Turning the pages back... June 27, 1964 (11/19/00)

Turning the pages back...

June 27, 1964

On June 27, 1964, the Taras Shevchenko monument in Washington was unveiled by a former U.S. president, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Following is the text of the address delivered by "Ike" that day before a throng of 100,000 who had arrived for the ceremony from near and far.

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First, let me thank you for your generous welcome.

On September 30, 1960, when I signed into law a measure to authorize the erection of this statue, it was my expectation that you would arrange a ceremony of dedication commensurate with the greatness of Taras Shevchenko.

That day is here and you have come by the thousands from all over the United States; you have come from Canada, from Latin America and Europe, and from as far away as Australia, to honor the memory of a poet who expressed so eloquently man's undying determination to fight for freedom and his unquenchable faith in ultimate victory.

This outpouring of lovers of freedom to salute a Ukrainian hero far exceeds my expectation. But its meaning does not exceed my hope.

For my hope is that your magnificent march from the shadow of the Washington Monument to the foot of the statue of Taras Shevchenko will here kindle a new world movement in the hearts, minds, words and actions of men. A never-ending movement dedicated to the independence and freedom of peoples of all captive nations of the entire world.

During my boyhood it was confidently predicted that within the lifetime of my generation the principles of our free society would become known to all people everywhere and would be universally accepted around the world.

The dream has faded.

Within the past few decades the concepts of liberty and human dignity have been scorned and rejected by powerful men who control great areas of our planet.

The revolutionary doctrines of our free society are far from universal application in the earth. Rather, we have seen the counterattacks of fascism and communism substitute for them the totalitarian state, the suppression of personal freedom, the denial of national independence and even the destruction of free inquiry and discussion.

Tyranny and oppression today are not different from tyranny and oppression in the days of Taras Shevchenko. Now, as then, tyranny means the concentration of all power in an elite body, in a government bureau, in a single man. It means that the ultimate decisions affecting every aspect of life rest not with the people themselves, but with tyrants.

Shevchenko experienced this kind of governmental usurpation of decisions he believed he should make for himself. And he was a champion of freedom not solely for himself.

When he spoke out for Ukrainian independence from Russian colonial rule, he endangered his own liberty. When he joined a society whose aim was to establish a republican form of government in countries of Eastern Europe, he was jailed - even denied the right to use pencil and paper to record his thoughts about freedom.

Today the same pattern of life exists in the Soviet Union and in all captive nations.

Wherever communism rules there is forceful control of thought, of expression, and indeed of every phase of human existence that the state may choose to dominate.

The touchstone of any free society is limited government, which does only those things which the people need and which they cannot do for themselves at all, or cannot do as well.

Our own nation was created as this kind of society in a devout belief that where men are free, where they have the right to think, to worship, to act as they may choose - subject only to the provision that they transgress not on the equal rights of others - there will be rapid human progress.

We believe also that when this kind of freedom is guaranteed universally there will be peace among all nations.

Though the world today stands divided between tyranny and freedom, we can hope and have faith that it will not always so remain.

Of all who inhabit the globe, only a relatively few in each of the captive nations - only a handful even in Russia itself - form the evil conspiracies that dominate their fellow men by force or by fraud.

Because man instinctively rebels against regimentation - he hungers for freedom, for well-being and for peace, even though he may not, in some regions, always comprehend the full meaning of these words.

Yet the will of a few men thwarts the will of hundreds of millions and freedom stands aghast that this is so.

But let us not forget the ageless truth. "This, too, shall pass," and until it does, we can be sure that this nation will, with its allies, sustain the strength - spiritual, economic and military - to foil any ill-advised attempt of dictators to seize any area where the love of freedom lives and blazes.

In the nations of East and Central Europe, in the non-Russian nations of the USSR, and in Russia itself - where the poetry of Shevchenko is well-known - there are millions of individual human beings who earnestly want the right of self-determination and self-government.

His statue, standing here in the heart of the nation's capital, near the embassies where representatives of nearly all the countries of the world can see it, is a shining symbol of his love of liberty.

Source: "Address by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower at the unveiling of the monument to Taras Shevchenko in Washington, D.C., June 27, 1964," The Ukrainian Weekly, July 3, 1964.

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