White House Press Release, Address of President Harry S. Truman at the Dinner Held by the Jewish National Fund

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE DINNER HELD BY THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND (KFAR TRUMAN) RECORDS SERVICE STATLER HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C. MAY 26, 1952, 10:40 P.M., E.D.S.T. Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of our High Court, Members of the Congress and the Cabinet, and ladies and gentlemen: It is a very, very great honor that has just been conferred upon me. I appreciate it most highly. I can't express my feelings. I don't think that as an individual I deserve all the nice things that have been said about me here tonight, but as the head of the Government of the United States, I am perfectly willing to accept them. Mr. Vice President, that forest of yours will be very useful in the construction of this village. It will be in the same situation as a denser-named forest which went to meet Macbeth, but this forest will not go for that same purpose, it will go for constructive purposes, and the wonder- ful reforestation that these good people keep up will last forever, and so will the village. Don't you worry about that middle initial of mine. That is a very good initial. It is the middle initial of Alben W. Barkley. And it stands for something. Now the initial that I have stands for nothing. A lot of people sometimes intentionally mispronounce it. The growth and progress of the new state of Israel are a source of great satisfaction to me. I had faith in Israel even before it was established. I knew it was based on the love of freedom, which has been the guiding star of the Jewish people since the days of Moses. I was sure that under the leadership of President Weizmann, Israel would take its place in the family of nations as a strong supporter of the ideals of human freedom. And I certainly appreciate that message from the President, and if it is turned over to me as it has been promised, I will be certain to answer it myself -- as I will the other great message which I received. Don't forget that. It was a great pleasure for me when you named one of the new villages of Israel after me. I have been very much interested in the growth and progress of that village. And you know, that tends to keep the President on a straight and narrow path, where I hope I will never do anything to cause you to change the name of that village. Some day, when I don't have so much to do as I have now, I want to go to Israel and see Kfar Truman, and talk to their young farmers there. Perhaps they can teach me a few things about farming, and perhaps I can tell them a few things about the way WC farm over here, although I will admit that I am thirty years out of practice in practical, on-the-ground farming. But my brother, my sister, and myself still own the old home farm. Two of my nephews do as much work in this mcchanical age as my brother and my father and myself with five helpers could do in one day. I hope that the people of Kfar Truman will have a wonderful future. But they will have to work for it, just as they have worked for the independence of their country. But I know they will make their village a lasting example of what free men can do when they are united in a great cause. The people of the Truman village are very fortunate, of course, in having the Jewish National Fund behind them. Through that Fund, you have been working on the Point Four idea for fifty years. You have been buying land in Israel, reclaiming it, irrigating it, and planting trees on it. That was the farsighted way to build a new nation -- start with the land itself. You have studied history. You realized that the whole area of the Near East, that had produced some of the greatest civilizations of the world, was today able to support only a fraction of the people it once