It is a great pleasure for me to be with you on the occasion of this impressive salute to the American Relief for Poland Drive. The effort to which you have dedicated yourselves is the highest and noblest cause in man's relationship with man -- the cause of spreading human mercy and goodwill, of relieving human suffering and misery, and, perhaps most important of all, of reminding those captive peoples abroad who fight the hard and lonely battles against tyranny and starvation that there is still someone who cares.
Perhaps there are among you those who think it strange that an American of Irish descent is occupying this platform tonight, and joining with you in leading the cause of Polish independence. But this is not the first time that the sons of Ireland and the sons of Poland have joined hands in the eternal struggle for liberty. A generation or more ago, Americans of Polish and Irish descent were instrumental in bringing assistance and eventual deliverance to the homelands of both peoples. And long before that, both nations sent the bravest and ablest of their sons to fight for the achievement of liberty in other lands when it could not be achieved at home. Particularly famous in Ireland were the so-called "Wild Geese" -- the officers and soldiers forced to flee their native Ireland after the Battle of the Boyne. Fighting for the French, they broke the ranks of the English at Fontenoy. Fighting for the Spanish, they turned the tide of battle against the Germans at Melazzo. And fighting for the American Union Army, they bore the brunt of the slaughter at Fredericksburg.
"War-battered dogs are we, (they said)
gnawing a naked bone;
Fighters in every land and clime -
(for) every cause but our own."
Equally noted were the sons of Poland who fought for the spirit of independence in all parts of the world, and particularly in this country. Among their number were those who saved the first English-speaking settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, he who saved George Washington from British capture at Brandywine, he who founded both our American artillery units and our West Point Military Academy and he who was the first Union officer to the in the Civil War.
No, Ireland and Poland, the Irish and the Poles, the Irish-American and the Polish-American, are not strangers when it comes to joining hands in the eternal quest for freedom -- and I am honored that you have asked me to be with you here tonight.
We have much for which to be grateful this evening, many developments we can view with satisfaction and hope. Our Government has agreed to provide a $95 million loan to the present Polish Government; the Gomulka Government in turn has agreed to permit resumption of relief activities by CARE and by your own organization, the American Relief for Poland; and it has further agreed to reduce or eliminate the unjustly high customs duties now being charged on gift parcels sent to Polish families from this country. Perhaps most important of all, the Gomulka Government is still managing to walk the tightrope between a popular revolt on the one hand and a return to total Soviet domination on the other; while in the meantime the progress within Poland away from terrorism, thought control, nationalized industries and farms and Soviet control continues to inch ahead cautiously.
For all of this -- though we would like much more -- we can be grateful and we can take hope. We can rejoice, too, at the success of this tremendous fund drive you commemorate tonight. But, in the midst of this rejoicing, I offer this warning: let us not rest on our oars. Let us not think the battle is won, that we can go home and forget about it, that all is well and we can turn our attention to other things. For the battle has not been won -- it has just begun.
Certainly the battle has just begun in Washington, despite last week's announcement of the new agreement. For this agreement itself, it should be realized, has been both delayed and limited by the Eisenhower Administration's failure to face squarely the crying need for a new American policy toward a nation in Poland's situation.
Let us consider, for example, the legal basis of the new agreement as I understand it. In order for American surplus cotton and wheat to be sent to Poland as a part of this loan, it was necessary for Secretary of State Dulles to make the highly arguable finding that Poland is not "dominated or controlled" by the U.S.S.R. and is a "friendly nation" -- a finding which was vulnerable on its face to criticism and ridicule from the opponents of Polish aid. In order for the rest of the loan to go through, the Administration resorted to still another legal artifice to get around the Battle Act, by transferring to the Export-Import Bank for loan purposes money from the presumably unrestricted President's Foreign Aid Emergency Fund -- an action which brought with it a $30 million limitation on the amount going to any one country.
