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& production and living standards. Only recently I looked into the faces of these many people. I have seen the desperate need of these people; I have felt their spirit. Most of all, I have wit- nessed their abiding faith in the grestness and goodness of America, and their love and respect for this land of the free. By helping to make their lives more meaningful and more rewarding, we have helped to keep bright their love of liberty and their determination to reject the soulless forces of Communist materialism. Moreover, America’s efforts to help others have evoked a heartening response from other advanced industrial nations. In recent years they have doubled their direct aid to the less developed ‘countries. In addition, in the new International Development Association other countries will put up $3 for every $2 put up by the United States. The very moment when other countries are recog- nizing their responsibilities is‘no time for us to walk away from our own. That such 8 program—its record shining with accomplishment and its continuance solemnly pledged by both of our political parties—should now face a crippling cutback seems incredibly irresponsible. To me it is almost inconceivable, Let America speak, and this will not be done. The Unfinished Task Thus far I have mentioned past achievements. But a great deal more cries out for attention. Half a world away from us, for example, a great democracy, dedicated to peace, struggles with almost insuperable problems to demonstrate that Asians do not have to sacrifice freedom as payment for economic advance. To the south our sister Republics need help to unlock the storehouses of their great wealth. In Africa a seething continent is trying to tele- ' scope a thousand years of development into a few decades. Around the world almost 2 billion people are living in s ferment of privation, misery, resent- ment, and frustrated hope. They are imbued with an unshakable, even fanatical, determination to break through the spiritual and cultural stag- nation imposed upon them by grinding poverty. Mutual security has done much to help. The hope, confidence, and energetic effort so inspired are slowly making progress in creating conditions ~~ - in which prosperity, security, and peace in free- May 23, 1960 dom can flourish. But for lack of understanding the program has been steadily weakened while the need has grown more obvious and critical. Only the conscience and the down-to-earth com- monsense of all Americans, informed and aroused, can meet the need. , Facing us is a test of our resolve to make our Government do the task it has to do to protect the safety of the American people. The amount I have asked the Congress to provide for mutual security is the minimum required to meet the basic necessities of sheer defense and to keep alight e glimmer of hope in hundreds of millions of people arrayed with us on the side of freedom. America Needs the World From all these facts we see that the free world needs America! Just as importantly, America needs the world. This means far more to us than soldiers and tanks and ships and missiles, essential though these are. Important it is that our allies contrib- ute 5 million soldiers, 80,000 airplanes, and 2,200 combatant ships to the common defense of free- dom. But our involvement with our neighbors is far more basic than this. Foreign trade is an example. It is, for America, a $30 billion a year business. To this trade 414 million of our people owe their jobs with other nations. For all of us there is great meaning in this: We export, on the average, a third of our cotton crop, just under a third of our wheat, and a fourth of our tractor production. But this is only a part of our dependence on foreign trade. The health of our economy de- pends upon materials owned by others. Man- ganese, chrome, tin, natural rubber, nickel are examples. As our economy grows, we depend increasingly upon others for such materials, Fight years ago we imported only about a twen- tieth of our iron ore. Today we have to import over a third of it. . Yes, America needs the world! - And this we must never forget: These needs are more than military and economic. They are technical, cultural, and spiritual as well. Great ideas originating with other peoples have vast! enriched our land.’ . ~ Fellow Americans, even if we wanted to, we could not shut out the free world. We cannot 813