Because no man is really a man who has lost out of himself all of the boy, I want to speak first of the dreams of a barefoot boy. Frequently, they are to be of a street car conductor or he sees himself as the town policeman, above all he may reach to a position of locomotive engineer, but always in his dreams is that day when he finally comes home. Comes home to a welcome from his own home town. Because today that dream of mine of 45 years or more ago has been realized beyond the wildest stretches of my own imagination, I come here, first, to thank you, to say the proudest thing I can claim is that I am from Abilene.

The first and most important part of the celebration today from my view point was this, I was not set apart, I was merely another Abilenite putting on a celebration for something other than just one individual, an expression of our rejoicing that one nasty job is done in Europe,. that in one sector of the world no longer will we have the fear of losing our sons, our relatives and our friends, in that theater at least we no longer have to pour our wealth in order to sustain our fighting armies. That was the real thing we are celebrating today. My position was merely a symbol of the forces over there and you people put on a special thing to say to those soldiers “thank you.” That is the way I look at today’s celebration. The parade itself was so unique in conception that to everyone who had part in planning it, developing it, or an actual participating part on the street, I want to extend not only my felicitations and admiration but my very great thanks for thinking of such a wonderful thing. I cannot believe that there would be anything better for all the big cities of the United States today, than to see that parade.

In that parade a whole epoch passed before our eyes. Its beginning was coincidental with the coming of my own father and mother to this section. In the days of the independent farm and the horse and buggy, where each family was almost self-sustaining, certainly the community was self-sustaining. We grew our corn and we grew our meat, we grew our vegetables, and the local mills ground the flour and we didn’t have much connections with the outside world. As you noticed the end of that parade you saw the most modern type of machinery. No longer is it necessary for farmers to join up with their neighbors to get in the crops and the harvest, to carry out the round-up, to get the house built; we have become mechanized. No longer are we here independent of the rest of the world. We must sell our wheat and we must get things from the rest of the world. Our part is most important, there is nothing so important in the world today as food, in a material way. Food is necessary all over Europe and must be sent to preserve the peace. In that way you see immediately your connection with the problems of Europe.

We are not isolationists. Intelligent people are not isolationists. We are a part of the great civilization of this world at this moment, and every part of the world where a similar civilization prevails is a part of us. In a more definite way, since I am now a citizen of New York City, that city is part of you, one of your bigger suburbs. If we then see our relationship with the whole world, how much more intimate is it with our own United States. This section with its great agricultural products is so necessary to all of the big cities of the United States, that I repeat nothing could be better for those cities than to have seen the parade today, showing in its several floats the nature and volume of your products. They would have no longer any trouble seeing that Abilene, Kansas is important to them and New York City would bed proud to be your suburb.

Through national organizations we cooperate with others in this world. It is through that conception that we hope to preserve the peace and we cannot have any more war. If we are going to cooperate effectively we must first be united among ourselves. We must understand our relationship with the big city and they with us and then as a whole we must be strong enough to present our own case in a dignified way before the councils of the world. President Truman’s hands must be upheld at all times by the knowledge that back of him are united people ready to do his bidding if it becomes necessary.

Through this world it has been my fortune or misfortune to wander at considerable distance; never has this town been outside my heart and memory. Here are some of my oldest and dearest friends. Here are men that helped me start my own career and helped my son start his. Here are people that are lifelong friends of my mother and my late father, the really two great individuals of the Eisenhower family. They raised six boys and they made sure that each had an upbringing at home and an education that equipped him to gain a respectable place in his own profession, and I think it’s fair to say they all have. They and their families are the products of the loving care, labor and work of my father and mother; just another average Abilene family.

One more word, there was one thing in the parade today that was in error. A number of signs - I saw a sign, “Welcome to our Hero.” I am not the hero, I am the symbol of the heroic men you people and all the United states have sent to war. It has been my great honor to command three million American men and women in Europe. All those people from Dickinson County could not come back at one time for a celebration like this, I fully realize, cannot be held for the return of each but in the sum total, if you, as a community, accepts each one of those men back to your hearts as you have me, not only will you be doing for them the one thing they desire but for my part you will earn my eternal gratitude. Every one of those men is precious to me and each one coming back does not want special treatment; he does not want to be supported for life. The initiative, the self-dependence that made him great as a soldier, he expects to exercise in peace, but he does want to be received in the same friendly spirit that you received me. I know you will do it, not as parts of your war duty but out of the greatness of your heart and the warmth of your affection for soldiers that have laid everything on the line for us, even their very lives.

And now, on the part of myself and my wife, my brothers and all their families, I want to say thanks to Kansas, to Dickinson County, and to Abilene for a reception that so far exceeds anything any of us could imagine, that all of us are practically choked with emotion. Good luck and God Bless everyone of you.