Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put up a wall to keep our people in.

No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when toldthat the Lord 'will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not-neither be thou dismayed.' Each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually.

I see little more important to the future of our country and our civilization than the full recognition of the place of the artist.

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.

The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history.

If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.

We live in a hemisphere whose own revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of the modern age; the search for freedom and self fulfillment of man.