A year ago, in assuming the tasks of the Presidency, I said that few generations, in all history, had been granted the role of being the great defender of freedom in its hour of maximum danger.  This is our good fortune; and I welcome it now as I did a year ago.  For it is the fate of this generation—­of you in the Congress and of me as President—­to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did not make.  But the pressures of life are not always distributed by choice.  And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom.

And in this high endeavor, may God watch over the United States of America.

***

State of the Union Address
John F. Kennedy
January 14, 1963

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 88th Congress: 

I congratulate you all—­not merely on your electoral victory but on your selected role in history.  For you and I are privileged to serve the great Republic in what could be the most decisive decade in its long history.  The choices we make, for good or ill, may well shape the state of the Union for generations yet to come.

Little more than 100 weeks ago I assumed the office of President of the United States.  In seeking the help of the Congress and our countrymen, I pledged no easy answers.  I pledged—­and asked—­only toil and dedication.  These the Congress and the people have given in good measure.  And today, having witnessed in recent months a heightened respect for our national purpose and power—­having seen the courageous calm of a united people in a perilous hour—­and having observed a steady improvement in the opportunities and well-being of our citizens—­I can report to you that the state of this old but youthful Union, in the 175th year of its life, is good.

In the world beyond our borders, steady progress has been made in building a world of order.  The people of West Berlin remain both free and secure.  A settlement, though still precarious, has been reached in Laos.  The spearpoint of aggression has been blunted in Viet-Nam.  The end of agony may be in sight in the Congo.  The doctrine of troika is dead.  And, while danger continues, a deadly threat has been removed in Cuba.

At home, the recession is behind us.  Well over a million more men and women are working today than were working 2 years ago.  The average factory work week is once again more than 40 hours; our industries are turning out more goods than ever before; and more than half of the manufacturing capacity that lay silent and wasted 100 weeks ago is humming with activity.

In short, both at home and abroad, there may now be a temptation to relax.  For the road has been long, the burden heavy, and the pace consistently urgent.

But we cannot be satisfied to rest here.  This is the side of the hill, not the top.  The mere absence of war is not peace.  The mere absence of recession is not growth.  We have made a beginning—­but we have only begun.