Address at a Dinner of the Jewish National fund.

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ambassador, distinguished members of our High Court, Members of the Congress and the Cabinet, and ladies and gentlemen:

It is a very, very great honor that has just been conferred upon me. I appreciate it most highly. I can't express my feelings. I don't think that as an individual I deserve all the nice things that have been said about me here tonight, but as the head of the Government of the United States, I am perfectly willing to accept them.

Mr. Vice President, that forest of yours will be very useful in the construction of this village. It will be in the same situation as at Dunsinane forest which went to meet Macbeth, but this forest will not go for that same purpose, it will go for constructive purposes, and the wonderful reforestation that these good people keep up will last forever, and so will the village.

Don't you worry about that middle initial of mine. That is a very good initial. It is the middle initial of Alben W. Barkley. And it stands for something. Now the initial that I have stands for nothing. A lot of people sometimes intentionally mispronounce it.

The growth and progress of the new State of Israel are a source of great satisfaction to me. I had faith in Israel even before it was established. I knew it was based on the love of freedom, which has been the guiding star of the Jewish people since the days of Moses. I was sure that under the leadership of President Weizmann, Israel would take its place in the family of nations as a strong supporter of the ideals of human freedom.

And I certainly appreciate that message from the President, and if it is turned over to me as it has been promised, I will be certain to answer it myself--as I will the other great message which I received. Don't forget that.

It was a great pleasure for me when you named one of the new villages of Israel after me. I have been very much interested in the growth and progress of that village. And you know, that tends to keep the President on a straight and narrow path, where I hope I will never do anything to cause you to change the name of that village.

Some day, when I don't have so much to do as I have now, I want to go to Israel and see Kfar Truman, and talk to those young farmers there. Perhaps they can teach me a few things about farming, and perhaps I can tell them a few things about the way we farm over here, although I will admit that I am 30 years out of practice in practical, on-the-ground farming. But my brother, my sister, and myself still own the old home farm. Two of my nephews do as much work in this mechanical age as my brother and my father and myself with five helpers could do in one day.

I hope that the people of Kfar Truman will have a wonderful future. But they will have to work for it, just as they have worked for the independence of their country. But I know they will make their village a lasting example of what free men can do when they are united in a great cause.

The people of the Truman village are very fortunate, of course, in having the Jewish National fund behind them. Through that fund you have been working on the point 4 idea for 50 years. You have been buying land in Israel, reclaiming it, irrigating it, and planting trees on it. That was the farsighted way to build a new nation--start with the land itself.

You have studied history. You realized that the whole area of the Near East, that had produced some of the greatest civilizations of the world, was today able to support only a fraction of the people it once had. The trees were gone, the water was gone, some of the land was eroded away, and other parts were swamp and marsh.

After 50 years, the founders of your organization decided to correct this situation in Israel. The work you have done is an outstanding example of what can be done to help the people throughout the Near East to help themselves.

That is what we are trying to do in our point 4 program. That is why I say the Jewish National fund embarked on a point 4 program 50 years ago. I like to think that the first large-scale program of the Jewish National fund was the reclamation of a desert valley called the Valley of Death. Today that valley is being brought back to life, and so is the whole of Israel. That is what point 4 programs can do throughout the world, if we have the courage and the good sense to go ahead with them.

Our point 4 program is essential to our hopes for world peace. It is as important as our defense program. I have been doing all I can to work for peace, and to make friends and allies for this country abroad, and to do everything that I possibly can to make every nation in the world friendly with every other nation in the world.

But there are some people who would rather play politics than have strong defenses. They would rather embarrass the White House than to checkmate the Kremlin. They have been playing a foolhardy game with the national security. It is a horribly terrible game that they are playing. It is one that should not be played in these emergency times. I am a politician, and I don't mind playing the game in the political field, but that game should be confined to our shores, and should not jeopardize the peace of the world.

