Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the Fourth Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress.

Mr. Vice President, Secretary Rusk, distinguished Ambassadors, members of the Cabinet, my distinguished friends in the Congress, my fellow citizens of the Americas:

Four years ago this hemisphere embarked upon a great adventure--the greatest perhaps since an unknown Italian mariner first touched these shores almost five centuries ago.

It was nothing less than to transform the life of an entire continent.

It was to reach into the homes and the villages of more than 200 million people, touching each with great hope and expectation.

It was to replace privilege with social justice, and unchanging poverty with economic progress. Where there was disease we would bring health. Where there was ignorance we would bring learning. We would feed the hungry and we would shelter the homeless, and we would do all of this as free men making liberty the companion of progress.

The adventure began in a dozen scattered spots. In Columbia the Act of Bogota was signed. In Caracas, Romulo Betancourt moved a nation from dictatorship to a very living and a very hopeful democracy. In Costa Rica and Mexico, and in many other places, new standards were being shaped and old dreams were taking on fresh meaning. Across the hemisphere revolution was in the air, promising these three things: freedom, justice, and progress.

And then all these growing, resistless forces converged on this room where a brilliant new Preside fit of the United States addressed himself to his fellow citizens of this hemisphere. And with unmatched spaciousness of vision John Fitzgerald Kennedy called for "a vast cooperative effort unparalleled in magnitude and nobility of purpose, to satisfy the basic needs of the American people . . . "

And 5 months later--4 years ago today-on the coast of Uruguay, 20 American Republics solemnly resolved to establish and to carry forward the Alliance for Progress.

That act was a turning point, not only in the history of the New World, but in the long history of freedom itself.

The goals were towering, almost beyond achievement. The hopes were soaring, almost beyond fulfillment. The tasks were immense, almost beyond capacity. But entire nations are not stirred to action by either timid words or narrow visions. The faith and the will of millions do not take fire from the brands that are muffled in reluctance and fear. And if the reality of progress was to be slow, the radiance of ultimate achievement must be bright enough to compel the effort and the sacrifice of generations.

If our Alliance was suffused with compassion and idealism, it also responded to the most real and the most urgent necessities of our time. Our continent is in ferment. People long oppressed demanded their share of the blessings and the dignity which the modern world can offer to man. The peaceful democratic social revolution of the Alliance is not the alternative to tranquility and changelessness. It is the alternative, and the only alternative, to bloodshed and destruction and tyranny. For the past is really gone. And those who struggle to preserve it enlist unawares in the ranks of their own destroyers.

We will shape the future through the principles of our Alliance or we will find it swallowed up in violence that is bred of desperation.

How fortunate we are to live in such a time when justice so mingles with necessity, and faith mingles with opportunity.

Almost from the moment of birth, the Alliance for Progress was beset by doubt. But men of rooted faith in every country held firm to the purpose. And if we have not really reached the farthest limit of expectation, we have done much more, indeed, than many ever believed we could do.

FOUR YEARS OF PROGRESS This 4 years has been the greatest period of forward movement, progress, and fruitful change that we have ever made in the history of this hemisphere. And that pace is now increasing.

Last year Latin America as a whole exceeded the Alliance for Progress target of 2 1/2 percent per capita growth rate. Our experts tell me that we will do the same this year. And in the Central American Common Market the growth is almost 7 percent.

A large and swelling flood of resources contributes to this progress. In 4 years the United States alone has contributed almost $4 1/2 billion in grants, in loans, in goods, and in expert assistance. The nations of Latin America have channeled $22-24 billion into development. And more than an extra billion dollars has come from other countries and other international agencies.

At the heart of the Alliance are the twin urgencies of planning and reform. Ten nations have already submitted development programs, and others are on the way. Fourteen nations now have major tax reforms underway, and their rate of tax collection is steadily increasing. Fourteen nations have now instituted land reform programs. Others are confronting the growing importance of population control. One government after another is determined to reconcile reform and economic growth with the struggle against destructive inflation. And this morning I salute those--the people of Brazil--who have helped to lead the way.

AMERICA HELPS In my own country we have constantly worked to improve the speed and the usefulness of our own participation in the Alliance, and we have made remarkable progress. I hope you will listen to this.

