Fillable Printable Sample Farewell Messages

Sample Farewell Messages

Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation

January 17, 1961

Good evening, my fellow Americans: First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio

and television networks for the opportunity they have given me over the years to bring reports

and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you

this evening.

Three days from now, after a half century of service of our country, I shall lay down the

responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency

is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final

thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I

pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on questions of

great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation.

My own relations with Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a

member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the

war and immediate post-war period, and finally to the mutually interdependent during these past

eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues,

cooperated well, to serve the nation well rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that

the business of the nation should go forward. So my official relationship with Congress ends in a

feeling on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among

great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is

today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably

proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not

merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use

our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, such basic purposes have been to keep the

peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity

among peoples and among nations.

To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people.

Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would

inflict upon us a grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the

world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology

global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily

the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called

for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us

to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex

struggle – with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our

charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small,

there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the

miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in the newer elements of our

defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic

expansion in basic and applied research – these and many other possibilities, each possibly

promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in light of a broader consideration; the need to maintain

balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy,

balance between the cost and hoped for advantages – balance between the clearly necessary and

the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties

imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between the actions of the moment and the

national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually

finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the

main, understood these truths and have responded to them well in the face of threat and stress.

But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.

Of these, I mention two only.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty,

ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own

destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in

peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American

makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no

longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a

permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men

and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military

security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the

American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every

city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need

for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil,

resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,

whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous

rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the

proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful

methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has

been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and

costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal

government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of

scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically

the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the

conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes

virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds

of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations,

and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to

the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-

technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to

integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the

principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's

future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today,

plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We

cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their

political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to

become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever

growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a

proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with

the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength.

That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony

of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must

learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because

this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this

field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the

lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this

civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could

say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been

made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I

can to help the world advance along that road.

So – in this my last good night to you as your President – I thank you for the many opportunities

you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some

things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the

future.

You and I – my fellow citizens – need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will

reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle,

confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nations' great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and

continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs

satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn

for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand,

also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn

charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the

earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace

guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love. Now, on Friday noon, I am to

become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it. Thank you, and good night.