Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Address in Philadelphia Before the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

September 26, 1960

President Seidman, members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and friends:

I am particularly delighted to be with you this morning. I have never had the privilege before of talking to a big group of accountants all in one spot. I run into them in my daily life, but not in such numbers.

One of the more statistically-minded people in the Government told me not long ago that I had appointed more certified public accountants to Government positions than any prior President. I certainly did not do this just because they are accountants. I have been for all these 8 years searching for talent--people of dedication, of training, of education, of capability--people who have a sense of civic responsibility. So, since I have appointed so many of this type of person who have been public accountants, I suppose it's a fair conclusion that your profession averages very high up among those that are so dedicated and so capable.

The Director of the Budget--Mr. Stans--is a public accountant. I have heard that he rather divides Government officials into two classes-those who are certified public accountants, and those who are not quite so able. I make allowances, of course, for his somewhat prejudiced viewpoint. Nevertheless, I do agree that the excellent performance of the some two thousand of accountants who are now in the Federal Government is one of satisfaction to me, and I am sure to yourselves.

I shall not try to talk about your profession. Certainly you know more about it than I do. I assume that one of your great functions in American industry and in American business life is to make certain that corporations, companies, and others that are conducting businesses do not go bankrupt because of reckless financial and business practices. If they show tendencies this way, you are there to point out where the error is and what they must do if they are going to keep in the black.

My friends, the biggest business in the world is the United States Government. It employs directly 5 million people, and it spends each year, $80 billion of your money. I cannot conceive of a greater need anywhere for certified accountants than in the federal Government.

I want to talk to you a little while this morning about Government rather than about your profession, and indeed, even your functions within the Government. Since this big Government business of ours is owned by all our people, affects all our people, and depends upon all our people, then indeed this is something that must be the concern of every serious thinking person.

I want to make an observation--a sort of truism from my old military life. There was an old adage that went something like this: in war you can do nothing positive except as you do it from a firm base. This means that unless a commander has an area in the rear from which he can draw his replacements for casualties, his new ammunition supplies and food--all the things that an army needs in a campaign--then in the long run he cannot win. Most of you know that Hannibal, a great general of early times, campaigned successfully up and down Italy for some dozen years trying to win a war, but finally lost it because he had no firm base.

Ladies and gentlemen, the firm base for the problem of leading the world toward the achievement of human aspirations--toward peace with justice in freedom--must be the United States. America's moral, spiritual, and intellectual strength is vitally important, but I do not intend to discuss these strengths this morning. What I want to discuss today is the need, within the United States, for a strong, expanding, and growing economy.

Going back to a comparison with business, I said that if a business is reckless in its spending, if it doesn't know what its accounts are, it is going to find itself at the end of the year in a very bad spot--if not bankrupt, at least in need of reform. I pointed out that the Government--the Government of the United States, the biggest business of all--is not exempt from the practice of these basic principles of financial integrity, of knowledge of what we are doing and where we are going, of efficiency and effectiveness in its operations.

The biggest thing, then, about budgeting is to try to pay as you go. If a business or the Government does not pay for its current costs out of current revenues when the business and the Government seem to be in prosperous times, then when is it ever going to pay its bills? If it doesn't pay its bills--if it depends upon deficit spending, upon piling up the debt which our grandchildren, if anybody, will have to pay--then I submit that the federal Government is in a very tough position. Deficit spending is not only robbing our children of their rightful heritage, but it brings with it the evils of recklessness in Government, of rising costs; indeed, it is one of the great factors in bringing about the evil of inflation.

So if I should be able to give you one conviction this morning, it would be this: the Government of the United States, in view of the long-term nature of the program facing it, must look carefully to its financial processes and its fiscal operations, so that rather than ruining its economy by inflationary practices, it will make up its mind that every new program must have the revenues in sight that are going to support it.

All this means efficient government because no government can afford to ignore the priority needs of its people. Each need of the people, whether it be in health or in education, or in insurance or anything else, must be carefully weighed in order that we do not go overboard in expenditures without knowing where we are going. On the other hand, we must not ignore any need. This extends, of course, to the needs of our security. By security I mean not only our own military defenses and mechanisms, but the help we give those people who with us want to live in freedom, who are dedicating themselves to the ideals in which we believe, and whose combined strength will make our position in the world better, stronger, and higher.

So, knowing that all of these functions are not only necessary but essential to our existence, it is more and more a duty of those who believe in efficient government to lay out before the American people--all 180 million of them--the day-by-day record of the Government's operations, so that everyone may know whether or not these things are being done as the mass of our people want them done.

This brings me to the last point I should like to make. We must remind ourselves all the time that in our open society only the force of a public opinion provides the motivation for all that Government does. Senators and Congressmen and Presidents are sensitive to the force of public opinion. If that public opinion is well informed of the facts of our present existence, of the aspirations and hopes we hold out for ourselves and for those things that make for effectiveness and efficiency, then indeed we will have representative government--self-government at its best.

With such principles as these in our minds, we look forward not backward. It is not that we merely look at "pie in the sky." As someone said, "we keep our heads in the clouds but our feet on the earth," and that probably is still a good adage.

What I mean is this: in looking at any bright prospect--any glittering promise held up before our eyes--we must see those things through basic principles of responsibility, of effectiveness, and of efficiency, if we are going to put them in their right focus. Before we adopt them, we must measure them against those principles. This we must never forget.

I believe that people who have been trained and educated like yourselves, people who have spent their time in thinking as you people have done, have a great responsibility for informing and organizing this public opinion of which I speak, which is the force that will always keep us going.

You must talk to all people in terms of principles, of soundness, of progress, of responsibility. If we all do this, we will have a great country. There is no reason why it cannot be done. In such a problem and in such a function--such a duty--I can think of no greater body than this one because I am told that there are seventy thousand of you in the United States.

I want to point out this one feature of this job. If you will do your part, you have undertaken a lifetime enlistment. There is no short term. No election--no single administration--can mark the end of the efforts of such a body. Rather, this must be a dedication of yourselves and your successors and those you train and those that may come after you, right on down to the end of time. You and your successors must teach and believe these principles so that the United States will be ever a stronger influence in the world--commanding the respect of others, winning their adherence to her lofty ideals and principles--and finally, leading all the world to that great day when we can believe that we have achieved peace with justice in freedom.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. His opening words "President Seidman" referred to J. S. Seidman, President of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Address in Philadelphia Before the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235378

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