The President-elect is about to take up the greatest burdens, the most compelling responsibilities, given to any man.  And I, with you and all Americans, wish for him all possible success in undertaking the tasks that will so soon be his.

What are these tasks?  The President is Chief of State, elected representative of all the people, national spokesman for them and to them.  He is Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces.  He is charged with the conduct of our foreign relations.  He is Chief Executive of the Nation’s largest civilian organization.  He must select and nominate all top officials of the Executive Branch and all Federal judges.  And on the legislative side, he has the obligation and the opportunity to recommend, and to approve or veto legislation.  Besides all this, it is to him that a great political party turns naturally for leadership, and that, too, he must provide as President.

This bundle of burdens is unique; there is nothing else like it on the face of the earth.  Each task could be a full-time job.  Together, they would be a tremendous undertaking in the easiest of times.

But our times are not easy; they are hard-as hard and complex, perhaps as any in our history.  Now, the President not only has to carry on these tasks in such a way that our democracy may grow and flourish and our people prosper, but he also has to lead the whole free world in overcoming the communist menace—­and all this under the shadow of the atomic bomb.

This is a huge challenge to the human being who occupies the Presidential office.  But it is not a challenge to him alone, for in reality he cannot meet it alone.  The challenge runs not just to him but to his whole Administration, to the Congress, to the country.

Ultimately, no President can master his responsibilities, save as his fellow citizens-indeed, the whole people—­comprehend the challenge of our times and move, with him, to meet it.

It has been my privilege to hold the Presidential office for nearly eight years now, and much has been done in which I take great pride.  But this is not personal pride.  It is pride in the people, in the Nation.  It is pride in our political system and our form of government—­balky sometimes, mechanically deficient perhaps, in many ways—­but enormously alive and vigorous; able through these years to keep the Republic on the right course, rising to the great occasions, accomplishing the essentials, meeting the basic challenge of our times.

There have been misunderstandings and controversies these past eight years, but through it all the President of the United States has had that measure of support and understanding without which no man could sustain the burdens of the Presidential office, or hope to discharge its responsibilities.

For this I am profoundly grateful—­grateful to my associates in the Executive Branch—­most of them non-partisan civil servants; grateful—­despite our disagreements-to the Members of the Congress on both sides of the aisle; grateful especially to the American people, the citizens of this Republic, governors of us all.