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Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill Creating the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission

October 04, 1961

I HAVE a short statement I would like to make, that I am happy to have the opportunity to sign this bill establishing the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission-and I am particularly happy to have the privilege of doing so in the presence of Mrs. Wilson and the members of the Wilson family, and with Senator Williams who has been responsible for this legislation in the Senate.

We have a continuing commitment, in the words of President Wilson, to the service of humanity. His life, his actions, and his ideals serve as an inspiration today to the achievement of the goals that he articulated so well more than 40 years ago.

I hope the Commission will plan a memorial that expresses the faith in democracy and President Wilson's vision of peace and a dedication to international understanding that President Wilson himself did so much to advance.

He called for a New Freedom at home, and a world of unity and peace, and we are still striving to achieve these objectives. "Democratic institutions are never done," he once wrote, "they are, like the living tissue, always a-making. It is a strenuous thing, this of living the life of a free people; and we cannot escape the burden of our inheritance."

It is therefore most appropriate that this Commission is established, whose function it will be to formulate the plans for the design and construction and the location of a permanent memorial to Woodrow Wilson in Washington, D.C., or this immediate area.

Note: The joint resolution creating the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission is Public Law 87-364 (75 Stat. 783).

During his remarks the President referred to Harrison A. Williams, Jr., U.S. Senator from New Jersey.

John F. Kennedy, Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill Creating the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235711

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