A few days ago, in the House of Representatives, they put an arbitrary limitation of $46 billion on our defense expenditures for the coming fiscal year. This was a foolish, reckless act. It jeopardizes our defense buildup. It may require us--in this hour of peril--to demobilize a substantial part of our Armed forces. Think of that.

And last Friday, 3 days ago, a majority of the Members of the House weakened our mutual security program, and just about wrecked point 4 in Asia. They may have thought they were merely cutting down the aid we give other countries. But, in fact, they were cutting down the protection--the security--that other countries can give us. They did not see--or they did not want to see--that they were endangering the lives of American boys, and the safety of American cities and American farms.

In the House on Friday there were two terrible cuts, one in the defense of Europe against communism, the other in the defenses of the free nations of Asia against communism. I don't know what they were thinking about. I don't think they knew what they are doing. But I know the effect of what they actually did. The majority of the House picked the two places in the world where the danger is greatest, where the Communist threat is strongest, and they did their bit to help the Communist side.

Let me tell you what happened as far as Europe is concerned. They cut nearly a billion out of the arms aid to Europe. They cut about 800 millions out of defense support aid to Europe. This means that the free nations of Europe will not be able to raise and equip the forces they need--the forces we need--to defend the West against Soviet power. They will not have the arms from us, and they will not have the economic aid they need to produce the arms themselves. This undermines the defenses of the North Atlantic community. It undermines the work of General Eisenhower. It undermines the job General Ridgway has just gone to Europe to do.

Then look what they did to Asia. The House voted to cut economic aid and point 4 aid to Asia by well over $100 million. And then they voted a crazy, crippling amendment to the point 4 program. This amendment will tie the administration of the point 4 program into knots. Worse than that, it will cut the point 4 program in Asia by about $50 million more.

This undermines our hopes to build up strong, self-reliant governments in the free nations of Asia. It opens the way to Communist subversion in these countries.

Take the case of India. India hasn't enough to eat. It needs to grow more food. The Indian Government proposes to put on a 5-year program that will bring food production up to the necessary level. This is a force&draft program, to do in 5 years what would ordinarily take a generation. But it is the best way to keep India from falling into the hands of the Communists.

We agreed to help in this program. This year our share was to be about $100 million, but under the bill the House passed last Friday, we probably would not be able to do more than $25 million worth of help. And the people who led the fight--now listen to this, this is good, for these meat axe cuts in Asia are the very same people who howl the loudest about losing China to the Communists-now I wonder, do they want to save India from the fate of China, or would they rather let India be gobbled up by the Communists too, so they can have another calamity to blame on the administration ?

Now let's take the case of Iran. The Soviet Union last Friday sent them a threatening note. It warned the Iranians against taking any more military aid from the United States. And what was the response of the United States House of Representatives? On that very same day they passed this amendment to the point 4 program that will have the effect of cutting the program for Iran in half.

That is real leadership--that is standing right up to the Soviets.

I want to say a word right here about those Members of the House, mostly Democrats with a few Republicans, who voted against these cuts. They are standing up for their country, and they are standing up for the peace of the world.

Especially I want to express my gratitude to the wise and courageous Speaker of the House, who is here tonight. If all the people in the United States Congress were like Sam Rayburn, this would be a mighty fine world, and this job would be a much easier and a much nicer and a pleasant one.

The Vice President is here tonight, too. And I appreciated most highly the tribute he paid to me. I want to say to you that there never was a President who was associated with a Vice President like Alben Barkley.

That same bill will go to the Senate this week. The bill the House mutilated last Friday, I hope very much for the sake of the peace of the world that the Senate will repair the damage. I know they will, if they listen to the advice they get from the Vice President. He is right on these things, just the same as the Speaker is.

I am glad to say that Israel did escape the wild swings of the meat axe in the House, but it was a close call. An attempt was made to cut down the funds that Israel needs to help itself, to take care of its refugees through improving its resources, and to place its economy on a firm, self-sustaining foundation. But this cut was defeated. However, the amendment that was made in the point 4 program will cut the funds for the countries that are neighbors to Israel, and for the free countries of Africa.

