Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
This requires strong economic performance by the industrialized democracies
like ourselves and progress in resolving the global energy crisis. Last
fall, with the help of others, we succeeded in our vigorous efforts to
maintain the stability of the price of oil. But as many foreign leaders
have emphasized to me personally and, I am sure, to you, the greatest
future contribution that America can make to the world economy would be an
effective energy conservation program here at home. We will not hesitate to
take the actions needed to protect the integrity of the American dollar.
We are trying to develop a more just international system. And in this
spirit, we are supporting the struggle for human development in Africa, in
Asia, and in Latin America.
Finally, the world is watching to see how we act on one of our most
important and controversial items of business, approval of the Panama Canal
treaties. The treaties now before the Senate are the result of the work of
four administrations, two Democratic, two Republican.
They guarantee that the canal will be open always for unrestricted use by
the ships of the world. Our ships have the right to go to the head of the
line for priority of passage in times of emergency or need. We retain the
permanent right to defend the canal with our own military forces, if
necessary, to guarantee its openness and its neutrality.
The treaties are to the clear advantage of ourselves, the Panamanians, and
the other users of the canal. Ratifying the Panama Canal treaties will
demonstrate our good faith to the world, discourage the spread of hostile
ideologies in this hemisphere, and directly contribute to the economic
well-being and the security of the United States.
I have to say that that's very welcome applause.
There were two moments on my recent journey which, for me, confirmed the
final aims of our foreign policy and what it always must be.
One was in a little village in India, where I met a people as passionately
attached to their rights and liberties as we are, but whose children have a
far smaller chance for good health or food or education or human
fulfillment than a child born in this country.
The other moment was in Warsaw, capital of a nation twice devastated by war
in this century. There, people have rebuilt the city which war's
destruction took from them. But what was new only emphasized clearly what
was lost.
What I saw in those two places crystalized for me the purposes of our own
Nation's policy: to ensure economic justice, to advance human rights, to
resolve conflicts without violence, and to proclaim in our great democracy
our constant faith in the liberty and dignity of human beings everywhere.
We Americans have a great deal of work to do together. In the end, how well
we do that work will depend on the spirit in which we approach it. We must
seek fresh answers, unhindered by the stale prescriptions of the past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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