Remarks at a Ceremony Marking the Fifth Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress

Mr. Secretary General, Mr. Vice President, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen:

The health of this hemisphere is the business of the house in which we have assembled this morning to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Alliance for Progress.

From this building, Dr. Horwitz and his staff reach to the far corners of our continent to combat disease and to minister to the medical needs of people. They know that not only the claims of compassion and personal dignity but the promise of economic prosperity always demand sound bodies and healthy environments.

In the field of public health, the Pan American Health Organization was an early forerunner of the Alliance for Progress. Today it is a very integral part.

Five years ago the American governments embarked on this audacious experiment. We were neither cautious in concept nor timid in scope. Because we knew that our common purpose was to make a new kind of revolution.

The great question of the hemisphere was: Can sweeping change come about peacefully and constructively in freedom, or must it rise from the wreckage of violence and destruction?

Our answer began with the Act of Bogota in 1960.

The Charter of Punta del Este and the progress of 5 years since then have clearly confirmed that answer. The republics of this hemisphere have shown that deep social change is compatible with peace, is consistent with democracy, and is consonant with individual liberty.

We have sounded a sure and a certain note; namely, that great change can be wrought by reason and not rifles, by builders and not bullets.

The Alliance is not a Marshall plan to rebuild war-torn economies. Nor is it a program of handouts to just bolster the status quo. The aim of the Alliance is to build new societies. And its method is to build democratically through a partnership of all. Today, the Alliance is a revolution at work-it is creating, building, transforming, reaching forward; it is touching the lives of hundreds of millions of our fellow citizens.

We are encouraged today that the average Latin American growth rates are now exceeding the minimum goal of 2 1/2 percent per capita that was set forth at Punta del Este. But we do know that growth charts and statistics never tell the whole story. The true measure of our work is in its impact upon our peoples.

We see in it the teacher and her pupils as they move into new classrooms in the mountain plateaus of the Andes and the barrios of the cities; we see it in the isolated Indians of remote villages that are striving to become part of larger national communities; we see it in the laborers that are carving roads on the eastern slopes of a vast mountain range to open up the heartland of South America; we see it in the farm extension agents and the campesino, who, for the first time, works a farm that he can now call his own. We see it in the workers and the managers that are building new and great and modern industries. We see it in families that are moving from the slums to a new apartment or a new house.

We see it in wholly new institutions such as cooperatives, development banks, and unions and see them unlock the energies and the resources of thousands of people who learn the strength of a common endeavor. And we see it in new legislation to revamp outdated tax structures, to modernize obsolete systems of land tenure, and to renovate archaic institutions of government.

Beyond these visible accomplishments lie very profound changes in attitude from which the future development of this hemisphere will flow. For the Alliance has shattered the myths that 5 years ago threatened its promise.

It has shattered the myth that the status quo will not yield to progressive change as a way of life. It has shattered the myth that the nations of the hemisphere cannot look across national frontiers to their sister nations in the search for common solutions. It has shattered the myth that inflationary spending is the royal road to rapid development. It has shattered the myth that communism in this hemisphere is the wave of the future. The tragic plight of the Cuban people has shown communism's writ to be worthless.

The framers of the Charter of Punta del Este labored under no illusions. They know there are no panaceas for progress. And so they charted the right, but hard, course.

They called upon the hemisphere to mobilize public and private resources for diversified investment. They called for governments to modernize public services, taxation, and agriculture. They called for our nations to mount major programs in education, health, and housing. They called for Latin America to move toward economic integration. And they called for better trading conditions and increased external financial and technical cooperation for all of Latin America.

Every man and woman in this room knows that these are not easy tasks. But we also know that the beginning of the beginning is already behind us. And now we must look to what lies ahead of us.

We have only begun to meet the needs of today, and these are but a small fraction of the needs of tomorrow.

If present trends continue, the population of this hemisphere will be almost 1 billion by the year 2000. Two-thirds--some 625 million-will live in Latin America. Whatever may be done through programs to reduce the rate of population growth, Latin America faces a vast challenge.

Farm production, for instance, should increase by 6 percent every year, and that will be double the present rate.

At least 140 million new jobs will need to be created.

Over a million new homes should be built each year.

More than 175,000 new doctors need to be trained to meet the very minimum requirements.

Hundreds of thousands of new classrooms should be constructed.

And annual per capita growth rates should increase to the range of 4 to 6 percent.

