Address at the Dedication of Falcon Dam

Mr. President, Mr. Commissioners, and all those present from both sides of this international border, whom I am bold enough and certainly proud to call my friends:

To you, President Ruiz Cortines, permit me to address my first thought, as we meet to dedicate this great structure to the use of our two peoples. I prize the opportunity of meeting you personally. Moreover, I should like for you to accept my pledge that, as the political head of the United States of America, I shall ever deem it a privilege--and a useful service to my own country-to work with you cooperatively and in friendship. The citizens of the United States of America here gathered with the citizens of your people, are honored by your presence, as all, throughout our entire country, prize the friendship implicit in this meeting.

And President Ruiz Cortines, and all others present from south of this River, let me say that when I speak of friendship today-friendship between our two countries--I am by no means talking of that pale sentiment by which we often describe a chance meeting with an acquaintance on the street, nor do I mean for it to be used as a mere salute or as used, sometimes, in formal diplomatic language.

I mean, Mr. President, the kind of friendship that seeks--seeks earnestly and persistently to understand the viewpoint of the other, and then labors with sympathy and with all that is in the heart to meet the viewpoint of his friend.

To be here today, at this moment in the history of our two nations, fills me with pride and with hope. Pride is for the past-for this latest achievement of the united labor of our two peoples. Hope is for the future--for the kind of future that two such peoples, in such proven unity, can surely build.

More than a mute monument to the ingenuity of engineers, this Falcon Dam is living testimony to the understanding and the cooperation binding our two peoples. More than any volume of words, the sound of its rushing waters and spinning generators speaks of this understanding. And more meaningful and powerful than all the energy it shall generate is the force for common good which we can found in this cooperation.

This work is one of the most dramatic achievements of the International Boundary and Water Commission which conceived and executed its construction. Founded almost sixty-five years ago, this Commission has repeatedly, throughout its history, resolved such problems as elsewhere in the world have flared into bitterness and into hostility. It has done more. It has provided the means for the peoples of two free, sovereign nations to work constructively for their common welfare. And it has done yet more. It has given the world a lesson in the way neighbor nations can and should live: in peace, in mutual respect, in common prosperity.

Behind the work of this historic commission--beyond even all the efforts of the governments of these two nations--is the spirit of two neighbor peoples. This dam and all works like it can, in the deepest sense, be appraised or understood not simply as the achievements of officials and technicians, nor as the grand purchases bought by appropriations of vast sums of money. Such works as this are created in the hearts of the citizens of two nations, citizens who respect and believe in one another. They are bought with the most precious coin in the world--the goodwill among peoples.

I pay my tribute, then, to the men who really created this work: the citizen of the United States of Mexico, and the citizen of the United States of America.

Each of these men proudly proclaims himself a patriot of his own country.

But, what else is he?

First, he respects all that belongs to his neighbor--his culture, his history, his just possessions, and his honest aspirations. He honors his neighbor's rich heritage as heartfully as he honors his own. He respects the dignity of the other--and expects no less from his neighbor.

He is, in yet deeper ways, a lover of freedom. He is profoundly aware of the ugly menace of totalitarianism, of its gaudy promise and its grim practice. He is particularly alert to that kind of aggressive totalitarianism today propagating the deadliest divisions--class against class, nation against nation, people against people. In his heart and in his mind and in his conscience, this man despises all the qualities and trappings of this totalitarianism: its pretense, its slander, its self-seeking--its contempt of man himself.

And, finally, this man knows his own true source of strength: his own free, creative initiative--all the strength and dignity which are his because God so endowed him. This man--this man on both sides of this border he looks to no government-neither his own nor someone else's--to chart his life. He knows that his own happiness and the healthy progress of his whole nation alike are to be won essentially by his own hands and his own brains.

In all this, the man we salute today is the same--on whichever side of this border he lives. Citizen of Mexico or citizen of the United States, he is also citizen of the free world.

This--this I deeply believe, is the spirit that not only rules our hearts here today but also unites this entire Hemisphere.

Extending southward from this spot is a continent of magnificent resources and infinite promise.

I need not emphasize the weight of the responsibilities that fall upon the United States of America in our dealings with the whole free world. Understandably, I think, these have often in the past conspired to center our attention on points of the globe remote from this continent. These responsibilities persist--indeed, they grow greater and increase. But something else has likewise increased: our awareness of the vital problems and the exciting opportunities here in the lands of all the Americas.

To these lands, our attention is turned in warm friendship and constructive concern for the well-being of all our neighbors. We hope to understand their needs and their problems.

We know of the longings of so many for a life enriched not only by greater material blessings, but also by the educational and cultural opportunities due all free men.

We know the scarcity of capital to provide vital stimulus to industry and agriculture--to all production enterprise.

We know the urgent demand for technical assistance in many areas.

We know the grave issues of international trade that must be resolved to allow productive prosperity for all.

We know these matters to be the common concern of all other nations and peoples--for whatever touches one of us touches all of us.

And above all we know this: the conquest of these problems is within the power of our united energy, skill, and determination.

Now, on this day, and on this border, there meet not only the heads of the governments of neighbor nations and fraternal peoples. Here meet the past and the future: the lesson of one, the promise of the second.

Out of this past--out of its trials, its not infrequent shows of national selfishness, its occasional sharp anxieties and differences--out of all this there has come and prevailed a kind of continental concert of spirit and will and purpose.

Ours is the imperishable spirit of free men, unswayed by the cheap promises of totalitarianism, undismayed by its blustering threats.

Our common purpose is the pursuit of a peace that is productive and lasting.

We seek, indeed, that age whose grandest monuments are not built to honor military or physical accomplishments, but rather those very different monuments: schools to teach our young, hospitals to heal our sick, roads to bear our commerce, power to give warmth and light, religious institutions to rouse the spirit, and the structure of abiding peace in which men may faithfully seek all that is good, all that is noble in life.

We confidently believe that such purposes continue to grow throughout this Hemisphere. Especially most important, we believe that your nation, under your leadership, is growing in that thought and in that purpose.

We humbly believe these purposes to be worthy enough to ask the blessing of the Almighty upon our peoples as we seek, with prayer and patience, their full attainment.

My friends, thank you very much.