Special Message to the Congress on the Legislative Program.

To the Congress of the United States:

Of this, presumably the last Congressional session during my term of office, four months have gone by. Thus far the one major accomplishment is enactment of civil rights legislation. Although Congress rejected certain of my recommendations in this area--those relating to equality of job opportunity and assistance to states attempting to desegregate their schools--the new civil rights measure is another important step toward the attainment of the ideal of equal rights before the law for every citizen.

With only two months apparently left in the session, we still have a great deal to get done for America. I stress this now because, first, the time grows short in which to legislate prudently and wisely, without undue haste; and, second, too great a preoccupation with the events of an election year could seriously impede constructive effort. With the Congress controlled by one party and the Executive Branch by the other, these difficulties could become severe.

We should jointly resolve that the shortness of time and political rivalries will not be allowed to prevent us from serving the American people effectively. Matters are still pending that are vital to the health of our economy and to the nation's security and world peace; none of us can afford to electioneer at the expense of these. Nor can we yield to the temptation to neglect projects that we know are essential to good government but possess little popular appeal, and at the same time overemphasize others in the hope of benefit to one party or the other, or individuals therein.

Relating these considerations to a few of the programs still pending, I refer, first, to our vital mutual security effort.

During most of our Nation's history, our growth was strongly influenced by two unique conditions. First, for more than a century and a half two great oceans protected us from the violent struggles of the Old World. Although in recent years we became engaged in two global wars, our relative isolation gave us months in which to assemble, train and equip our forces deliberately and unmolested. Second, from the very beginning, our Nation's rapid expansion was encouraged by commercial and financial assistance from the nations of Europe. These countries provided us with valuable skills and the capital needed to accelerate the development of our resources, industries and commerce.

These conditions have radically changed. America emerged from World War II as the mightiest nation in a free world that, in the main, was exhausted and crippled. Soon thereafter we came to realize that new weapons of great power, speed and range had markedly reduced the value of our ocean shield. Our homeland, in any future major war, would be a prime target, and our warning time against surprise attack would be minutes, not months. Our security cannot now be achieved by methods and a level of effort believed adequate only a few years ago.

In a world, moreover, in which an aggressive ideology drives ceaselessly to destroy human freedom, it is now the United States to which aspiring free peoples, particularly in under-developed areas, must look, as America once did to others, for the technical knowledge and financial assistance needed to help them strengthen their economies and protect their independence.

Such changes as these gave rise to our mutual security program, one of the most necessary and successful enterprises America has undertaken throughout her history. Started more than a decade ago, the program helped to save Greece, forestalled economic collapse in Turkey and Western Europe, supported the countries of the SEATO Alliance, sustained the strength and independence of South Korea and the Republic of China, and made real progress, in under-developed nations on five continents, in combatting disease, poverty and suffering, and thus has strengthened the resistance of those areas to Communist penetration, propaganda and subversion. Clear it is that the mutual security program provides the surest path by which America can lead to and sustain a durable peace with justice.

Such a program serves the nation at large rather than any particular locality, section or group. Only with difficulty, therefore, can its great rewards be measured by individual communities and citizens. It inevitably follows that in the annual contests over the public use of tax revenues, there is a tendency to bypass the needs of this vital security program in favor of domestic projects that, urged by special groups, achieve a measure of support far greater than their over-all value to the nation warrants. Understandable this tendency is, but I deem it a great dis service to America to indulge it. The security of our country obviously demands that our mutual security program be carried forward at an adequate level.

I have asked new appropriations of $4.175 billions for this program for the 1961 fiscal year. Nearly half of this--a sum one-twentieth of our own defense budget--is to assist the military forces of the free world, comprising 5,000,000 soldiers, 2,200 combatant ships, and 30,000 aircraft. I need not remind the Congress of the low cost at which this force for freedom is sustained as compared to the cost of an aircraft carrier, a squadron of jet bombers, or an Army or Marine Corps division in our own defense structure.

Of the other parts of the program, one-third is for economic assistance required to help sustain these large forces abroad. The remainder consists of loans, technical assistance and grants to help under-developed nations. These are the funds that spell the difference between hopeless stagnation and progress for hundreds of millions of people who, with us, believe in freedom.

