Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks to Participants in the International field Hockey festival.

October 11, 1960

Colonel Eagan and gentlemen:

I have never seen a field hockey game. The nearest I ever came to it was as a boy we played a game called "shinny," and you got whatever club you could and then you took a tin can and you "batted" it into the shape of a ball and then you really went at it. You could sometimes have very unfortunate results.

But I am very much interested in this group for two reasons. first, because of your interest and participation in sports, and secondly, because of your love of sports, you are involved also in the people-to-people program which Colonel Eagan had a part in establishing some years back.

I think most of you know about my deep conviction that through formation of friendships between groups of people from different nations we can progress toward the road of mutual understanding. That means in the long run a common peace for all of us with justice. If we can do this, or we can further it just one tiny bit, then I think we have all done something worthwhile. If there is anything this poor old world needs more than anything else, it is a better understanding in one nation of the people of another.

Through this kind of sport participation, you meet your opponents and your associates and you form friendships that in some cases will exist throughout your lives. And through that, and through the communications, there will radiate out from your own knowledge and consciousness, something of this friendship for others that you yourselves feel. So the sport itself is important because it produces healthy bodies and strong attitudes of sportsmanship and decency and fair play. But even more do I applaud this practice because of its bringing together of the peoples of different nations. Colonel Eagan tells me you are planning soon, or in the next couple of years, a very large tournament in which there is going to be a lot of nations participating--a world's championship. That will be something.

I don't know whether any of you are particularly interested--outside of the citizens of our own country--in football or baseball, but right now it happens we are in the midst of both. We are just trying to end up a world series in baseball, and our collegiate football is right at its height. I hope some of you will get to see one of these games, as I hope to see one of your field hockey games. They tell me the only real relationship between it and the games I played was that they had 11 men. When I played football at the Academy, we did have 11 men.

Now I don't know how long all of you from the other countries are going to be here. I know that you speak several languages, but I suppose most of you speak enough English to get along and to get things to eat and places to sleep. So I do hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to see different parts of the United States. There are different modes of life here and there, and you will find many differences in accent and all the rest of it. But I will tell you one thing: everywhere you go you will find first, hospitality; second, you will find a complete dedication to the idea of peace with justice, and of minding our own business. In countries that we help in this world, we do it with no thought of domination. We want no one else's territory. We don't want to have any influence over others, whether it be economic, military, political, or even social. We want partners. We want partners, and that's all we do want.

So I just ask you to check, as you see these people of America, and find out whether you do not agree with me that that is their basic feeling about other nations in the world.

So as I congratulate you on your opportunities to participate in this kind of sports--and all sports are fun, so I know you have had a lot of fun--I do want also to say you are a valuable instrument in bringing about this understanding we so greatly need.

Thank you very much--I'll be seeing you.

Note: The President spoke in the Rose Garden at the White House. His opening words "Colonel Eagan" referred to Col. Edward P. F. Eagan, Chairman of the People-to-People Sports Committee, with headquarters in New York City.

The group consisted of members of field hockey teams from Venezuela, Bermuda, Holland, West Germany, and the United States.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks to Participants in the International field Hockey festival. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235500

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