In the last year and a half we have loaned over $847 million--and that is almost $150 million more than was loaned in the entire 2 full preceding years combined. The number of loans is increasing. The amount of investment guarantee is on the rise. Housing guarantees alone have gone up 20 times in the last 2 years.

So you see in both the United States and Latin America we are moving more and more swiftly to meet the obligations and to reach the goals that we set in the Alliance for Progress.

HOPE IS BORN And behind the statistics lie the countless stories of human needs that have been met, human suffering that has been relieved, and human hopes that have been fulfilled.

Twenty-five million people--13 million of them little children--are today, as we speak, receiving food from the Alliance programs.

More than 1 1/2 million people already have new homes. A million children now have new classrooms, and 10 million textbooks have already been produced.

Hundreds and hundreds of thousands now can find relief from suffering in more than 850 hospitals and health centers and health units that have been placed into operation already.

More than 100 million people today are protected from malaria. And all across the face of the hemisphere new roads are being constructed. Electric power lines are going up. And institutions for saving and credit and development are already opening new doors.

Yes, these are very important gains. But, perhaps more importantly, the banners of reform, of social justice, of economic progress have been seized by governments and by leaders and by parties throughout this hemisphere. Elections are fought and elections are won on the principles of the Alliance. And where once the light of hope flickered in very few places, today it burns in many nations. In the oppressed countryside and in the desperate slums, growing numbers of people know that far away in distant capitals--under different slogans and with varying success--their leaders are working to brighten their days and to ensure their dignity.

For the fact is, even though the forces of injustice and privilege and tyranny still hold many fortresses, they are actually on the defensive today. And we can say, far more surely than we once could, that their final day is coming.

But whatever we have accomplished, we all know that the road ahead is longer and it is more steep than the way behind. If many have been helped, then there are many more that are still untouched. If some are newly free, there are millions that are still shackled by poverty and disease and ignorance and malnutrition. If we have made more progress than before, as we have, we have made far less than we should and than we must.

TOWARD A BRIGHTER FUTURE So, to this end, we must all increase the efforts that we are now making: first, to build modern industry and the structures on which it rests; to attract a growing flow of private investment and technology to Latin America; to speed up the process of social reform.

But it is not just enough to continue doing what we are doing. From the experience and the achievement and the failures of the first 4 years, we can now shape new directions.

Recently, I received--as did the other American Presidents--a letter from CIAP suggesting changes and new departures. The leadership of this organization is itself one of our very healthiest developments. And I pledge that my Government will review this letter with great care and sympathy.

But from this letter--and from our own experience--we can already see the shape of future emphasis.

First, we must step up our efforts to prevent disastrous changes in the prices of those basic commodities which are the lifeblood of so many of our economies. We will continue-as we did this week in London--to strengthen the operation of the coffee agreement and to search for ways to stabilize the price of cocoa.

We will try to maintain a regularly expanding market for the sugar that is produced by Latin America. And consistent with the CIAP recommendations, I will propose this afternoon that Congress eliminate the special import fee on sugar so that the full price will go to the Latin American producers.

Second, we must try to draw the economies of Latin America much closer together. The experience of Central America reaffirms that of Europe. Widened markets--the breakdown of tariff barriers--leads to increased trade and leads to more efficient production and to greater prosperity.

The United States will, as CIAP suggests, contribute from its Alliance resources to the creation of a new fund for preparing multinational projects. By building area-wide road systems, by developing river basins which cross boundaries, by improving communications, we can all help to dissolve the barriers which have divided the nations.

In addition, I hope the American nations will consider the establishment of a program--patterned after the European Coal and Steel Community--for the production and trade, on a continental basis, of fertilizer, pesticides, and other products that are needed to increase agricultural production. My country stands willing to help in such a venture.

And thus, in ways that he never imagined, we can move much closer to the dream of Bolivar.

Third, we must emphasize the needs of rural Latin America. Here is the scene of the most abject poverty and despair. Here half the people of Latin America live. And it is here, in the countryside, that the foundation of a modern economy will finally be built. Through the diversification of crops, we can decrease dependence on a few export products. Through increasing production, the countries of Latin America can feed their own people. Through increasing farm income, we can provide growing markets for new industry.

