Address in New Orleans at the Ceremony Marking the 150th Anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase

Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency the Ambassador of France, Your Excellencies the Ambassadors from other countries here represented, Governor Kennon, Mayor Morrison, Your Excellency the Archbishop, other distinguished guests--and my fellow Americans:

Before I shall try to expose to you the thoughts that I believe appropriate to this occasion, might I have a moment to express a personal word of thanks, not only on my behalf, but I am sure they would want me to speak for them--the other guests of your city today--on behalf of all of us, our thanks for the cordiality, the hospitality this city has displayed to us. We have been privileged to take part not only in an historically significant occasion, but in a most colorful one, and for my part, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Your Majesties King Rex and King Comus, for graciously allowing a part of this parade--your traditional parade--to take part in this ceremony this morning. It is the first time I have had the honor of seeing it, and I thoroughly appreciate it. Thank you.

My friends, we are today observing the anniversary of an event which ranks with the most important in our history.

The Louisiana Purchase effectively doubled the area of our young nation, brought this country unimagined wealth, and gave us strength and international influence beyond the dreams of our nation's founders just 25 years earlier.

We are observing the anniversary of an act which, though born of other nations' conflicts, involved the death of not a single American soldier. It was, for the United States, an act of peace. It was also an act of vision and of daring.

It was daring for a new-born nation, lacking all modern communications making for unity, to venture into a huge, unexplored area of unknown natural hazards and little-known inhabitants. It was daring for such a nation to accept so heavy a debt as this unique purchase imposed upon it. It was daring for our two negotiators in Paris--Livingston and Monroe--to decide to accept Napoleon's surprising offer without fear of repudiation by their national leaders separated from them by the breadth of an ocean. It was daring for our President, Thomas Jefferson, to support their decision instantly and to face squarely the opposition not only of foreign powers but of political critics of great passion and small vision.

That daring, typically American, has been justified in rare measure. It has been justified to an extent which staggers the mind; to an extent which, mathematically, is almost incalculable.

What once was the Louisiana Territory, today embraces six of our forty-eight states and large parts of seven others. It was 900 thousand square miles. It is bordered by a river almost unmatched in length and unsurpassed in majesty.

The bounty of this area has been even more phenomenal than its size. Its total cost, after all other increments were added to the 15 million dollars, was 23 million dollars--the cost today of a single Navy cargo ship. For this outlay, what did America get?

Let me give you one interesting example:

One single state--of the thirteen originally involved in the Purchase--recently reported the value of one single crop in one single year.

The state was Iowa. The crop was corn. The value was over 700 million dollars. This sum is thirty times as much as was paid for the entire Louisiana Territory.

Only one other example shall I give you. It concerns this city of New Orleans, and, specifically, one part of this city--the Port of New Orleans. During the first four months of this year, there passed from the fields and cities of America, through the port of this city, exports valued at more than 250 million dollars. And this is a sum eleven times greater than the cost of the whole Territory.

Now I find this last example singularly meaningful--not to New Orleans alone but to all America. For here we see dramatically highlighted one of the critical facts of our national life--our dependence on foreign trade.

We all know that New Orleans has always been a vital American port. As you well remember, it was closure of this port that sharpened our nation's anxiety to buy from France the area around this city--to insure our frontiersmen this essential gateway to the open sea.

The passage of a century and a half has decisively underscored the need of that day. For today our whole economy turns and depends upon the commerce of the world through such ports as this.

Through such ports as this on this Gulf, on two oceans, on the Great Lakes, come almost all the tungsten used in our tool steel, almost all the nickel and practically all the chromite used in stainless steel.

The tin used in canning our food, the columbite and the cobalt that are needed in the manufacture of high alloys, the manganese that goes into our American steel, the hemp for our ropes and hawsers, all of these come, almost exclusively, from foreign markets.

