Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks at the World Christian Endeavor Convention.

July 25, 1954

Dr. Poling and friends:

It is indeed a very great honor to be invited to come here to extend to you, on behalf of this Government, a greeting to the Capital of the United States. Those of you who come from our own country, and those who come from abroad, are met here in a fellowship from which we naturally expect much, and because of which we extend to you a greeting that is more than usually sincere.

While I am talking about this matter of just meeting you, I should like to ask each of you a favor. You will return soon to. your homes, and I should like for you, whether you live abroad or in America, to take to all your associates personal good wishes, a personal expression of hope from me and from this Government, that all of your labors, all of your meetings, all of your endeavors, will lead ever toward that closer bond of brotherhood and friendship without which this poor old world is indeed in trouble, and which I believe that the young people of this world can do so much to promote.

Now, when we talk about such high moral efforts in this world today, we sometimes encounter in the diplomatic field the statement that if an international relationship does not use moral standards, that it is based upon expedience, or upon practical solutions to practical problems of the moment. And mayhap this is sometimes true, in the temporary sense. But it cannot possibly be true in the permanent sense, if we are to win that security, that peace, for which all mankind so desperately longs.

We must remember the spiritual base that underlies man's existence, and the spiritual base that underlies all free government; else we shall surely fail.

That there is a spiritual base to all free types of government is not difficult to demonstrate, of course. Free government makes as its cornerstone the concept, or the idea, that men are equal--they are equal before the law, they have equal fights and equal opportunities in the governments maintained to protect them.

Now we know that men and women are not equal among themselves, physically; they are not equal among themselves mentally. Consequently, they must be equal, if free government has any validity, in some way that has nothing to do with the physical or intellectual make-up of man. And that can be only his spiritual side.

Therefore, if we do not believe in the spiritual character of man, we would be foolish indeed to be supporting the concept of free government in the world--free government as opposed to dictatorship. But so long as we do recognize the spiritual values in man, his spiritual side, and recognize the dependency of free government upon these spiritual values, then everything that we are trying to do makes sense. Then the words "the dignity of man" assume real meaning. We may work for it with our whole hearts, we may work for true brotherhood among men without any qualification whatsoever, except doing everything honorable to achieve success.

In the great conflict that is going on in the world today, one side upholds the freedom and dignity of man, and therefore recognizes his spiritual character. The other lives by something it calls the materialistic dialectic, meaning only that it denies all the kinds of values that you young people support. It says there are no values in life except the material ones--what you can see or express in the material or intellectual way.

And this, of course, we know to be false. So, not only do you people get the satisfaction that comes to every human in this world, as he labors for the benefit of his brothers and his sisters, you know that in laboring to promote an understanding of these spiritual values, to raise them ever higher in our calculations of everything we do, that you are working for a permanent, lasting, durable peace among all the men of the world who so desperately thirst for it.

And I should like, of course, to give you this one conviction of my own: that all men, all masses, do truly long for peace. They want you to win the struggle you are waging. It is only governments that are stupid, not the masses of people. Governments may seek for power, for the right to dominate, to extend their authority over others. Free people do not seek that.

So your task is to help every man realize that he, himself, because he has been born in this world, is valuable. He is meaningful. He is important to you, because as you defend his rights you are defending your own.

And then we must make men understand that people who believe that way must unite among themselves, if they are to meet successfully the opposition which is united by force, by the threat of the MVD, by the threat of the police, the threat that comes about when child is asked to inform upon its parents, when there is no sanctity left in family life or in community life--anything, indeed, except slavish devotion to the head of the state.

Most of you are still young. You have your whole lives to live. You have, in other words a 60 or 70 year investment in this old earth. People my age, if they are lucky, have 10 or 15 years still invested in it. This earth is very much more important to you, then, possibly, than it is to us elders.

I say to you this, as possibly the only worthwhile word I can bring to you: if you remain ever true to the principles lying behind the organization to which you belong, if you believe in them with all your heart, if you live them, and if you get countless others to join with you in supporting those values, then indeed your lives will be fruitful and happy ones, and all those that come after you will be the beneficiaries of your great work.

My friends, though today we must remain strong in all the economic and the scientific affairs of the world, we must remain strong militarily for the protection of our firesides and our rights, to prevent domination by those who would seek to enthrall us. Yet bullets and guns and planes and ships--all the weapons of war--can produce no real or lasting peace. Only a great moral crusade, determined that men shall rise above this conception of materialism, rise above it and five as people who attempt to express in some faint and feeble way their conceptions of what the Almighty would have us do--that is the force that will win through to victory. Then the world will have prosperity and peace--prosperity beyond all the imaginings of the past; science will be developed and devoted to the happiness, the welfare of man, and not to his destruction; and all of us can live together peacefully and happily.

To each of you, wherever you go, I say: good luck and may God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 4:00 p.m. in the main ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Dr. Daniel A. Poling, editor of the Christian Herald, served as chairman of the meeting.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks at the World Christian Endeavor Convention. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232347

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