Statement by the President Marking the Opening of the Red Cross Drive.

My fellow Americans and Red Cross members: Americans believe in the Red Cross.

I personally believe in it, first, because I know from my own experience the great good it accomplishes in war and peace; second, because I believe in the fundamental principle of Red Cross--the principle of people helping people.

Through the Red Cross, Americans have helped the men and women in our armed forces. In generation after generation, American servicemen have turned to the Red Cross with their personal problems, their family emergencies, and the Red Cross has responded. It has responded quickly and generously.

Through the Red Cross, the people of this Nation have constantly relieved the pain and suffering of fellow citizens trapped by natural disasters. The homeless and the hungry have been sheltered and fed. Victims of disaster, lacking the means to rebuild and refurnish their homes, have found in the Red Cross the assistance they needed.

And because the American people have donated their blood as well as their money, the Red Cross during the last decade has given life itself to the wounded and the sick. The blood donated by the American people has saved not only the wounded on the battlefields of World War II and Korea, but the sick and injured in more than three thousand hospitals here at home.

The Red Cross has provided, and with your help will continue to provide, vast quantities of blood products--products such as gamma globulin, which helps our children avoid the horrible paralysis caused by polio.

So much for the material contributions of the Red Cross. But beyond all this--the Red Cross abundantly provides faith in the innate goodness of people, in their ability to work together for the Nation's good. It exemplifies the enormous power which kindness and generosity can exert to move men closer to the day when the rule of force will be banished from the world, and when the Golden Rule will guide the actions of mankind.

Through your Red Cross you give special meaning to this faith in humanity. I am confident that this year, as in the past, the American people will join the Red Cross in its magnificent efforts to comfort our fellow men.