These requirements, added to the demands of the present, mean that new sights must be set, that new directions and renewed drive must be found if we are to meet the challenge, if we are to move forward.

In a few months the Presidents of the American Republics will meet to establish the priorities for the years that are ahead of us. Our governments are carefully and today thoroughly preparing the agenda for that conference. Some of the areas of very special concern are already emerging.

First among these is the economic integration of Latin America.

The question is whether progress lies ahead in unity or in isolation. Our sister republics in Latin America must decide that question and they must decide it for them. selves. For our part, we deeply believe that effective unity and not separation is vital to the needs of expanding populations.

In the total development of Latin America, national and local plans and projects are most important, but regionwide plans and collaboration are absolutely essential. Nineteen fertilizer industries, nineteen steel complexes, nineteen isolated markets, and nineteen different systems of tariffs--these would signify only stagnation and inefficiency, and in many instances pure waste.

We are ready, therefore, to work in close cooperation toward an integrated Latin America. As the other republics are forming their policies to accelerate this movement, at the moment we are now reviewing the opportunities for joint action throughout the hemisphere.

To my fellow Presidents, I pledge: Move boldly along this path and the United States will be by your side.

To all the hemisphere we say: Let the pace be quickened. Time is not our ally.

The path to economic unity and growth is manyfold. We must first concentrate on those assets within our reach that are not being used to full advantage.

For instance, there are lands that are lying fallow or failing to yield their potential, at the moment, because of the inadequate techniques or because there is too little fertilizer or because there is not enough equipment.

There are factories that are standing idle or operating at reduced capacity because production is inefficient. The national market may be too small, or the purchasing power may be too little.

There are human resources that are unused because of the shortage of jobs or the absence of skills.

And while we meet these problems, we must also prepare to conquer the inner frontiers which can provide living room and resources for generations that are yet to come. The eastern slopes of the Andes, the water systems of the Gran Pantanal River Plate, and Orinoco, the barely touched areas of Central America and of Panama--these are just a few of the frontiers which, this morning, beckon to us.

But not every frontier is geographic. My fellow American Presidents and I will be greatly concerned with all the other vistas before us.

For instance, there is education.

The Americas of the seventies and eighties will make large demands for trained men and women--not only for engineers, scientists, and agronomists to guide our paths, not only for electricians, carpenters, and machinists to use our tools, but for poets, artists, and musicians to enrich our lives.

All of us know that education is primarily a national task to be done with local resources. But there are endeavors where more is needed and where the Alliance must help: school construction, teacher training, and improved administration. The challenge of vocational and modern higher education is wide open--for management, technical, and administrative skills in government and in private business.

The Alliance so far has only scratched a thin mark on the great mass of illiteracy, although Latin America is the only continent in the developing world where the number and percentage of illiterates is decreasing each year.

Education, then, must become the passion of all of us. Let us approach this challenge completely dissatisfied with our traditional methods. Let us adapt the modern miracles of science, radio, and television, and audiovisual techniques, let us adapt these to the needs of our children and indeed, to the needs of our adults.

The time has also come to develop multinational institutions for advanced training in science and technology. For without these Latin America will suffer the continued "brain drain" of some of its ablest youth.

There is also for us the frontier of agriculture.

For too many years we have acted as if the road to prosperity runs only through the main streets of our large cities. Now we know that national prosperity is closely linked to the land and closely linked to those who cultivate the land.

In most Latin American countries it is in urban areas where poverty and despair catch our eye. But half of the people live in rural Latin America and half of them receive less than a quarter of the national income.

There is no reason why the land of the hemisphere cannot be made to fill the needs of our homes and our factories. There is no reason why rural population should not be full partners in modern economic life. And, looking beyond our hemisphere, there is no reason why the Americas cannot supply a larger share of the growing world market for food and for fiber.

This, of course, will require better planning of crops to fit the soil and to fit the markets available. It will demand better soil and better fertilizer and better water control. It will need a good extension service to educate farmers in new methods. It will require shared mechanization, better credit and markets, and better distribution.

The resources required for these tasks must not be needlessly spent on arms. Military budgets in Latin America are not exceptionally large by the general world standards, but there is a recurrent tendency to seek expensive weapons with little relevance to the real requirements of security. This tendency is often reinforced by competition among the neighboring countries.