How much better it would have been to have faced up to the issue squarely, to have placed the problem before the Congress and to have requested new legislation and new funds with which to meet effectively one of the most crucial challenges to our foreign policy since World War II. The Administration may, by resort to these artificial though self-defeating devices, have avoided for a time the responsibility of thrashing this problem out with the Congress and its own party.
But the issue cannot be long postponed. The existing agreement may need additional legislative implementation -- a new and more adequate Polish loan is a must for the near future -- and now even the existing agreement, for all its inadequacies, is imperilled by the threat of Senator Knowland to block it through an appropriations bill rider.
These issues, in short, have not been rendered moot by the. agreement signed last week -- on the contrary, they are just beginning to present themselves as among the most urgent foreign policy issues flow before the Congress. It is up to those of us who recognize the need for a new, enlightened Congressional policy toward Poland -- and any other nation that in the future is encouraged to occupy the same precarious position between East and West -- those of us who want our nation to make the most of these opportunities to put the Russians on the defensive -- it is up to us to gird now for the battle that is to come.
For the opposition to such a policy, within the administration and its party, and in the nation generally, is strong and vociferous.
-- There are the faint-hearted and the super-cautious, who oppose any bold new program seizing the initiative away from the Soviet Union, who are fearful that our action may accomplish nothing or invite Soviet retaliation, or who shy away from controversial issues for fear of criticism from their constituents. The administration itself has been regrettably slow in pressing this matter, failing to exert any real leadership to secure the necessary legislation or public approval, and the Vice-President of the United States, so often a spokesman on key foreign policy issues, failed to say one word in favor of aid to Poland until after the agreement had already been signed. If this timidity and vacillation clad characterized the workers who rioted at Poznan, just one year ago this month, at the start of an international fair, there would have been no insurrection in October, no new, more independent regime, no turning to the West for trade and aid, and no new trade fair opening at Poznan again this month, this time with exhibits from the United States and a personal visit by my outstanding colleague in the House, Thad Machrowicz. Surely we can risk our financial credit for those who risked their lives on behalf of independence.
-- There are, in addition, those who refuse to look beyond the Communist label, those who like Senator Knowland point out quite accurately that Poland- is still a Communist regime, still within the Soviet orbit, still patrolled by Red armies, and still a one-party nation, that one party being the Communist Party. They point to the anti-Western and pro-Communist statements made by present Polish leaders, and their pro-Soviet votes in the U. N. These opponents of Polish aid insist that no assistance of any kind be granted until the Poles are living in a free democratic society, under an economic system of free competitive enterprise, and under a government allied with the West in the struggle against the Soviet Union. It would be easier for all of us to favor aid with those kinds of strings attached -- but that is in reality favoring no aid at all.
I would remind these critics that dispatches filed from the tense nation of Poland show significant changes beneath the Communist label. Terrorism and thought control have diminished; public opinion, basically anti-Communist and always anti-Soviet, is awakening; and a working agreement has been reached with the Polish Catholic Church under Cardinal Wyszynski. Industry and agriculture have been increasingly decentralized and denationalized. Little over one month ago the Polish Parliament approved a new budget and economic plan to reduce industrial expansion and raise living standards. The Polish press has exercised at least a somewhat greater degree of freedom than it had since the Iron Curtain rang down on the nation in what seems like ages ago. And I would remind these critics further that the most significant development of all has been the Gomulka Government's willingness to turn for the first time toward the West for increased trade, for friendship, and for credit and economic assistance. Of course, Poland still is a Communist regime, still is within the Soviet orbit, still is patrolled by Red armies. The brave people of Poland are still, in effect, in a prison, however more tolerable their jail or jailers may have become. But are we to ignore their needs because they cannot escape? Have we forgotten the words -- I was
"Naked, and you covered me:
Sick, and you visited me:
I was in prison, and you came to me."
