The Hope That That the Embers of Revolution Will Once Again Be Ignited.

Address at a White Firm Reception for Members of Congress and for the Diplomatic Corps of the Latin American Republics, March 13, 1961

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President John F. Kennedy
March 13, 1961

Information technology is a swell pleasure for Mrs. Kennedy and for me, for the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, and for the Members of Congress, to welcome the Ambassadorial Corps of our Hemisphere, our long time friends, to the White Firm today. One hundred and thirty-nine years ago this week the United States, stirred by the heroic struggle of its swain Americans, urged the independence and recognition of the new Latin American Republics. It was then, at the dawn of freedom throughout this hemisphere, that Bolivar spoke of his desire to see the Americas fashioned into the greatest region in the world, "greatest," he said, "not so much past virtue of her area and her wealth, as by her freedom and .her glory."

Never in the long history of our hemisphere has this dream been nearer to fulfillment, and never has it been in greater danger.

The genius of our scientists has given us the tools to bring affluence to our land, forcefulness to our manufacture, and knowledge to our people. For the kickoff time we have the capacity to strike off the remaining bonds of poverty and ignorance -- to gratuitous our people for the spiritual and intellectual fulfillment which has e'er been the goal of our civilisation.

Yet at this very moment of maximum opportunity, we confront the same forces which take imperiled America throughout its history -- the alien forces which once again seek to impose the despotisms of the Old World on the people of the New.

I take asked you lot to come up hither today and then that I might discuss these challenges and these dangers.

We come across together every bit firm and ancient friends, united past history and experience and by our decision to advance the values of American civilization. For this New Earth of ours is not a mere blow of geography. Our continents are bound together past a common history, the endless exploration of new frontiers. Our nations are the production of a common struggle, the defection from colonial rule. And our people share a common heritage, the quest for the dignity and the freedom of man.

The revolutions which gave usa birth ignited, in the words of Thomas Paine, "a spark never to be extinguished." And across vast, turbulent continents these American ideals notwithstanding stir man's struggle for national independence and individual freedom. But every bit we welcome the spread of the American revolution to other lands, we must too remember that our own struggle -- the revolution which began in Philadelphia in 1776, and in Caracas in 1811 -- is not yet finished. Our hemisphere'due south mission is non nonetheless completed. For our unfulfilled task is to demonstrate to the entire globe that man's unsatisfied aspiration for economical progress and social justice can best be achieved past complimentary men working within a framework of democratic institutions. If we can do this in our own hemisphere, and for our own people, we may notwithstanding realize the prophecy of the great Mexican patriot, Benito Juarez, that "republic is the destiny of futurity humanity."

Equally a denizen of the United States let me be the first to acknowledge that nosotros North Americans accept not always grasped the significance of this common mission, just as it is also true that many in your ain countries have not fully understood the urgency of the demand to lift people from poverty and ignorance and despair. But we must turn from these mistakes -- from the failures and the misunderstandings of the past to a future total of peril, merely brilliant with promise.

Throughout Latin America, a continent rich in resources and in the spiritual and cultural achievements of its people, millions of men and women endure the daily degradations of poverty and hunger. They lack decent shelter or protection from disease. Their children are deprived of the education or the jobs which are the gateway to a better life. And each day the problems abound more than urgent. Population growth is outpacing economic growth -- depression living standards are further endangered and discontent -- the discontent of a people who know that abundance and the tools of progress are at terminal within their achieve -- that discontent is growing. In the words of Jose Figueres, "once dormant peoples are struggling upward toward the sun, toward a better life."

If we are to meet a problem so staggering in its dimensions, our arroyo must itself be as bold -- an approach consistent with the purple concept of Operation Pan America. Therefore I have called on all people of the hemisphere to join in a new Alliance for Progress -- Alianza para Progreso --a vast cooperative effort, unparalleled in magnitude and dignity of purpose, to satisfy the basic needs of the American people for homes, piece of work and land, health and schools -- techo, trabajo y tierra, salud y escuela.

