Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks at the Dedication of Eisenhower Park, Newport, Rhode Island.

July 22, 1960

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Wilkinson, and fellow Americans and citizens of this beautiful city:

It is an understatement for my wife and me to say that we are deeply honored by the graciousness of the City fathers in naming this spot for us. I am deeply touched by this kind of gracious incident and thought, for the simple reason that a name given to a place like this endures.

There will be future classes and groups of these Coggeshall Continentals on down the decades and possibly even centuries that will learn of this rather long and unusual name, and will possibly wonder how it happens that it was so named within this city.

But so long as they are people in those future times that live true to the traditions that have inspired the people of Rhode Island and of Newport in the past centuries, then it will make little difference as to what they think of the name of this spot at that time. But if they think of it only that this is a place where freedom has flourished, where the dignity of man has been respected, and they themselves can have the privileges we have today, even to change the name of this park, but do whatever may seem to them to be fitting, then indeed we will be fortunate people-and so will they.

I was particularly honored that at this occasion they would bring here this little group of the Continentals of the Coggeshall School. I have been told it steals every parade and it is the great feature of every ceremony that is held in Newport.

I can well understand it because they, I can see, are exactly the age of at least two of my own grandchildren, and I wish that my grandchildren had that kind of uniform and could play fifes and drums as they do. I congratulate the city and the school that has perpetuated this organization, and the leaders that have trained it so well.

As Mr. Wilkinson has said, this is our third visit here. We look forward to an opportunity for staying even a little longer, but the interruptions in the summer's vacation are not of our making but have to do with some of the regular political activities of our country that break things up into conventions and into recessed sessions of the Congress. So I am afraid we cannot stay here as long as we had hoped and prayed we could, because I assure you our gratitude to the people of Newport, for the courtesies and thoughtfulness they have displayed towards us all the time, makes it one of the places we truly like to come back to. And possibly maybe next summer in the summer--we can come here and be sitting with the crowd to view somebody else who will then be in the center of attention because of his particular position. Because I suspect that future Presidents will learn something about this place and the fun we have had here, and possibly they will even come to try it themselves. And if they do they will repeat.

So again I say thank you most sincerely for the honor you have done us. Again thank you for your courtesies, for the simplicity and yet the niceness and beauty of this little ceremony. And I do hope that you will never find any reason for changing your mind that the name of this park is a good name.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 2:35 p.m. in Washington Square. His opening words "Mr. Mayor, Mr. Wilkinson" referred to James Maher, Mayor of Newport, and former Mayor Henry C. Wilkinson.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks at the Dedication of Eisenhower Park, Newport, Rhode Island. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235076

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