Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The necessity for reestablishing postal services curtailed during the war
and advances in the rates of pay for postal employees have increased
substantially the estimated expenditures for postal service for both the
current and the next fiscal year. It is not expected that this increase
will cause expenditures to exceed postal revenues in either year, although
an excess of expenditures may occur in the fiscal year 1947 if salaries are
increased further.
Expenditures for our share of the administrative budgets of the United
Nations and other permanent international bodies will increase sharply in
the fiscal year 1947, yet will remain a small part of our total Budget. The
budget for the United Nations has not yet been determined; an estimate for
our contribution will be submitted later. Our contributions to the food and
Agriculture Organization, the International Labor Office, the Pan American
Union, and other similar international agencies will aggregate about 3
million dollars for the fiscal year 1947. The administrative expenses of
the International Monetary fund and the International Bank will be met from
their general funds.
We have won a great war--we, the nations of plain people who hate war. In
the test of that war we found a strength of unity that brought us
through--a strength that crushed the power of those who sought by force to
deny our faith in the dignity of man.
During this trial the voices of disunity among us were silent or were
subdued to an occasional whine that warned us that they were still among
us. Those voices are beginning to cry aloud again. We must learn constantly
to turn deaf ears to them. They are voices which foster fear and suspicion
and intolerance and hate. They seek to destroy our harmony, our
understanding of each other, our American tradition of "live and let live."
They have become busy again, trying to set race against race, creed against
creed, farmer against city dweller, worker against employer, people against
their own governments. They seek only to do us mischief. They must not
prevail.
It should be impossible for any man to contemplate without a sense of
personal humility the tremendous events of the 12 months since the last
annual Message, the great tasks that confront us, the new and huge problems
of the coming months and years. Yet these very things justify the deepest
confidence in the future of this Nation of free men and women.
The plain people of this country found the courage and the strength, the
self-discipline, and the mutual respect to fight and to win, with the help
of our allies, under God. I doubt if the tasks of the future are more
difficult. But if they are, then I say that our strength and our knowledge
and our understanding will be equal to those tasks.
As printed above, references to tables appearing in the budget document
have been omitted.
***
State of the Union Address
Harry S. Truman
January 6, 1947
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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