This dependence of our industry is certain to increase as the tempo of our industry increases. It highlights the most compelling practical reason why we must have friends in the world. We know that nations of hostile intent would not trade. with us except as it suited their own convenience. And this means that hostile rule of areas supplying us essential imports would place the American production line at the mercy of those who hope for its destruction.

But foreign trade means much more than the obtaining of vital raw materials from other nations. It means effectively strengthening our friends in the world at large--strengthening them not only to fortify their own economies--not only to be independent of direct financial aid from wealthier nations--but also to buy from us what we must sell to the world.

By making it possible for our friends to sell their products to us, we thus at once help them to be strong and enable them to earn the dollars by which they can, in turn, help our economy to be healthy and progressive. Clearly, we need these friends abroad, just as they need us. Consider some of our agricultural products which demand foreign markets--many of those products coming from the land originally involved in the Louisiana Purchase and much of them flowing through this port.

In the crop year 195 1-52:

Of all the barley produced in this year, more than 12 percent was paid for outside our borders.

Almost 50 percent of all our wheat was paid for in foreign markets.

Almost 60 percent of our entire rice crop was bought by other nations.

With non-agricultural products, the facts are much the same. Half a million of our refrigerators and home-type freezers, more than 30 million dollars' worth of our sulphur, more than 250 million dollars' worth of our machine tools and our agricultural machinery, more than a quarter of all the lubricating oil, and almost half of all our copper sulphate--all these were paid for in foreign countries.

Now, these facts and figures affect every American, no matter who he is: all who work on our farms, all who labor in our industries. They can signify for our whole economy the difference between productive profit and paralyzing loss.

This is a partial measure of the material meaning of foreign trade to America.

And this dramatizes, with sharp clarity, the role that New Orleans has played in helping this country form and sustain the international friendships which we need and cherish. Through such gateways as New Orleans, we have been able to trade with these friends on a fair and mutually profitable basis. We have been able to cooperate with them in projects developing their physical resources. There has been for a century and a half a stream of visitors flowing in both directions--from other countries to this, and from this to other countries. Through the knowledge and mutual understanding gained and spread by these people, there have been built friendships based upon mutual respect, mutual liking, and mutual need. Such friendships are many.

But there must be more. They must be stronger. They must be deeper. I think that almost any American traveling abroad these days experiences occasionally a sense of shock when he recalls an opinion about Americans in general held abroad, that seems to that American visitor to be so far from the truth. He finds himself considered immature diplomatically--impulsive-too proud of their strength--ready to fight--wanting war. He is shocked. He is considered rude. Even his deportment is not admired, because of unfortunate incidents on the part of individuals.

These friendships of which I speak, my friends, are so vital to us, that no American, no matter how exalted or how lowly may be his station, can afford to ignore them.

Each of us, whether bearing a commission from his Government or traveling by himself for pleasure or for business is a representative of the United States of America, and he must try to portray America as he believes it in his heart to be: a peace-loving nation, living in the fear of God, but in the fear of God only, and trying to be partners with our friends--and we accept for a friend anyone who genuinely holds out the hand of friendship to us, as we do to them.

And now this great port must meet the challenge of the coming decades. It offers foreign shippers 40 miles of river front. It is enhanced by a foreign trade zone. Its modern facilities are daily being enlarged and improved. It is manned by workers celebrated for their skill, their enthusiasm, and their vigor. It is an inspiring symbol not only of the vastly prosperous area whose anniversary we are this year celebrating, but of the nation it has served for the past 150 years. And with every item of commerce that comes in, with every one that goes out, let us strive to see that it is packaged in understanding, and handled in friendship.

Here, in the Port of New Orleans, we see reflected America's strength, her vitality, her confidence, her irrepressible desire for l improvement, her magnificent ability to meet resourcefully the demands of changing times.

It has been thus--in New Orleans, in the Louisiana Territory, throughout the United States--during the past century-and-a-half.

With God's help, with our friends in the world, and with unity among ourselves, it will continue to be so, throughout all the years that lie ahead.

Thank you, my friends.