October 31, 2016 President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Principles Worth Remembering By Gar Schulin
As America makes another fateful decision on November 8, 2016, American citizen-voters would be well served to recall the wisdom, principles, and dire warnings of our 34th president, who brought vast experience, competence, credibility, trust, and sound judgment to the position of U.S. commander-in-chief. From our vantage point over a half-century later, Dwight D. Eisenhower's leadership, wisdom, and timeless principles remind us of those qualities we must demand of our chief executive if we are to survive as a strong, vibrant, and free nation into the future.
General Eisenhower's January 1961 Farewell Address ranks as one of the finest speeches ever given by a departing U.S. president for its content and far-reaching message to current and future generations of Americans, made in a similar spirit to the one given in 1796 by one of his lifelong heroes, General George Washington. Every American citizen should view this landmark address to witness what a strong and highly credible, confident, yet humble U.S. president actually looked like.
Even more painfully acute and sorely needed today are the observations General Eisenhower once noted as six "Key Qualities," or gauges of greatness for any leader: vision, integrity, understanding, courage, depth of character, and ability to communicate. With the passage of time, we are reminded that Eisenhower was an American for the ages, a citizen-soldier, who fulfilled each of those key qualities and left us a heritage of honor, integrity, and civility.
From the archives of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, the Eisenhower Foundation recently released the contents of a deeply revealing personal letter, written by our 34th president to his brother Milton Eisenhower and dated 3 December 1964. In his correspondence, General Eisenhower wrote, "Here are some basic convictions in which I have long believed." The president's convictions and wisdom in "developing sensible approaches to the Political Problems of the Day" are indeed now more relevant than ever:
Zitat Americans, individually and collectively, should strive constantly for greater excellence in the moral, intellectual and material stature of the nation.
The individual is of supreme importance. The rights guaranteed to him and the states by the Constitution and the 'Bill of Rights' must be jealously guarded by government at all levels. The purpose of government is to serve, never to dominate.
The spirit of the people is the strength of our nation; human liberty and the American system of self-government with equal right for all are the mainspring of that spirit. Courage, in supporting principle, cooperation in practice, are essential characteristics of free people.
To be secure and stay free we must be strong morally, economically and militarily. This combination of strength must be used prudently, carefully and firmly to preserve peace and protect the nation's vital interests abroad.
Political power resides in the people; elected officials are expected to direct that power wisely and only as prescribed by the Constitution.
Government must have a heart as well as a head... solutions must conform to common sense and recognize the right and duty of local and state government normally to attack these at their roots before the Federal Government acts.
America cannot truly prosper unless all major areas and groupments in our society prosper. Labor, capital and management must learn to cooperate as a productive team, and reject any notion of 'class-warfare' bringing about maximum prosperity.
To protect all our citizens, and particularly workers and all those who are, or will be, dependent on pensions, savings and insurance in their declining years, we strive always to prevent deterioration of the currency. In the constant fight against inflation we believe that, except in emergencies, we should pay-as-we-go, avoiding deficit spending and adverse balance-of-payments.
Under God we espouse the cause of freedom and justice and peace for all people.
It should be noted, in stark contrast to our current lawless Marxist-Communist regime, that President Eisenhower quietly and efficiently rid our federal government of Communists who had become embedded there throughout his two administrations spanning 1953-1961. On 4 November, 1953, he wrote his attorney general, the distinguished Herbert Brownell, in a memo since declassified:
Zitat I am in full agreement with what he [FBI director J. Edgar Hoover] says about anyone who is now or who has ever been a Communist. The Communists are a class set apart by themselves. Indeed, I think they are such liars and cheats that even when they apparently recant and later testify against someone else for his Communist convictions, my first reaction is to believe that the accused person must be a patriot or he wouldn't have incurred the enmity of such people. So even when these 'reformed' Communists have proved useful in helping us track down some of their old associates, I certainly look for corroborating evidence before I feel too easy in my mind about it[.] ... I also believe that anyone, who after the blockade of Berlin began (or some other equally revealing incident), continued to speak in support of the Soviets or in terms of sympathy for them, is either very stupid or very dangerous.
The president repeated to his attorney general, "[W]e must search out some positive way to put ourselves on the side of individual right and liberty as well as on the side of fighting Communism to the death."
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Principles Worth Remembering
