The Hindu : dated January 21, 1953: President Eisenhower's Inauguration

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003

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dated January 21, 1953: President Eisenhower's Inauguration

A dense crowd and millions of television viewers heard the new American President Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower deliver his inaugural address from a platform put up outside the domed white Capitol building in Washington D.C. on the 20th. Ike promised to help the proven friends of freedom in the world and appealed to the leaders of Western Europe to make its unity a reality. President Eisenhower said, "The world and we have passed the mid-point of a century of continuing challenge. The forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as never before. A time of tempest has come upon the continents of the earth. Masses of Asia have awakened to strike off the shackles of the past. Nations of Europe have waged the bloodiest of wars. Thrones have toppled, and vast empires have disappeared. New nations have been born. In our own country we have grown in power and responsibility. Seeking to secure peace in the world, we have had to fight in the forests of Argonne, through the shores of Iwo Jima, and to the mountains of Korea. In the swift rush of great events, we find ourselves groping to know the full sense and meaning of the times in which we live. We beseech God' guidance. We seek to understand how far we have come in man's long pilgrimage from darkness to light. Are we nearing the light — a day of freedom for all mankind, or are the shadows of another night closing in upon us? This trial comes at a time when man's power to achieve good, or to inflict evil, surpasses the brightest hopes, and tests the sharpest fears, of all ages. Disease diminishes, and life lengthens. Yet, that promise of life is imperilled by the very genius that has made it possible. Nations amass wealth, and labour sweats to create it. Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from earth. At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed in the deathless dignity of man governed by eternal moral and natural laws. It is the faith which defines our full view of life. It establishes beyond debate the gifts of the Creator that are man's inalienable rights, and which make all men equal in His sight. In the light of this equality, we know that the virtues most cherished by free people — love of truth, pride in one's work, and love for one's country — all are equally precious in the lives of the most humble and of the most exalted. This faith inspires us, and it decrees that the people elect leaders not to rule them, but to serve them. And it warns us, that any man who seeks to deny equality in all his brothers betrays the spirit of the free and invites from tyrant."

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dated January 21, 1953: President Eisenhower's Inauguration

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