First, I propose that the American Republics begin on a vast new Ten Twelvemonth Programme for the Americas, a programme to transform the 1960'south into a historic decade of democratic progress.

These 10 years will exist the years of maximum progress-maximum endeavour, the years when the greatest obstacles must be overcome, the years when the demand for assistance volition be the greatest.

And if we are successful, if our effort is bold plenty and determined enough, then the close of this decade will mark the beginning of a new era in the American experience. The living standards of every American family will exist on the rise, basic didactics will be available to all, hunger will exist a forgotten experience, the need for massive exterior help will accept passed, well-nigh nations volition take entered a flow of self-sustaining growth, and though at that place volition be still much to do, every American Republic will be the main of its ain revolution and its own hope and progress.

Let me stress that simply the about determined efforts of the American nations themselves can bring success to this effort. They, and they alone, can mobilize their resources, enlist the energies of their people, and modify their social patterns so that all, and not simply a privileged few, share in the fruits of growth. If this effort is made, then outside aid will requite vital impetus to progress; without information technology, no amount of assistance will advance the welfare of the people.

Thus if the countries of Latin America are ready to exercise their function, and I am sure they are, then I believe the The states, for its function, should assistance provide resources of a telescopic and magnitude sufficient to make this assuming development programme a success -- but every bit we helped to provide, against equal odds nigh, the resources adequate to help rebuild the economies of Western Europe. For only an effort of towering dimensions can ensure fulfillment of our plan for a decade of progress.

Secondly, I volition shortly asking a ministerial meeting of the Inter-American Economical and Social Council, a meeting at which we can begin the massive planning try which will exist at the heart of the Brotherhood for Progress.

For if our Alliance is to succeed, each Latin nation must formulate long-range plans for its own development, plans which establish targets and priorities, ensure monetary stability, plant the machinery for vital social change, stimulate private activity and initiative, and provide for a maximum national effort. These plans will exist the foundation of our development effort, and the basis for the allocation of outside resource.

A greatly strengthened IA-ECOSOC, working with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Inter-American Development Depository financial institution, tin assemble the leading economists and experts of the hemisphere to help each country develop its own evolution plan -- and provide a standing review of economical progress in this hemisphere.

3rd, I have this evening signed a asking to the Congress for $500 million as a kickoff step in fulfilling the Act of Bogotá. This is the starting time large-calibration Inter-American effort, instituted by my predecessor President Eisenhower, to attack the social barriers which block economic progress. The coin will be used to combat illiteracy, meliorate the productivity and utilise of their country, wipe out illness, assail archaic tax and land tenure structures, provide educational opportunities, and offer a broad range of projects designed to make the benefits of increasing abundance available to all. We will brainstorm to commit these funds as shortly as they are appropriated.

Quaternary, we must support all economical integration which is a genuine footstep toward larger markets and greater competitive opportunity. The fragmentation of Latin American economies is a serious barrier to industrial growth. Projects such as the Fundamental American common market and free trade areas in South America can help to remove these obstacles.

Fifth, the United States is ready to cooperate in serious, case-by-case examinations of commodity marketplace issues. Frequent trigger-happy change in commodity prices seriously injure the economies of many Latin American countries, draining their resource and stultifying their growth. Together we must find practical methods of bringing an stop to this pattern.

Sixth, nosotros will immediately stride upwards our Food for Peace emergency program, help establish food reserves in areas of recurrent drought, help provide school lunches for children, and offer feed grains for apply in rural development. For hungry men and women cannot wait for economic discussions or diplomatic meetings -- their need is urgent -- and their hunger rests heavily on the censor of their fellow men.

Seventh, all the people of the hemisphere must exist allowed to share in the expanding wonders of science -- wonders which have captured human's imagination, challenged the powers of his mind, and given him the tools for rapid progress. I invite Latin American scientists to work with united states of america in new projects in fields such as medicine and agriculture, physics and astronomy, and desalinization, to help plan for regional research laboratories in these and other fields, and to strengthen cooperation between American universities and laboratories.

