I’m not sure who reads letters to the editor these days, but I would like to share that on Jan. 17, 1961, in his farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower closed his speech with this hope and prayer: “We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the Earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”
This seems to me to also be a hope and prayer for our current times, as well as an intimation of how far we have today fallen from this inspiration and a calling to revive that hope and dream in our own lives and for the future of our children.
— Dennis Gall
Anchorage
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