And in these Americas, where by solemn treaty and by established practice our governments are bound to resolve disputes by peaceful means, we just must find a way to avoid the cost of procuring and maintaining unnecessary military equipment that will take clothes off the back and food away from the stomachs and education away from the minds of our children.

Well, these are some of the basic tasks, and only some, which lie before us as we try today to fulfill the promise of the modern world in which we are so privileged to live.

These tasks are going to be accomplished by concrete acts and not by rhetoric. We are not interested in the appearance, we are dedicated to the achievement. By specific steps we can strengthen and we can carry forward this great Alliance for Progress that was started 5 years ago.

This will mean democratic stability in which free men can labor without upheavals and without chaos. This will mean monetary stability so that the savings of the people can work effectively to develop all the resources. This will mean fiscal responsibility-that means an efficient public administration, a sensibly managed 'public debt, realistic exchange rates, and a market that's unhampered by artificial monopolies. This means progressive leadership--a government wise enough to insist on modernizing reforms and the most effective allocation of public resources.

This means, above all, personal freedom and human dignity. For if men are not truly free, if individuals are not protected against economic and political exploitation, then they do turn to violence and to extremism, whose first victim, then, is progressive reform.

So, as we meet here together this morning, we all recognize that change is everywhere throughout this hemisphere. We shall either shape it or be misshaped by it. And along with change will come contrast and contradiction. One man will be orbiting the earth while below him, millions of his fellowmen starve. Campesinos will be plowing the ground with oxen while a thousand miles away atomic 'power works its wonders. That is the kind of world in which we are living and this is the world that we are called upon to deal with.

So, I say to you this morning, let's go back to the original question, the basic question: Can sweeping change be progressive and be peaceful?

My own country knows of this question. We are going through such a change even as I speak. It began in the 1930's and it is continuing today. I lived here during the Great Depression. I remember the tattered soldiers going down Pennsylvania Avenue to Anacostia. I remember the poor who went hungry and formed our souplines and the men and women who searched for work that they could not find.

I remember the loss of confidence and hope, the biting despair and the fear that gripped a whole continent. And if ever, if ever a great nation was tempted to surrender to authoritarian rule, if ever free people were tempted to barter freedom for bread, we were tempted in the United States in the early 1930's.

Instead, by peaceful, although sometimes very controversial means, we rebuilt our society. We shaped laws which preserved the freedom of individuals but protected them against the excesses of extremism. They are all so familiar in my mind. I remember the stock market regulations and the Stock Exchange and Securities Act. I remember the social security that so many people feared was so socialistic, and Federal housing and guaranteed bank deposits, and minimum wages, when we voted for 25 cents an hour (many predicted our political defeat), when collective bargaining was insured by law, and when we rescued and saved and brought back to life the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Agricultural Extension Act, and many more.

We gave the lie in those years, and since, to Karl Marx's theory that the rich must get richer, and the poor, poorer.

Through a peaceful and a very progressive adventure, the poor have moved on upward, the middle class has broadened enormously, and prosperity has reached so many that we can afford to be concerned not only about quantity but about quality as well--the quality of our children's education, the quality of the medical care for our parents, the quality of our life in the rural and in the urban areas.

Now I would be the last to indicate that all of our problems are solved. Far, far from it. But with all the world watching us operate in this goldfish bowl, we are continually striving to fulfill our promises, to live up to our expectations.

Throughout the hemisphere this morning I think this same experience is underway. Our chosen instrument is the Alliance for Progress. It is not a recipe for instant utopia, as President Kennedy assured you so many times in his statements about his dreams. Perhaps only our children and theirs will finally know whether the Alliance really wins or not. But we do know this much: we are moving! We do know what must be done and we think we know how to do it.

We do know that social progress and economic change under liberty are the only acceptable roads to national vitality and to individual dignity. We do know that to achieve fulfillment a people must be free. And for people to be free they must be educated. And to learn, they must have bread.

We know that risk and danger are the marks of our time.

We know that what we do now will shape not only this generation, but generations yet unborn.

So I am very proud that you asked me to come here today and I am so glad that I am privileged to be here with you on this occasion.

A meeting like this, and like the conference of American Presidents that is ahead of us, does not, in itself, change the conditions in which we live. But if it changes us, if it renews our confidence in one another, if it inspires us and gives us strength to carry on and continue the grueling and challenging work that peaceful change requires, it will have served its purpose and met its responsibilities.

Thank you so much for indulging me.