We besides intend to expand our science instructor training programs to include Latin American instructors, to assist in establishing such programs in other American countries, and translate and make bachelor revolutionary new teaching materials in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics, and then that the young of all nations may contribute their skills to the advance of science.

Eighth, nosotros must rapidly expand the grooming of those needed to man the economies of apace developing countries. This means expanded technical training programs, for which the Peace Corps, for example, will be available when needed. It also means assistance to Latin American universities, graduate schools, and research institutes.

Nosotros welcome proposals in Central America for intimate cooperation in higher educational activity -- cooperation which tin achieve a regional try or increased effectiveness and excellence. Nosotros are ready to help make full the gap in trained manpower, realizing that our ultimate goal must be a basic didactics for all who wish to learn.

Ninth, we reaffirm our pledge to come to the defense of whatsoever American nation whose independence is endangered. As its confidence in the commonage security organization of the OAS spreads, it will be possible to devote to effective use a major share of those resource at present spent on the instruments of war. Even now, as the government of Chile has said, the time has come to have the starting time steps toward sensible limitations of arms. And the new generation of armed services leaders has shown an increasing awareness that armies cannot simply defend their countries -- they can, as we accept learned through our ain Corps of Engineers, they can aid to build them.

Tenth, we invite our friends in Latin America to contribute to the enrichment of life and culture in the United states of america. We need teachers of your literature and history and tradition, opportunities for our young people to written report in your universities, access to your music, your art, and the idea of your nifty philosophers. For we know nosotros have much to learn.

In this style you tin can assist bring a fuller spiritual and intellectual life to the people of the The states -- and contribute to understanding and common respect among the nations of the hemisphere.

With steps such equally these, nosotros propose to consummate the revolution of the Americas, to build a hemisphere where all men tin can hope for a suitable standard of living, and all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom.

To achieve this goal political freedom must accompany material progress. Our Alliance for Progress is an alliance of free governments, and information technology must piece of work to eliminate tyranny from a hemisphere in which it has no rightful place. Therefore let us express our special friendship to the people of Republic of cuba and the Dominican Democracy -- and the promise they volition soon rejoin, the society of costless men, uniting with us in common try.

This political liberty must be accompanied by social change. For unless necessary social reforms, including land and tax reform, are freely made -- unless we broaden the opportunity for all of our people -- unless the dandy mass of Americans share in increasing prosperity -- then our alliance, our revolution, our dream, and our freedom will neglect. Just we call for social change by gratis men change in the spirit of Washington and Jefferson, of Bolivar and San Martin and Martin -- not change which seeks to impose on men tyrannies which we bandage out a century and a half ago. Our motto is what it has always been -- progress yeah, tyranny no -- progreso sí, tiranía no!

Only our greatest challenge comes from within -- the task of creating an American civilization where spiritual and cultural values are strengthened by an ever-broadening base of material accelerate -- where, within the rich diversity of its ain traditions, each nation is free to follow its own path towards progress.

The completion of our task will, of grade, require the efforts of all governments of our hemisphere. But the efforts of governments alone will never be enough. In the end, the people must choose and the people must help themselves.

And then I say to the men and women of the Americas -- to the campesino in the fields, to the obrero in the cities, to the estudiante in the schools -- prepare your mind and heart for the task ahead -- phone call forth your force and permit each devote his energies to the betterment of all, so that your children and our children in this hemisphere can find an always richer and a freer life.

Allow us one time once more transform the American continent into a vast crucible of revolutionary ideas and efforts -- a tribute to the power of the creative energies of free men and women -- an example to all the world that liberty and progress walk paw in manus. Let united states of america in one case once more awaken our American revolution until it guides the struggle of people everywhere -- not with an imperialism of force or fright -- but the rule of courage and freedom and hope for the hereafter of man.

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