As we look back over this century, let us, in the highest spirit of bipartisanship, recognize that we can be proud of our Nation’s record in foreign affairs.
America has given more generously of itself toward maintaining freedom, preserving peace, alleviating human suffering around the globe, than any nation has ever done in the history of man.
We have fought four wars in this century, but our power has never been used to break the peace, only to keep it; never been used to destroy freedom, only to defend it. We now have within our reach the goal of insuring that the next generation can be the first generation in this century to be spared the scourges of war.
Turning to our problems at home, we are making progress toward our goal of a new prosperity without war.
Industrial production, consumer spending, retail sales, personal income all have been rising. Total employment, real income are the highest in history. New home building starts this past year reached the highest level ever. Business and consumer confidence have both been rising. Interest rates are down. The rate of inflation is down. We can look with confidence to 1972 as the year when the back of inflation will be broken.
Now, this a good record, but it is not good enough--not when we still have an unemployment rate of 6 percent.
It is not enough to point out that this was the rate of the early peacetime years of the sixties, or that if the more than 2 million men released from the Armed Forces and defense-related industries were still in their wartime jobs, unemployment would be far lower.
Our goal in this country is full employment in peacetime. We intend to meet that goal, and we can.
The Congress has helped to meet that goal by passing our job-creating tax program last month.
The historic monetary agreements, agreements that we have reached with the major European nations, Canada, and Japan, will help meet it by providing new markets for American products, new jobs for American workers.