I do not say that there are no real risks in aiding the Gomulka Government. There are real risks; risks that our aid will simply strengthen the Communist bloc, relieve pressure on the Soviets, and divert to armaments those resources now devoted to staving off Polish discontent -- but, speaking for myself, I do say that risk for risk, dollar for dollar, we cannot fail to meet this opportunity and this challenge. Any other course will either be forcing a suffering nation into a fruitless revolt -- or forcing the Polish Government to again become hopelessly dependent on Moscow completely on Moscow's terms; encouraging the Polish Stalinists in their anti-Western propaganda; and very possibly causing the collapse of the present, more independent government. Other satellites, we may be sure, are watching -and if we fail to help the Poles, who else will dare stand up to the Russians and look westward?
If, on the other hand, we provide a dramatic, concrete demonstration of our sympathy and sincerity, we can obtain an invaluable reservoir of goodwill among the Polish people, strengthen their will to resist, and drive still a further wedge between the Polish government and the Kremlin. For the satellite nations of Eastern Europe represent the one area in the world where the Soviet Union is on the defensive today. The Communists have scored gains in the Far East, in the Middle East and in Africa -- but they are having trouble in their own back yard and they know it. The question is whether we know it and whether we are going to do anything about it.
But the battle is not confined to programs for loans and economic aid alone. We must continue every other effort to give hope and encouragement, and to keep alive the spirit of liberty, within the borders of Communist Poland and in the hearts of the anti-Communist Polish people. We dare not take for granted their continued determination to keep that spirit alive, we dare not forget about their struggle to do so.
I realize that the people of Poland -- because of their religious convictions and strong patriotic spirit, because of their historical hatred of the Russians -- are perhaps better equipped than any people on earth to withstand the present period of persecution, just as their forefathers withstood successive invasions and partitions from the Germans and the Austrians and the Russians for centuries before them, and just as theirs was the only country occupied by Hitler that did not produce a quisling.
But time works against the brave people of Poland. It is upon the youth who have no recollection of a free Poland that the Communists concentrate their attention. Given control over education, given control over all the means of communication, given at least an indirect limitation on the traditional influence of the Church, given all the weapons of a modern police state and given time to consolidate their gains, the Communists feel that they can remake Poland and the Polish people.
If the Poles come to feel that we in the West have forgotten them, that we are willing to reach a permanent agreement with the Russians that does not provide for a free Poland, that we with all of our advantages and wealth care little about their problems, then their courageous struggle to preserve the spirit of independence may cease.
And thus I hope that you who are gathered here tonight, and millions like you throughout this country and the free world, will continue to keep the cause of a free Poland uppermost in your hearts and minds. We must press on for improved loan agreements, new economic aid legislation and continued voluntary relief. We must reaffirm our stand against genocide, and revamp our official attitude toward Polish emigrants and escapees. We must demonstrate to the imprisoned people of Poland that we who live in freedom have not forgotten them. -- and that we trust they will not forget what it means to be free.
Let us offer to them, not empty promises or reckless objectives or hopeless demands, but encouragement and hope and friendship. If I may recall once again the Irish struggle for independence, let us speak to the people of Poland with the words of Sir Roger Casement, the English battler for Irish independence who addressed the British jury which had sentenced him to hang for high treason in 1914 with these words:
"When all your rights," said Sir Roger, "become only an accumulated wrong; when men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs -- then surely it is a braver, a saner and a truer thing to be a rebel in act and in deed. Gentlemen of the Jury: Ireland has outlived the failure of all her hopes -- and yet she still hopes. And this faculty -- of preserving through centuries of misery the remembrance of lost liberty -- this surely is the noblest cause men ever strove for, ever lived for, ever died for. If this be the cause for which I stand indicted here today, then I stand in a goodly company and in a right noble succession."
That is our message, ladies and gentlemen, that is our task. Let us not fail its fulfillment. Let us not fail those whose hopes hang upon us. Let us instead remember the words of General Dabrowski`s Mazurka:
"Poland has not perished yet "Jeszcze Polska nie zginela
While we are still alive." kiedy my zyjemy."
Speech Images