John F. Kennedy

“ Our mission, I said, was "to complete the revolution of the Americas - to build a Hemisphere where all men can hope for a suitable standard of living - and all can live out their lives in dignity and freedom." ”

“ Today we seek to move beyond the accomplishments of the past - to establish the principle that all the people of this Hemisphere are entitled to a decent way of life - and to transform that principle into the reality of economic advance and social justice on, which political equality must be based. ”

“ Rather it is an expression of the noblest goals of our society. It says that want and despair need not be the lot of free men. And those who may occasionally get discouraged with the magnitude of the task, have only to look to Europe fifteen years ago, and today, and realize the great potential which is in every free society when the people join and work together. It says in our Hemisphere that no society is free until all its people have an equal opportunity to share the fruits of their own land and their own labor. ”

“ That was a suggestion for a continent-wide cooperative effort to satisfy the basic needs of the American people for homes, work, land, health and schools, for political liberty and the dignity of the spirit. ”

“ Only you can create the economic confidence which will encourage the free flow of capital, both domestic and foreign - the capital which, under conditions of responsible investment and together with public funds, will produce permanent economic advance. Only you can eliminate the evils of destructive inflation, chronic trade imbalances and widespread unemployment. Without determined efforts on your part to establish these conditions for reform and development, no amount of outside help can do the job. ”

“ For we seek not merely the welfare and equality of nations one with another - but the welfare and the equality of the people within our nations. In so doing we are fulfilling the most ancient dreams of the founders of this Hemisphere, Washington, Jefferson, Bolivar, Marti, San Martin, and all the rest. ”

“ For only you can mobilize the resources, make the reforms, set the goals and provide the energies which will transform our external assistance into an effective contribution to the progress of our continent. ”

“ Our second achievement has been the establishment of the institutional framework within which our decade of development will take place. We honor here today the OAS Panel of Experts - a new adventure in Inter-American cooperation - drawn from all parts of the continent - charged with the high responsibility - almost unprecedented in any international cooperative effort - of evaluating long-range development plans, reviewing the progress of these plans, and helping to obtain the financing necessary to carry them out. ”

“ Nearly all the governments of the Hemisphere have begun to organize national development programs - and in some cases completed plans have been presented for review. Tax and land reform laws are on the books, and the national legislature of nearly every country is considering new measures in these critical fields. New programs of development, of housing, of agriculture and power are underway. ”

“ In the same way those who possess wealth and power in poor nations must accept their own responsibilities. They must lead the fight for those basic reforms which alone can preserve the fabric of their societies. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. ”

“ This dramatic change in thought is essential to the realization of our goals. For only by placing the task of development in the arena of daily thought and action among all the people can we hope to summon up the will and the courage which that task demands. ”

“ In the early twentieth century we worked to bring about a fundamental equality between all the nations of this Hemisphere one with another - to strengthen the machinery of regional cooperation within a framework of mutual respect, and under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and the Good Neighbor Policy that goal was achieved a generation ago. ”

“ Our own history shows how fierce the resistance can be to changes which later generations regard as part of the normal framework of life. And the course of rational social change is even more hazardous for those progressive governments who often face entrenched privilege of the right and subversive conspiracies on the left. ”

“ In addition, the OAS, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Inter-American Bank have offered planning assistance to Latin American nations - the OAS has begun a series of studies in critical development fields - and a new ECLA Planning Institute is being established to train the young men who will lead the future development of their countries. ”