A vigilant regard for human liberty.

A wise concern for human welfare.

A ceaseless effort for human progress.

Fidelity to these principles, in our relations with other peoples, has won us new friendships and has increased our opportunity for service within the family of nations.  The appeal of these principles is universal, lighting fires in the souls of men everywhere.  We shall continue to uphold them, against those who deny them and in counselling with our friends.

At home, the application of these principles to the complex problems of our national life has brought us to an unprecedented peak in our economic prosperity and has exemplified in our way of life the enduring human values of mind and spirit.

Through the past four years these principles have guided the legislative programs submitted by the Administration to the Congress.  As we attempt to apply them to current events, domestic and foreign, we must take into account the complex entity that is the United States of America; what endangers it; what can improve it.

The visible structure is our American economy itself.  After more than a century and a half of constant expansion, it is still rich in a wide variety of natural resources.  It is first among nations in its people’s mastery of industrial skills.  It is productive beyond our own needs of many foodstuffs and industrial products.  It is rewarding to all our citizens in opportunity to earn and to advance in self-realization and in self-expression.  It is fortunate in its wealth of educational and cultural and religious centers.  It is vigorously dynamic in the limitless initiative and willingness to venture that characterize free enterprise.  It is productive of a widely shared prosperity.

Our economy is strong, expanding, and fundamentally sound.  But in any realistic appraisal, even the optimistic analyst will realize that in a prosperous period the principal threat to efficient functioning of a free enterprise system is inflation.  We look back on four years of prosperous activities during which prices, the cost of living, have been relatively stable—­that is, inflation has been held in check.  But it is clear that the danger is always present, particularly if the government might become profligate in its expenditures or private groups might ignore all the possible results on our economy of unwise struggles for immediate gain.

This danger requires a firm resolution that the Federal Government shall utilize only a prudent share of the Nation’s resources, that it shall live within its means, carefully measuring against need alternative proposals for expenditures.

Through the next four years, I shall continue to insist that the executive departments and agencies of Government search out additional ways to save money and manpower.  I urge that the Congress be equally watchful in this matter.

We pledge the Government’s share in guarding the integrity of the dollar.  But the Government’s efforts cannot be the entire campaign against inflation, the thief that can rob the individual of the value of the pension and social security he has earned during his productive life.  For success, Government’s efforts must be paralleled by the attitudes and actions of individual citizens.