walls into the embassy residence.

The foreign service is underpaid and overworked and still its members
have to be ready at all hours of the day and night to receive visiting
firemen from the United States and to entertain them graciously,
calmly, and warmly. The foreign service is, indeed, tough and some-
times dangerous but it is fascinating, challenging, and enormously re-
warding in a sense of real achievement. The striped—trousered, tea-
sipping caricatures are wide of the mark these days. Our representatives
overseas are in the front line of the new struggle for peace and freedom.
I recommend the foreign service to you as one of the areas where the
ablest of our youth can render the greatest service to their country.

I would also like to recommend a political career to the graduates
here present who are willing to make sacrifices to do something of
major usefulness with their lives. Today the ultimate power in the
free world is in the hands of those who are elected to office. Govern-
ment intervenes ever more deeply into the lives of people, into trade,
commerce, and the professions, as well as into foreign affairs. Our
principal task is to see that we have leaders who are courageous
enough and diligent enough to be right.

Politics is not just the excitement of campaigns or the dreary labor
into the small hours of the morning in writing speeches. It is the hard,
day-to-day mastery of complex subjects, the art of advocacy of what is
right, and skill in compromising between conflicting views and needs.
Politics is, perhaps, the most difficult science in the world as is proved
by the fact that no one has yet devised the perfect government. I hope
many of you will enter politics as a career.

Now, the personal advice I have offered may be acceptable to some
and will certainly be unacceptable to others. The views I have ex-
pressed may meet agreement with some and not with others. If they
serve to stimulate interest and discussion, I will be content. The most
important thing of all is that we stay acutely aware of the problems of
our time and debate them out to the best possible conclusions.

Most importantly, I want you to know how much I appreciate the
privilege of being with you today. It is an especial pleasure to me to be
here under the benign leadership of Rochester’s distinguished and
brilliant President, Dr. de Kiewiet. I warmly congratulate each of you
who is being graduated today and wish you the great happiness which
comes from fruitful labor and an active part in the life of the local and
world community.