The Mesopotamian Valley, properly developed, will support 20 or 30 millions of people, as it did in ancient times. It can in peace. It can be developed, with our help. And it will be returned a thousand-fold in the peace it will help to bring in the Near East.

There are developments in Africa that can raise the standard of living of that continent 10-fold in less than a generation. Think what that means for peace.

I can't help but dream a little out loud here. The Tigris and Euphrates Valleys can be made to bloom as they did in the times of Babylon and Nineveh. Israel can be made the country of milk and honey as it was in the time of Joshua. That is what we are trying to do. If those developments are made, why, there's a project which contemplates a siphon a hundred yards in diameter from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea Valley, the fall would create enough for the whole Near East. And it is not impossible, for I have had the survey made on it.

There is a plateau in Ethiopia some 6,000 to 8,000 feet high, that has 65,000 square miles of land just exactly like the Corn Belt in northern Illinois. That 65,000 square miles has a temperate climate. Enough food can be raised on that 65,000 square miles to feed 100 million people.

There are other projects in Africa equally as good. There's the Zambezi River down in South Africa, where the fall is twice as high as Niagara and the volume of water four times as great. Think what that would mean.

There are places in South America--a plateau in Colombia and Venezuela--that is just as the one in Ethiopia is, that could raise enough food to feed 100 million people.

There's a lake in South America, that is in Bolivia and part of the boundary that's in Peru and Chile, and that lake can be diverted to the coast of the Pacific. And the water that goes down the Madeira River to the Amazon and to waste, can be made to cause from a million to two million acres to bloom like the rose.

Those are the things that will make a peaceable world. Those are the things that we dream about. Those are the things that we are trying to put into effect. That is what Dr. Bennett was doing. He had been in every country in the world that he thought could be developed and made a peaceable country, and that would continue to contribute to the peace of the world. He lost his life doing it. We have his successor now who is doing exactly the same thing. I have had Gordon Clapp, the Chairman of the TVA Board, make a survey of the Mesopotamian Valley, the Tigris to the Euphrates River, and several other rivers in that neighborhood, in Turkey and in Lebanon.

These things can be done, and they are self-liquidating projects. We have immense amounts of money in this country that you might call risk capital, hunting for a place for investment.

If we can get peace and safety in the world under the United Nations, the developments will just come so fast we will not recognize the world in which we now live. I wish I could convert the Soviets.

I am sincerely hoping--I wish I could convert the House, too--I am sincerely hoping that under the guidance of Alben Barkley, the Senate will reverse the House on what they have done. If it doesn't, I think the people ought to know exactly the danger that the Congress may have put them in. And I am sure that when the people know these facts, they will remedy the situation and do it quickly and effectively.

Oh, I wish, as Israel did at one time, that our people could understand, and that Almighty God would give them a pillar of fire to follow at night, and a pillar of smoke to follow in the daytime, so that we could accomplish this beautiful fight we are making for the peace of the world.

For 7 long years that has been all I have worked for. The first order that I made after I was sworn into office in 1945, was that the United Nations should meet on the 25th of April, to write the United Nations Charter as President Roosevelt had outlined. From that time on, every move that I have made, everything that I have done as President of the United States has been for peace in the world.

Think what a wonderful thing it would be if we had complete peace and harmony in the Near East. Think of the developments that I have been talking about. It is an integrated economic whole, with Israel as the industrial center and the rest of the country around there to produce the food and fiber necessary to feed that industrial mill of Israel.

I am not a dreamer. I am a practical politician. I think I have proved that conclusively. And my friends, a practical politician is a man who works for the welfare of the people for whom he is working.

Now I pray--and I hope all of you will pray--that the effort which we are making for the peace of the world will not be wrecked for political purposes.

Think about that, and talk about it.