Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks at Dedication of AFL-CIO Building.

June 04, 1956

President Meany, My Fellow Americans:

I am delighted that I have been invited by President Meany to pay this neighborly call from my place across the square. Now, we have been neighbors for quite a while, but as you know, the lease I have on 1600 is temporary. I have indicated my willingness to renew the lease for four years, and therefore my satisfaction, and one of the things I like so much are my neighbors.

Regardless of my tenure in that house across the square, I express this hope: that I shall always be as welcome over here as the men of this platform will be over in my office to discuss anything of mutual interest to us both.

I was delighted to hear President Meany say that this building is dedicated, among others, to those great labor leaders of the past who have done so much to advance the living standards of all Americans. I would like to pay my tribute to them. I know their spirit lives on in the hearts and souls and purposes of those who now lead the labor movement.

I should like to pay special tribute to one who has most recently passed on. Mr. Matthew Woll, who was my warm friend, worked so hard for the ideals that you have heard expressed by the two previous speakers this morning.

Since I last visited this building at the cornerstone laying, the most significant thing in labor has been the merger of the AFL-CIO. There is great new strength thus available to the organization as a whole and to its leaders.

Vast new opportunities open up before them, accompanied by a vast increase in responsibility. The greatest of those responsibilities is, of course, that there be sustained in this country-through this leadership--free democratic institutions in labor that are in keeping with our own national ideals and institutions. Labor organizations and government alike must serve the individual and not seek to dominate him. People are what count. Each individual here in this audience--and your fellows throughout the entire population of America--is, under our concepts, more important than any other single item in our whole galaxy of national assets. Dedicated to the service of people, that is what both labor and government must always be.

The great essayist, Carlyle, said, "Labor is Life." In that great essay he pointed out that labor brings order out of chaos, that it leads to true knowledge. Labor creates patience and courage. Labor makes men great. This is why he said, "Labor is Life."

I think we could add to that on our own account this morning: Labor is the United States. The men and women who, with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country, they are America.

I am, of course, happy to be here at the dedication of this great building as I was to be here at the cornerstone-laying. But our deepest thoughts and our deepest purposes this morning do not deal with stone and mortar; they do not deal even alone with the glorious record of the labor movement in the past--with its accomplishments. They deal with our hopes, our prayers, our determination for the future.

I think all of us would like to say this morning, when this building has completed its usefulness to the labor unions, when it has disappeared to make way for a new building, and the one after that has disappeared to make room for still another, that people-a people truly prosperous, secure, at peace, and above all, free-will have the privilege of gathering at those ceremonies of cornerstone-laying and of dedication, and that they may salute a free trade unionism which has continued to make equal opportunity available to all--to all people. Free--under a free nation--the United States of America.

Thank you, my friends.

Note: The president spoke at 11:00 a.m. His opening words "President Meany" referred to George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO. Later he paid tribute to the late Matthew Woll, former Vice President of the AFL-CIO.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks at Dedication of AFL-CIO Building. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232904

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