And yet, day in and day out, we see a long procession of timid and fearful men who wring their hands and cry out that we have lost the way, that we don’t know what we are doing, that we are bound to fail.  Some say we should give up the struggle for peace, and others say we should have a war and get it over with.  That’s a terrible statement.  I had heard it made, but they want us to forget the great objective of preventing another world war—­the objective for which our soldiers have been fighting in the hills of Korea.

If we are to be worthy of all that has been done for us by our soldiers in the field, we must be true to the ideals for which they are fighting.  We must reject the counsels of defeat and despair.  We must have the determination to complete the great work for which our men have laid down their lives.

In all we do, we should remember who we are and what we stand for.  We are Americans.  Our forefathers had far greater obstacles than we have, and much poorer chances of success.  They did not lose heart, or turn aside from their goals.  In the darkest of all winters in American history, at Valley Forge, George Washington said:  “We must not, in so great a contest, expect to meet with nothing but sunshine.”  With that spirit they won their fight for freedom.

We must have that same faith and vision.  In the great contest in which we are engaged today, we cannot expect to have fair weather all the way.  But it is a contest just as important for this country and for all men, as the desperate struggle that George Washington fought through to victory.

Let us prove, again, that we are not merely sunshine patriots and summer soldiers.  Let us go forward, trusting in the God of Peace, to win the goals we seek.

***

State of the Union Address
Harry S. Truman
January 7, 1953

To the Congress of the United States: 

I have the honor to report to the Congress on the state of the Union.

This is the eighth such report that, as President, I have been privileged to present to you and to the country.  On previous occasions, it has been my custom to set forth proposals for legislative action in the coming year.  But that is not my purpose today.  The presentation of a legislative program falls properly to my successor, not to me, and I would not infringe upon his responsibility to chart the forward course.  Instead, I wish to speak of the course we have been following the past eight years and the position at which we have arrived.

In just two weeks, General Eisenhower will be inaugurated as President of the United States and I will resume—­most gladly—­my place as a private citizen of this Republic.  The Presidency last changed hands eight years ago this coming April.  That was a tragic time:  a time of grieving for President Roosevelt—­the great and gallant human being who had been taken from us; a time of unrelieved anxiety to his successor, thrust so suddenly into the complexities and burdens of the Presidential office.