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President Harry S. Truman. Source: Truman Library. |
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The Public Papers of Harry S. Truman contain most of President Truman's public messages, statements, speeches, and
news conference remarks. Documents such as Proclamations, Executive Orders, and similar documents that are published in the Federal Register
and the Code of Federal Regulations, as required by law, are usually not included. The documents within the Public Papers
are arranged in chronological order. President Truman delivered the remarks or addresses from Washington, D. C., unless
otherwise indicated. The White House in Washington issued statements, messages, and letters unless noted otherwise.
(Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1966)
The Public Papers contain items such as the Statement by the President Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima
(August 6, 1945), the Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey: The Truman Doctrine (March 12, 1947),
the White House Statement Announcing Recognition of the Government of Israel (January 31, 1949), the Statement and
Order by the President on Relieving General MacArthur of His Commands (April 11, 1951), and The President's Farewell
Address to the American People (January 15, 1953).
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236.
Remarks to a Group of Students from Kansas High Schools |
August 22, 1952
THANK YOU very much. It is a pleasure to have you here again, Commander, with your young people from the great and neighboring State of Kansas. I hope you have had a pleasant visit here in the Capital City. It is a wonderful place to visit. It's an awful place to live, particularly when you have to live here.
The building at which you are looking over there has just been completely rehabilitated. The whole inside was taken out of it. It was reconstructed, and new foundations were put under it. But if you had seen the floors which are open to the public beforehand, and seen them now, you would have great difficulty in finding any particular difference, except that it is new and clean, much more so than it was to begin with.
You see, the old timbers were put back in the house after it was burned by the British in 1814, and then it had been overhauled-oh, I'd say four or five times between those dates and almost completely overhauled in 1902, still using the old cracked and burned timbers. In putting in gas and electric lights, and fixtures and things in the house, the supporting timbers had been sawn through in places--taken wedges out of them. Of course, that weakened them.
My daughter's piano went through her sitting room up there, one of the legs of it stuck down into the family dining room down below. We had to build supports to keep the whole thing from falling down.
It won't fall down now. I think it would be almost impossible even to blow it up. I hope that will never happen, and I hope we will live all the rest of our lives in a peaceful world. And when it comes your turn to take over in running the Government of the United States, I hope you will continue this great Republic in the traditions on which it was founded.
You do live in the greatest country in the world. It is a responsibility which we will have to assume. Great strength and great productive ability requires responsibility on our part to help keep the peace of the world. That is exactly what we are trying to do.
We are in the midst of our 4-yearly spasm of electing a President now, and you will hear a lot of hooey during that campaign.
But I think you--in your studies of history--will know what to believe and what not to believe, and when the smoke and dust is all blown away, the Republic will continue along as usual, and just as it always has.
Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 3:05 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. In his opening remarks he referred to Frank F. Eckdall, Commander of the Kansas Department of Veterans of foreign Wars.
The students had just completed a goodwill tour of Canada which they had won in a contest for the best essays on U.S.-Canadian relations. The contest and trip were sponsored by the Veterans of foreign Wars of Kansas. |
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