Ladies and Gentlemen: It was a genuine pleasure to accept your kind invitation to address this fine organization.
On this "I Am an American Day," it is especially fitting that your group should launch a drive to raise funds in aid of a grand and noble people abroad. That is the American Way!
For my part, I am especially interested in the success of this drive for funds for Poland, not only because I know and admire the merits of you Americans of Polish descent, but also because I know Poland itself. In 1939, while in Europe, I traveled extensively through Poland and saw for myself what was once its glory. I traveled from the snow-capped Carpathians across the plains of golden grain, through the beautiful lake country to the shores of the Baltic. Saw the thriving agriculture, the busy industries and met the friendly people. I visited their cities, their cathedrals, and admired their cultural institutions. Visited that marvel of engineering and ingenuity, that great seaport on the Baltic, the City of Gdynia. All these I saw and I hope and pray, with you, that we may see them again. To that end, I am here, on this, "I Am an American Day."
And, of all the varied peoples who go to make up this nation, none have greater right than the Americans of Polish ancestry to proudly announce and loudly proclaim, "We are Americans!" America is theirs because they earned it – fought for it and died for it.
Yet not only America, but the whole world is indebted to Poles who have been fighting and dying for centuries in the cause of freedom everywhere.
For centuries Poland withstood the onslaught of warring neighbors seeking to oppress. Time and again she was forced to wage wars of self-defense against Austria and Sweden – Russia and Prussia. She stood in defense of the western world and turned back the Tartars and the Turks in vicious attacks and, at the gates of Vienna, she victoriously preserved for all humanity – civilization as we know it. She suffered partition at the bloody hands of her merciless neighbors three times – in 1773, 1793 and, in 1795, was wiped off the map. A Russian Government strove to extirpate, not only the Polish nationality, but also its faith.
Yet the Polish People, their spirit, and their faith were never conquered. So we were not surprised to see them rise again and fight in the First World War in those famous Polish Legions commanded by that gallant Marshal Pilsudski, and finally afterwards throw off the shackles of oppression.
In this last Great War, Poland was again the first to champion the cause of Liberty in behalf of the world against new barbaric enemies vastly superior in might and force. And, though crushed, her lands overrun, and her territory again partitioned, her men fought heroically on in Norway, Libya, France, Italy, and guarded the Coast of Scotland in those critical months of 1940. The Polish Air Force – renowned for valor throughout the world – gallantly engaged the enemies of freedom in the Battle of Britain.
And throughout all this long and glorious history, her shining standard gleams – great in war and greater in peace. Sobieski, Kosciuszko, Pilsudski, Smigly-Rydz, represent only a brief summary of great Polish Warriors in the history of Poland’s fight for freedom. And in peace, her sons made equal contributions to the world, in culture and in the arts. The poetry of Mickiewicz, Stowacki, and Vincent Pol still survive. The music of Chopin, Moniuszko, and Paderewski will never die. For this rich inheritance the world is indebted to Poland.
But we do not have to go abroad to learn of the exploits of the Polish people. Their Deeds are well-known here, and America too, is indebted to Poles. Throughout every battle our nation fought – and even before it was a nation – Poles and Americans of Polish descent have shed their blood – a custom and sacred obligation with them – for liberty in America.
We all thrilled in reading the recorded deeds of that Revolutionary Hero, Tadeus Kosciuszko, who early came to the aid of the American Colonies in their struggle for freedom – his bravery so praiseworthy, his skill and knowledge in military science so highly esteemed, that his texts on the art of war were used in our army and, in tribute, his statues adorn our public parks. Last Friday, while I was in Washington I stopped to admire his statue in Lafayette Park in front of the White House.
Also in Washington, there was Casimir Pulaski, an exile from home because of Russian oppression, who, at the first news of American Revolution, rushed to the aid of the Colonists and to his death from wounds in a battle for freedom. By his sagacity and initiative, on one occasion, he saved Washington’s whole army from a surprise attack.
There were many other names too numerous to mention in that and in other wars where Americans of Polish ancestry fought for America. In this last war, I am told on good authority, that certain groups of Polish-Americans were the very backbone of Marine Corps divisions which were joined in the fiercest of engagements in the Pacific.
Today, however, Poland, the land of their ancestors, and the symbol of freedom, is again devastated and laid low. We cannot imagine the destruction and misery which beset the people of Poland this very minute. Storm Jameson in the January issue of the magazine, The Fortnightly, says that it is estimated that there were over six million deaths in the last six years in Poland. Nothing he saw in bombed-out England prepared him for the sight of destruction and ruin of Warsaw which he recently visited. As he expresses it,
"Poland is facing, on a monstrous scale, the difficulties of an exile who comes back to find his house stripped and ruined, no materials to repair it, no way of getting help for his most elementary needs – every problem raising a score of others equally desperate and complex. The ruins of Warsaw have to be cleared without cranes, bulldozers, almost without lorries, with spades and bare hands."
To the end of my day I shall recall the face, lean and patient, of a worker who said that during the war he listened every day to the Polish broadcast from London. With a poor little smile he added: "You promised then to send us so many things, and you haven’t sent even one of them."
In yesterday’s graphic report to the nation by former President Herbert Hoover, he said:
"Hunger is a silent visitor who comes like a shadow. He sits beside every anxious mother three times each day. He brings not alone suffering and sorrow, but fear and terror.
He carries disorder and paralysis of government, and even its downfall. He is more destructive than armies, not only in human life, but in morals. All the values of right living melt before his invasions, and every gain of civilization crumbles.
We can save these people from the worst, if we will."
And our answer is, "We will!"
These hopeless and hapless people, to whom the whole world and we are indebted, must be repaid with our aid and resources. America should be first and Americans of Polish descent should lead in this drive to save Poland, and today, "I Am an American Day," it is altogether fitting and proper that the drive should start. Let us be generous in our contributions and tireless in our efforts that this drive may be the success which it should be.
Source: David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 28, "United Polish Societies of Cambridge, MA, 19 May 1946." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.