And we must, as CIAP also suggests, direct more of our efforts toward those things which directly touch the lives of individual human beings--housing, education, health, and food. And it is not enough simply to say that a growing economy will ultimately meet those needs. Misery and pain and despair exist in the present, and we must fight them in the present with all we have and the best way we can. This is not only the command of compassion. It is, as we all recognize, the counsel of wisdom. For factories and banks and dollars do not alone build a nation. People build a nation. And on those people, on their health and their knowledge and their faith, their participation and their sacrifice, really rests the future of all of us and the future of all nations.

This is the common thread which runs through the Great Society in my country and the Alliance for Progress in all countries.

These are a few--and only a few--of the many tasks which lie before us as we meet here this morning to labor to complete the second revolution of the Americas.

DIGNITY FOR ALL The task of development is a practical process. Development demands skilled leadership. It demands careful judgment. It demands initiative, ingenuity, and imagination that is firmly tempered by possibility. But it also demands something more. For our progress is not its own end. It is an instrument to enlarge the dignity of man. And so we must build on faith and on belief and on those values which are the resistant and enduring mark of our civilization.

This means that each man should have the chance to share in the affairs of his nation. This means that each man should participate in that liberating process of self-rule that we know as democracy. It is fundamental to our Alliance that all of our nations should be free and that all of our people should be a part of that freedom. We have not yet achieved that for all of our countries, indeed for all the people of even my own country. But that is our goal for this entire continent. And, however we build, the Alliance will not be a success until that is accomplished.

It is to protect that right of self-determination that the OAS today works in the Dominican Republic. I know that all of you share the wish that the future government, chosen by the Dominican Republic and by the Dominican people themselves, will be devoted to the principles of liberal democracy and social justice; and that you share as well the intention of my country to try to help them rebuild that memory and to help rebuild that strife-scarred land.

This also means that each man's nation, whether it is great or small, must walk as an equal with all others--free to shape its society, free to select its institutions and free to find its own way to the future so long as it respects the rights of its fellows. And, from that enriching diversity of custom and tradition--practice and the conduct of affairs--I think we will all draw strength and, perhaps even draw wisdom.

This also means that each man must have a chance to share in present benefits and to share in future progress. God did not create any man to live in unseen chains, laboring through a life of pain in order to heap the table of a favored few. No farmer should be enslaved to land that he can never own. No worker should be stripped of reward for toil. No family should be compelled to sacrifice while others escape the obligations of their society. "Indeed," said Thomas Jefferson, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." We must surely tremble for our continent as long as any live and flourish protected by the walls of injustice.

PROGRESS WILL FULFILL DREAMS If we follow these commands in all our lands, then progress will fulfill our dreams. But if we sacrifice them to weakness, or interest, or to false promise, then the hand that builds will become the hand of desolation.

I am, as best I can, and best I know how, trying to follow them in my own country. This year new laws will help the old in my country to find health, will help families to supplement the cost of their homes, will help the Negroes to share in democracy, will help the poor to find an exit from poverty, and will help little children to seek learning. For in my Nation, like yours, we are still struggling to find justice for all of our people. And because we are fortunate in abundance, we feel that morality requires that we must also try to help others who seek it for their own people, too.

And there is also something more. The process of development is still an unknown process. Although we mask our uncertainty with charts and tables, calculations and intricate theories, we are all still very uncertain. But one thing we do know. Development is not just a matter of resources, or trade, or production, or even crops. Rather, in some mysterious way, a people--because they have great leaders and because they have great hopes and because they themselves are great--an entire people begin to stir, and to sacrifice and to work. And when they do, a nation begins to move.

And today in this country and, I believe, throughout this continent, this is really beginning to happen.

It is this--not the numbers or reports-which tells us these have been fruitful years, prosperous ones, and that with luck and with skill and with intransigent resolve we will clear away the thousand barriers that lie ahead. But if enough hands grasp them, then all will be allowed to make the journey.

To all that was pledged that momentous August day 4 years ago--and everything promised since then--I here, on this anniversary today, again pledge my administration and my personal life in office.

As for the future, let's leave that to the New World. It will be ours, as it was promised so many years ago.

Thank you.