Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks in Philadelphia to a Group of Eisenhower Exchange fellows.

September 26, 1960

Mr. McCabe, fellows of the Eisenhower Exchange Program, Trustees and friends:

I have been more or less in a public position--a publicized position-for the past 18 or 19 years. By this time, I should think, it would be impossible to surprise me. When Mr. McCabe asked me to come over here this morning, I had a vision of going into his office to, chat a little bit about this program. I had no idea that the fellows themselves were going to be here or that I would have such an audience as this.

Nevertheless, far be it from me, with 8 years of political experience behind me, to hesitate to take advantage of such an opportunity and express some views which I hope will have some value.

I have had many presents given to me in my life. None has touched me more deeply--none has seemed to me more significant--than the one which in 1953 was given me and presented to me by some of my devoted friends.

The Eisenhower fellowships are a living, vital present--one that promises and is already producing greater understanding in the world. This present is helping to bring about those conditions which all mankind realizes must be brought about before we can achieve the deepest of our aspirations.

There are many fine research organizations in the United States that support basic research in science, applied research in all kinds of industries, and everything we can think of--pure knowledge and applied knowledge. But it is very difficult to conceive of a research program that is going to produce that quality of leadership--touch more elusive than the factor of pure knowledge.

I don't know exactly how you could define the characteristics and qualities that are most promising in the production of these things. Those of us looking at our own grandchildren and children have some probably prejudiced viewpoints. But we think we know what they will do. There's a story, you know, of a grandfather looking at his children and someone asked their ages. He replies, "Well, the doctor is 7 and the lawyer is 5."

Possibly someday we will have some mechanized brain that at the very earliest stages of human life will determine what the characteristics of these children will be and what functions they will perform best as they grow up, and particularly whether or not they will be natural leaders. I don't believe that we can yet visualize such a machine, and if it is on the horizon, I would suspect it is probably about the smallest item that we can detect.

So therefore, this group, under the leadership of Tom McCabe, had the theory that some leadership could be developed by this Exchange Program. They wanted, naturally, young men. There is not much use, for example, educating me much further. By the time you got done with it, I wouldn't be much use to many of you. But they did want people that had experience and had proved their qualities of leadership. And these people--the men that make up the members of these fellowship groups, whether you are going abroad or whether you are coming here--have produced or multiplied their own capacity for learning and for understanding by hundreds of times, because they have already proved their qualities of leadership. This, I submit, is a quality that is the most needed of any I can think of in the world.

Leadership is not merely trying to satisfy personal ambition. Leadership must have some quality in it, of desiring to give service to others-your country--your community--your business--humankind. Indeed, I believe it would be a generality that could be sustained, that those men who have been most successful in business are those who thought far more of making that business successful than themselves successful. This particular characteristic must be in everybody who is going to be a leader, because only in that way can he influence others along the right path.

We know the world is changing, and I believe these fellowship exchanges bring about an understanding of everyone who comes to the United States, or who goes out and brings back an understanding of how much this world is changing. Whether you come from New Delhi to Washington, or from here to the Philippines or anywhere else--South America, Asia, Europe--we do find that changes are taking place, and we don't resist these changes. We merely want to direct these changes into those things that will bring about this basic objective: peace with justice.

This means, as I see it, each one doing his self soul-searching, making certain that he knows what he wants to do, preparing himself for doing it, and then using the greatest possible influence that he can exert on getting everybody else to do the same thing--or at least to follow the same basic principles.

For our part--for our own country--our country is going to be strong as long as leaders--and I mean leaders in business, in education, in philosophy, in the professions, and in Government--recognize the need for obeying and respecting the great principles that have brought us to our high position of today. They must adapt the changes that must take place in such a way that those principles will not be violated. We do not want to fall prey to the belief that merely spending will bring about progress. We want to set up our needs in order of priority, starting with the security of our Nation, the soundness of our economy, and all the methods that will keep us strong.

Our strength will be useful not merely to us, but our strength will be useful to the world if we are the kind of leader I have been so feebly trying to describe. If we have the kind of leader who informs himself, by studies of his own, by mingling with peoples of his own nation and others, developing his understanding of humankind and of its problems, and above all, wants to see the society of which he is a part advance to ever higher standards--spiritually, intellectually, materially--and can keep producing them in the United States, our country, then, on a national basis will always be in a better position to lead the world toward the great objective of all.

It is for reasons such as these that I express my congratulations to every person here who has had a part in this Exchange Program, particularly to the groups that belong to the Exchange Program--to those leaders and its director--because in spite of the machine--the imaginary machine of which I spoke--I think the methods that Mr. McCabe and his associates have developed to get these proven young leaders, are still the methods on which we must depend.

So, to all of you, my felicitations, my congratulations, and my deep thanks for your attention.

Goodbye.

Note: The President spoke at 10:30 a.m. at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. His opening words "Mr. McCabe" referred to Thomas B. McCabe, Chairman of the Board of Trustees and of the Executive Committee of the Eisenhower Exchange fellowships.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks in Philadelphia to a Group of Eisenhower Exchange fellows. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235389

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