Congressional approval of these funds for mutual security will profoundly benefit our people. To our allies and to others with whom we discuss the great issues of our times, it will signify that a united America has not wearied in the discharge of its responsibilities, and that we are unshakable in our determination to attain a world order in which men are free to pursue their goals in peace. And I emphasize once again that, as we strive to build the kind of world in which America believes, our adversaries are not all included in the single word "Communism." They are distress and privation as well, and also the desperation of peoples when they realize that, lacking outside help, they struggle in vain to better their lives. Widespread chaos and misery cannot provide a world climate in which our free Republic can prosper and remain secure. There is for America no higher purpose or greater need than to measure up to her world leadership responsibilities.

I am keenly aware of the contention that, because of an adverse balance of payments, and because of certain failures in administration, America should curtail these mutual security efforts. We must, and do, strive for greater efficiency. Likewise, we do have a problem with balance of payments, but the way to meet this is by positive actions which expand exports. Neither difficulty can be met by withdrawing from our responsibilities for world leadership and from partnership in the protection of freedom. We need--in our own interests--greater human progress and economic growth throughout the world. We cannot achieve these by an assault either on mutual security or on liberal trade policies.

I congratulate the Congress for its actions thus far on the funds for mutual security in the authorizing legislation, and I reaffirm the imperative necessity of providing the appropriations that the authorization would allow.

Next is agriculture, a subject on which I have commented repeatedly to the Congress.

In no domestic area do we have a more obvious need for corrective action. We cannot wonder that the patience of our farmers wears thin. By force of law the Government's surplus holdings, especially of wheat, continually increase. These overhang the market, depress prices, and impose an ever more onerous burden upon all citizens, our farmers particularly. I have offered many recommendations for attacking the problem through bipartisan action. Action there has been on occasion but, in respect to wheat especially, far less than needed or of a kind that would make our farmers' present troubles grow worse.

In an effort to break the legislative stalemate I recently advised the Congress that, within broad guidelines which I suggested, I would approve any constructive farm bill that the Congress might enact. There is as yet no agreement on the part of the two Houses of Congress on a constructive approach.

Meanwhile farmers grow more concerned about their future, and our people generally become increasingly unhappy as their government expends a thousand of their tax dollars every minute on the self-defeating wheat program. Lately I have noted, with deep concern, a growing disposition in certain Congressional quarters to favor proposals long ago rejected as unworkable, and which would obviously go beyond even the very broad limits I outlined almost three months ago.

I regret also the continuing tendency to rely, in agriculture, upon Federal controls, which inevitably create interference with the lives of our farm people. I still believe that America's farmers prefer, as certainly I do, the development of legislation which will promote progress for them toward economic equality and permit them the maximum freedom.

Surely it is time, in the interest of all Americans, for the Congress to face up to the admittedly difficult problems of agriculture. It is constructive results that farmers want and need. Indeed, I believe that all America is looking for this kind of action before this session adjourns.

Also badly needed is extension of the Sugar Act, soon to expire. At stake are an assured and stable supply of sugar for our people at reasonable prices and removal of the uncertainties now facing this industry. A four-year extension of the present program, modified to give the President authority to adjust quotas in order to assure America of an adequate sugar supply, is needed to give farmers and processors the time to plan. Appropriate recommendations are before the Congress. The interests of America require that legislation be enacted before the Congress adjourns.

I have repeatedly stated the need for legislation in other important areas. Some of these measures are of a kind that, at the expense of responsible government, tend to be shunted aside in an election year.

First is the urgent need of Federal Courts for enough judges to hear the greatly increased number of cases being filed each year. Regardless of expediency, justice calls for prompt action.

The Judicial Conference of the United States has recommended the creation of approximately 40 new judgeships. This recommendation is supported by the Administration and by virtually every important professional organization concerned with the administration of the courts.

We who advocate equal justice under law have a duty to make it effective. In certain districts injured people must wait over four years for justice or compromise their rights; innocent people who are defrauded are made a laughing stock because the delay in the courts deprives them of an effective remedy; justice is denied the weak because they cannot finance the delay necessary to be heard. Further neglect of this need is heartless. For all our people, I most earnestly urge swift action on the pending measure to increase the number of judgeships.

