Lot 160
Eisenhower, Dwight D (1890-1969) 34th President of the United States ((1953-61). Typescript of President Eisenhower's speech, "The Chance For Peace," with numerous holograph corrections, 17pp, 12½x8", 12 April 1953. Fine. The speech was given before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953, and was broadcast over television and radio from the Statler Hotel in Washington, D.C. It was Eisenhower's first address to the American people since taking office as President. This was one of several drafts of the speech, which was written by Emmet John Hughes and C.D. Jackson. It is marked "The President" in pencil at upper right.
In order to dramatize the futility of the Cold War, Eisenhower compared peace-time expenditures, such as roads, schools, and hospitals to the expenditures that both the United States and the Soviet Union were forced to make because of the Cold War. An excerpt: "…Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities….It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals….We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people….This is not a way of life at all….Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron…."
Estimated Value $4,500 - 6,500.
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| Realized $6,038 |
