standards throughout the hemisphere has been rejected by us and by the leaders of the states I have just visited, including Surinam, and is foredoomed to failure.

Each nation of Latin America is highly individual. Each must analyze its own human and material resources, and develop a program of action, with priorities assigned. Then, national and international credit agencies should stand ready to be of assistance in making the program a reality. Obviously the major responsibility for a nation's development devolves upon its own people, its own leaders; its own pride, its own self-respect, its own self-interest demand that this be so. And, parenthetically, may I say I saw many evidences of this on the trip I have just completed. I visited what was nothing but a rural slum outside of Santiago--thousands of people living in hovels, whose poverty beggared description. But the government gave them a start. The government owned the ground of the area and then it laid out plots, and it built concrete floors. On each of these floors were two families, in the center where the normal washroom and toilet facilities were. Then, they've got a new system of construction, one I had never seen, and yet may be a very practical thing in many countries. It is the making of bricks out of wood, and these bricks instead of being put together by cement, they have very heavy glue, and then they are nailed down to the block below--each block is about a foot long and about four inches square in cross-section.

Now the point is that all the rest of the work is done by self-help. Before work in the morning, after work in the evening, these families do this. The particular project I visited, I believe there were 4,102 cottages, of which about 600 have been developed in the weeks so far past, and they are going to have it finished before snow flies--before winter comes.

Now here is the point: never have I seen such a happy people, because they were doing this themselves, in crowds--and crowded around--workman after workman coming running to me, would I autograph one of the blocks that was going in his house? He wanted to show this as a show piece to his--even to his grandchildren, I suppose. And all he needed is a plumb bob, because once you get the walls straight, it seems like they are very, very strong. The inventor is convinced that he has hold of a very good idea, and these people are showing what self-respect and pride can be developed out of your ability to do something yourself, with a little bit of help--a helping hand from someone outside.

I assure you I think that the government is reaping great benefits, not only for the individuals thus helped, but for what it means in understanding on the part of all these people of its own government.

But nations which desire to advance rapidly surely do need public and private funds from abroad. And funds are available. First there is private capital always seeking good investment opportunity. The International Bank and the Export-Import Bank have had their funds greatly increased, and the new Inter-American Bank will soon be functioning. And behind all these is the instant readiness of the United States, on a government-to-government basis, to investigate cooperatively any special problem or need, and to make such arrangements as seem to fill the requirements.

As I said a few days ago to the Uruguayan Congress:

"We work for the time--not distant, I hope--when all the nations of the world in attaining greater prosperity will progressively share in programs of assistance to less developed countries. Indeed I would go further: : I believe it is the duty of every nation, no matter how large or small, how weak or strong, how rich or poor, to contribute to the well-being of the world's community of free men. For a time, perhaps some can supply only certain skills, or knowledge, or personnel, or spiritual support. But all these are important too. And the most important consideration is that we should all accept a common sense of responsibility for our common destiny."

Only hard thinking and hard work will do the job. And they must be accompanied by a most determined drive to eliminate ignorance and to correct misunderstanding.

Here the American Assembly can help greatly. The need for your help is, I think, the greatest challenge to confront you since the founding of the Assembly 10 years ago.

So I congratulate the American Assembly for its venture into this whole area of study which is so profoundly important to the millions who inhabit this hemisphere--indeed, to all the free world.

Thank you very much.