Next I refer to my request of last June to remove the statutory prohibition against the Treasury's paying more than 4 1/4 percent interest on Treasury bonds which are due more than five years after issuance.

The American people have a great deal at stake in this legislation, for failure to remove this interest rate restriction can have many serious consequences, including the forcing of a new upturn in living costs. The Treasury, under this restriction, continually faces the prospect of having to manage the government's $290 billion debt in ways that would unavoidably increase the upward pressures on prices and on the interest rate for the consumer credit so important to millions of our citizens.

Again, I stress the need for prompt removal of this harmful restriction.

We also owe it to America to provide adequate new revenues for the Highway Trust Fund (as my proposal for a gasoline tax increase would do ), so that we may keep our very important highway program on schedule; and fiscal responsibility dictates that we not fail to raise postal rates and thus end the heavy drain on general revenues for postal services which Congress has said by law should be self-sustaining. Our other revenue proposals--notably, extension of certain excise taxes and an added tax on aviation fuel--also need to be approved.

Additionally, as I recently emphasized by special message to the Congress, we have compelling reasons to liberalize our immigration law during the course of this session. I remind the Congress, also, that this is World Refugee Year. Our country was one of those sponsoring this move in the United Nations. In harmony with the spirit of this resolution, and in keeping with America's tradition of leadership in humanitarian causes, we should press forward, in this session, with the refugee legislation I have recommended to the Congress.

I add two proposals of special importance to future Presidents of the United States. First is provision of Presidential office space. The Congress has met its own space requirements and those of the Supreme Court. Requirements for modern office facilities for the President, his staff and the news media assigned to the White House are no less necessary and urgent. Second, the need to carry forward Presidential powers to reorganize the Executive Branch is acute, in the interest of efficiency and economy in this huge government. Both of these authorizations are clearly essential. I again urge their approval before this session adjourns.

I refer now to a number of programs of intense interest to millions of our people--programs intended to initiate or enlarge benefits for various groups or sections of the nation. Such projects require objective analysis and a nicety of decision so that on the one hand there will be no neglect of essential Federal responsibility and on the other hand no surrender to the election-year temptation to overspend and over-reach. Responsibility respecting these will do credit to both parties but, more important, will benefit our people.

A comparison of 1952 and 1961 Federal expenditures shows the pace of the Federal advance in matters of this kind. Likewise it discloses the pressing need for prudence both as regards the level of these expenditures and the extent of Federal involvement in the problems of individual citizens. For labor, welfare and veterans programs, including payments from trust funds, cash payments to individuals were $11.7 billion in 1952. The comparable figure in the 1961 budget is $26.4 billion. Thus there has been a 125% increase in these programs during a period in which the population increased by 16%. This growth in payments far exceeds any increases required to match the 12% rise in living costs during this period.

Among such matters still pending I would mention, first, school construction legislation. Long ago the Administration asked Congress to approve a sound program to help colleges and universities and elementary and secondary schools meet their pressing construction needs. I have stressed that any such Federal assistance should be provided only to meet genuine need, and that it must preserve for the States, local communities and educational institutions their traditional responsibilities for education. The Administration's debt service plan for elementary and secondary schools, and its comparable plan for institutions of higher learning, both before the Congress for over a year, conform to these standards.

By these programs we would help to construct 75,000 additional elementary and secondary classrooms at a Federal cost, over the next 20 to 30 years, of $2.2 billion, and at a Federal cost of $500 million we would help build higher education facilities costing in the aggregate some $2 billion. The financing for the initiation of these programs is included in my 1961 budget.

It will be deeply disappointing if the Congress should fail to authorize such programs, and no less disappointing if, instead, programs that basically conflict with these standards should be passed.

Area redevelopment legislation also needs priority attention. I have long urged legislation authorizing loans and technical assistance to help areas afflicted with long-term, substantial unemployment resulting from technological changes. The purpose is to diversify these economies and thereby create new sources of private employment. With important local efforts to provide new jobs already underway, Federal help must be of a kind that strengthens and supplements rather than displaces or discourages those efforts.

