Beschreibung:

EISENHOWER, DWIGHT DAVID, President . Typescript signed ("Dwight D Eisenhower") as President, of his First Inaugural Address, n.d. [delivered in Washington, 20 January 1953]. 9 pages, 4to, on rectos only of nine sheets of bond paper, boldly signed at head of page 1. Eisenhower's first inaugural address details the difficult challenges facing America in the Cold-War era. "...We sense with all our faculties that forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history. This fact defines the meaning of this day. We are summoned...to witness more than the act of one citizen swearing his oath of service, in the presence of God. We are called as a people to give testimony in the sight of the world, to our faith that the future shall belong to the free..." Freedom of the individual, Eisenhower affirms, is a "faith which rules our life. It decrees that we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve...Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark....We...observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism, between firmness and truculence....We are not helpless prisoners of history. We are free men....We shall never," he vows, "use our strength to try to impress upon another people our own cherished political and economic institutions." History, the President concludes: "does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid....We must be willing, individually and as a nation, to accept whatever sacrifices may be required of us....For this truth must be clear before us: whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America...." Provenance : The Hon. J. William Middendorf II (sale, Christie's, 17 May 1989, lot 271).