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Club Introduction

The Commonwealth Club of California welcomes to its distinguished forum Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America. This happy occasion preserves unbroken a tradition which began with President Theodore Roosevelt. The great and the near-great have addressed this audience, but tonight we welcome a man whom history will record as preeminent among world leaders in the hour of greatest need.

I have in mind the rapid succession of communist aggressions as millions of people were enveloped behind the far-reaching Iron Curtain. I have in mind the stalemate of futility in Korea, the rampaging inflation in our homeland which was eating up the savings of the thrifty and traveling the motors of our free-enterprise economy. Here, then, is a man trained in war who will be acclaimed by future generations as the man who laid the foundations of peace. And more, he is our President whom we love with a deep and abiding affection. And tonight, because I love this greeting of our early Spanish ancestors, I think in our hearts we say to him, vaya con Dios: may you truly go with God.

Now, the President has repeatedly emphasized that this occasion shall be non-partisan in character. Governor Brown is invited to say a few words of welcome. Senator Engle and Congressman Shelley and also our Senator Tom Kuchel to grace our dais.

Speaking engagements previously contracted prevent them from being here, and each has asked me to express his regrets. I cannot fail to express the partisan foreboding, however, that three against one away from here tonight is a record. The hospitality of San Francisco has always had a warm and a vibrant quality of its own, and no one has ever expressed it more eloquently than our beloved mayor, George Christopher. Ladies and gentlemen, His Honor, the Mayor of San Francisco.

Mayor of San Francisco Introduction

Thank you very much and, Mr. President, it is my honor tonight to welcome President Eisenhower on behalf of the people of San Francisco. All of you may have seen the great spectacle, the great ovation today, the thousands of persons who lined the streets of our beloved city, the thousands who cheered from the high windows and from the roofs of the tall buildings, indeed, the schoolchildren who added their delightful expressions of welcome to our beloved President. All these were showing their warmth, their love and their overflowing admiration for a man who has earned this affection not only in San Francisco and not only in America, but in cities and nations throughout the entire world.

San Francisco, my friends, has been fortunate in having had the opportunity to demonstrate its enthusiasm for this great world leader on previous occasions. Now, we are privileged to have him with us once again, and privileged also to salute the many new honors he has won in the pursuit of domestic prosperity and world peace. Nowhere more than in San Francisco, the birthplace of the United Nations, is there a greater appreciation of the heroic accomplishments of our beloved President. He has been a source of aid and consolation to an afflicted world seeking an honorable peace. He has maintained this peace by unsurpassed statesmanship and by a vigorous portrayal of our American concepts. All the while, ladies and gentlemen, he has been diligently and carefully hammering out the solid foundations on which both peace and honor and a better life can be built for the future generations of the world.

The decisions that have been made by our President have been as momentous as any decisions in the history of the world. It is impossible to imagine the full agonizing responsibilities which have weighed upon him from the day he gave the D-Day signal for the invasion of Normandy to the present critical area of world history, this contemporary era of ours. The end of World War II did not heal all the ills of an ailing world, and America called again on this great leader who had already earned up that time, if anybody ever has the right to private life and to restful seclusion. His answer to his nation's call has always been forthright and so very affirmative. Two calls to serve as President of the United States have actually been, indeed, calls to serve not only our country as a leader, but as a leader of the entire free world. And he has worn the cloak of national and world leadership with the same dignity, the same grace, and the same courage with which he wore his nation's uniform.

San Francisco, indeed, is so very proud and so very happy, once again, to say, "Welcome, Mr. President," a President who was educated as a soldier, but whose every battle has been in the cause of peace. And surely in these trying and so difficult and so unpredictable times of ours, the American people will want to heed his counsel. Mr. President, you have given us counsel before. I imagine that in these very difficult times, you will want to give us your counsel once again. That same counsel that you have given us for eight years and for which you have kept us out of war and given us the greatest era of prosperity, the greatest in the history of America. And I am sure that in this contemporary era of ours, once again the American people will wish to listen to the counsel of our beloved President.

I shall conclude by offering a very little, a very insignificant, a very modest presentation to our President, one with no material value to be sure, but ladies and gentlemen, one that comes from your hearts because it's your gift. A little gift that I'm sure will cause him to remember us on occasion when he wears this small remembrance from the good and gracious and wonderful people of San Francisco. Mr. President, all the people of San Francisco, all the people of this great northern section of California welcome you a thousand times over into this great and wonderful city of San Francisco.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America.

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