I think it is basic that we reject the various schemes that would perpetuate insecurity by making distressed areas dependent upon the uncertainties of continued Federal subsidies, or that would pour Federal dollars into areas where distress has been temporary and which are competent to meet their problems themselves. Moreover, it will injure, not help the chronically affected areas if funds and loan advantages are indiscriminately broadcast to other areas that do not urgently require such assistance.

The only way this difficult problem can be sensibly solved is through healthy government-community cooperation that creates self-sustaining local economies. It cannot be solved by a dispiriting and misplaced benevolence on the part of the distant central government. The people who need this help are hopefully looking for truly constructive action this session. For this purpose I have recommended a Federal program amounting to $53 million, to be expended for loans and technical assistance.

The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare will present this week a new program which will enable older people truly in need of help to meet the calamity of catastrophic illness. This program will take full advantage of, and support, the progress that has been made by private effort; it will recognize the traditional Federal-State relations in various fields of assistance; and, additionally, it will not do violence to the private relationships that must continue to characterize the rendering of health care services.

Behind this program is a meticulous and thoughtful weighing of many alternatives. I believe the Congress will find this proposal of great value to our people most in need of medical protection in their later years. I urge this program in place of compulsory schemes which over a period of years would blight America's unexcelled medical standards and leave unaided large numbers of citizens we are striving to help.

The Fair Labor Standards Act likewise needs attention before these next 60 days elapse.

For several years I have urged expansion of coverage under this Act to include approximately three million additional wage earners. This is the most urgently needed change in this law, and I hope that the Congress will not fail to provide it.

The Secretary of Labor recently presented the Congress with information indicating that the minimum wage could be increased moderately without disruptive effects upon the economy. On the other hand we should, as responsible officials, stand firmly against an excessive increase which could cause unemployment and severe repercussions in many industries and areas of our country. It is of great importance to the well-being of the American people that we govern our actions in this area by economic facts rather than by political or social prejudice.

Nor, I believe, should we close this session without enacting various long-pending measures, mostly in the field of conservation--each of them important to all our people, but particularly to our citizens out West.

Among these measures I refer as examples to preservation of our priceless seashore areas, establishment of the Arctic Wildlife Range, permission to western communities to expand into public land areas, research assistance to the coal industry, and the Fryingpan-Arkansas and San Luis projects. Approval of these and similar pending bills will help to round out the program of natural resources development--now at a record level--which I presented last January in my Budget Message. We also need a solution of the Indian heirship problem and to give the people of Guam and the Virgin Islands a voice in the Congress.

As a general but most important consideration, I point again to the need of restraint in new authorizations for Federal spending. Our Federal accounts should balance with enough left over for a reasonable payment on the public debt, on which we are already paying for interest alone more than nine billion dollars per year. Proposals now before Congressional Committee would, if approved, raise our annual spending by tens of billions of dollars in 1961 and would disrupt Federal budgets over the next five years by many scores of billions.

For America's sake, we must resist the temptation, this year or any year, to overspend the taxpayer's hard-earned dollars and overcentralize responsibilities in the Federal Government. If we fail in this, we will weaken our hope of ever controlling Federal extravagance and will indefinitely postpone debt retirement and tax relief. At the same time we will debase our currency, invite the resurgence of inflationary forces, undermine local and state responsibility, and thus erode away America's strength at home and in the world. We should avoid preemption of state and local functions and take genuine national need rather than glittering desirability as our guide in Federal expenditures.

Most taxpayers, I believe, are becoming more and more aware of the results of laws that, though sometimes carrying a surface appeal, far too often add unjustifiably to the tax burdens of the individual.

Finally, I repeat my hope that in the brief span remaining before adjournment the Executive Branch and the 86th Congress can work constructively together in the interest of America and avoid schism and stalemate. The measures I have mentioned, and many others also calling for action this session, must go forward if we are to keep faith with our countrymen. Let us remember, as Congressional deliberations proceed, that both the nation and the world are looking on.

With sound progress as our object, we can accomplish much despite the shortness of time left in this session. Working together responsibly, we shall surely make America a stronger and better nation; and, so working, we shall brighten the cause of freedom and peace everywhere on earth.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER