Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen:

It is indeed a great honor to welcome you here to the Capital City and to have the privilege of spending with you these few minutes.

The very word "commerce" is filled with connotations characteristic of our problems of the day. Commerce based upon the productivity, the energies, and the brains of men likewise provides that material base to satisfy the material and physical wants of man and on which are built those opportunities for cultural and spiritual advancement so necessary to his well being, his progress, and his happiness.

Commerce here at home has made us what we are. As I was driving over here a few minutes ago, there crossed my mind a speculation. A hundred years ago today, Franklin Pierce was President. Had he been invited to a body with similar functions, aspirations, and purposes as yours, what would he have talked about?

Well, railroads were beginning to come in. We knew something of steamships, but largely even our farms and certainly our communities were self-supporting. Commerce as such had not attained for people the tremendous significance that it has in this modern day, when almost every man and every community are specialists. The man is a machinist, the city is a steel city such as Gary or Pittsburgh, or an automobile city such at Detroit, or an agricultural town such as Abilene, Kansas. But everybody does something and produces something in the way of services that must go to someone else, or they have no value and bring no profit to the producer.

Commerce, its free propagation and progress in this country, has brought today the great organism--this great institution that we call modern America.

Now it has done that without the desertion of the basic principles that were applicable 100 years ago--as well as 177 years ago when our documents--our founding document was written. We still believe that, in the aggregate, the initiative of the individual, his aspirations and his hope of bettering himself and his family--his ambitions--if directed equally toward the common good as toward his own betterment, will produce the greatest good for all of us.

And though today we talk about a greater need for governmental relationships with the private individual, and with business, and with our various localities, yet we forget that basic principle at our peril, and we must not--ever--no matter what we hope for in the way of advantage from governmental regulation or direction, or any kind of regimentation, we must never accept it if it means the surrender of this vital principle: of living by our own initiative and our individual freedoms to develop ourselves physically, intellectually, and spiritually.

Now the point I should like to make is this. We have proved these things here at home. We understand them thoroughly. The point I want to make, then, is they are just as vital internationally as they are nationally.

It is true we do not accept and need not accept any overall governmental structure that will take the place in international life that our Federal Government takes in our own living. But think of the things you do by cooperation and by working together. That is the kind of thing we want in the international world, where the central fact of our existence is that we and our system are challenged.

We are challenged by a doctrine that holds us to appeal to and act under all of those things most selfish in man. The Communists say: "You people boast that you say what you please, you think what you please, you worship as you please, you earn as you please." And they say they appeal to all that is idealistic in man; appeal to him and say: "Forget yourself, build up the state."

But to do that, the Communists have to make the state not only the ruler; they have to substitute for our convictions as to an Almighty--as to religious faith--they have to substitute likewise that state organism. That we flatly reject.

In any event, that communistic international dictatorship is seeking to destroy our way of life. If we then will apply among our friends in the world--the independent nations--the same principles in thinking, in cooperation, respect for common values, and in trade, in commerce, that we have among ourselves, we are as certain of defeating communism as we are that we are all in this hall this moment.

My friends, an enlightened trade policy in the international world for the United States means only this: we are trying to build a bridge, a permanent bridge, that will connect a growing and widely-shared prosperity at home with international peace. And that's all there is to it.

We hope to do this intelligently and wisely. But here and there we are going to uncover some dislocations in our economic development and in the economic developments of others, and we must make some concessions. And some of them--for people here and there--will be a bit painful. But if we keep in sight that underlying aspiration of all America--to continue to grow under the blessings of Almighty God with the tremendous opportunities that have been ours because of individual liberty--as long as we cooperate together for the common good, we cannot lose; we simply cannot lose. And we will soon adjust all local or painful experiences of the moment into a greater benefit for all, including those temporarily inconvenienced.

So I say: as this country was born in the self-sacrifice of its patriots, in their determination to work together, in their respect for one another--if we apply those principles today to ourselves at home, and to our tackling of our relationships with our friends abroad, we can dispel fear from our minds, and we can, as we achieve success, lead happy and full lives in perfect serenity and security.

I feel that the aspiration for global peace based on justice and on decency and respect for others means that we must continue to prosper at home, and those two goals are worthy of the best efforts of any American.

I thank you again for the honor of your asking me here. It has been a great pleasure to see you all. Good morning.