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The President's Page
A Monthly Editorial
By Mrs. E. D. Pearce
(The following is an excerpted version
of Mrs. Pearce's Inaugral Message.)

This is an awesome moment for me,
for, combined with the high honor
that has been conferred upon me to
lead this vast and farflung organiza-
tion of over 11 million members in 55
countries, I have accepted, too, a man-
tle of significant responsibility.

Ours is a strangely demanding world,
one that exacts from us a continuity of
purpose in an era of change. And if
this purpose is to take shape, to build
for us a world of moderation and rea-
son, a world of brotherly love and hu-
man understanding, then the primary
commission for us clubwomen of the
General Federation is to channel our
efforts to a single goal . . . that goal
which lies closest to the hearts of all
Americans today...peace.

There is little glory in war, but we
know that we cannot tolerate the ag-
gression of communists, or gamble the
future of Southeast Asia, whose fall to
them would place the entire free world
in most dire peril.

Whatever else we may do during the
two years of this Administration one
objective will be paramount,--we will
work for peace, becuase this is the
yearning, the responsibilty, the duty,
the task facing all peoples everywhere.
We cannot shorten our reach into the
world, nor would we choose to. But we
must learn to retrieve from the ashes of
war and destruction a determination to
build a strong and vital world commu-
nity dedicated to the peaceful co-ex-
istence of all mankind. How, in actu-
ality, are we to achieve this? How are
we to translate a dream into actuality? /
It is all very well to talk about peace,
but it is action that counts!

My friends, there only is one way
that we ever will acquire a peaceful
world - and keep it so - and this is by
instilling in our young people a love of
peace that will permeate their thinking
and guide their needs.

Youth is our promise for a shining
tomorrow. We must depend upon them
for the future of freedom and the per-
petuity of all things most cherished as
described in our United States Consti-
tution and Bill of Rights.

There is enormous pressure on our
young people today. They must main-
tain their equilibrium, with change and
challenge around them. They must ad-
here to the laws of society while we
allow them to be surrounded with ex-
amples that disregard tradition and
precedent.

The very fact that we allow these
things to exist, condones them in the
minds of our youngsters. So when im-
morality and crime occur, let us ana-
lyze the problem closely and fairly,
lest we not assume our due share of
the blame.

Let us give our youth a chance for a
good life - help them to maintain de-
cency and modesty, to keep strong
their moral fibre, so that they will be
able to contribute to family, commu-
nity, and world improvement projects.
You federated clubwomen are the key
to the implementation of this.

The spirit of this administration's
theme I find exemplified by the Pioneer
Woman, whose statue now graces the
town of Ponca City, Oklahoma, and
which will serve as our symbol and in-
spiration during the ensuing two years.

This statue typifies those women who
braved the travails of the wilderness,
side by side, with their husbands, who
shared the dreams for a better world,
who dared to blaze trails from the
East coast across the sun-baked plains
and over the challenging mountains to
the Western shores. This woman, who,
head held high, grasps her child by
the hand, and moves forward, with
confidence, to the future, is an eternal
symbol of the courage and the fortitude,
the motherly love and wifely devotion
that we find most admirable.

She has her counterpart today, and
I like to think it is our General Fed-
eration clubwomen in the Space Age. We have
no forbidding mountains or scorching
plains to conquer, but we do have the
perplexing and dangerous problems
concomitant with a thriving, advanced,
civilization.

Our defiant mountains and our
parched deserts are the problems of an
advanced society . . . illiteracy, school
droupouds, water and air pollution, the
eradacation of many illnesses, salacious
magazines, crime on inadequately lit
streets, increasing traffic accidents, and
help for the underprivileged in our
country and abroad. These are but a
very few of the many areas that con-
cern General Federation clubwomen.

There is yet another interpretation
of the word "youth" in our theme. And
this is: to think vitally, to pursue an
optimistic outlook on life, a flexible
viewpoint on issues, a pliable mind,
and, more than any other thing, --a
bright faith that infuses an individual
with the spirit of youth.

And I believe -- becuase I have seen
it proven -- that clubwork which is, es-
sentially, community betterment, does