United States Presidential Candidates 1968

"And you will bring to this work, not only skills and energy, but the most important ingredient of all: the idealism and the vision of the young. Of course, specific problems demand specific answers. Programs must take into account the realities of power and circumstance. But all the practicality in the world is useless unless it is informed by conviction, by high purposes, and by standards which are never sacrificed to immediate gains. Unless this is done we will be submerged in the day-to-day problems and, having solved them, find that we have really solved nothing. For only those who dare to fall greatly, can ever achieve much."

"So, guided by the great ideals of this country, willing to work and dare to fulfill your dreams, there is really no limit to the expectations of your tomorrow. If you wish a sheltered and uneventful life, then you are living in the wrong generation. No one can promise you calm, or ease, or undisturbed comfort. But we can promise you this. We can promise enormous challenge and arduous struggle, hard labor and great danger. And with them we can promise you, finally, triumph--triumph over all the enemies of mankind."

"By the oath I have taken "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," duty directs — and strong personal conviction impels — that I advise the Congress that action is necessary, and necessary now, if the Constitution is to be upheld and the rights of all citizens are not to be mocked, abused and denied. I must regretfully report to the Congress the following facts: 1. That the Fifteenth Amendment of our Constitution is today being systematically and willfully circumvented in certain State and local jurisdictions of our Nation. 2. That representatives of such State and local governments acting "under the color of law," are denying American citizens the right to vote on the sole basis of race or color. 3. That, as a result of these practices, in some areas of our country today no significant number of American citizens of the Negro race can be registered to vote except upon the intervention and order of a Federal Court. 4. That the remedies available under law to citizens thus denied their Constitutional rights — and the authority presently available to the Federal Government to act in their behalf — are clearly inadequate. 5. That the denial of these rights and the frustration of efforts to obtain meaningful relief from such denial without undue delay is contributing to the creation of conditions which are both inimical to our domestic order and tranquillity and incompatible with the standards of equal justice and individual dignity on which our society stands. I am, therefore, calling upon the Congress to discharge the duty authorized in Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment "to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.""

"The essence of our American tradition of State and local governments is the belief expressed by Thomas Jefferson that Government is best which is closest to the people. Yet that belief is betrayed by those State and local officials who engage in denying the right of citizens to vote. Their actions serve only to assure that their State governments and local governments shall be remote from the people, least representative of the people's will and least responsive to the people's wishes."

"We are taking a very important step toward that dream that President and Mrs. Kennedy had, and to which most of you have contributed your bit. This center will brighten the life of Washington, but it is not, as I have said, just a Washington project. It is a national project and a national possession, and it became a reality, as General Kennedy has observed, because of the willingness of all the representatives of all the people to make it possible. It is dedicated to the common awareness of all men. It was conceived under the administration of President Eisenhower. It was inspired and encouraged and led by the imagination and the purpose of President Kennedy. And after his death, the Congress, realizing that, named it in his memory and generously, and I think wisely, provided the matching funds so that we could get on our way."

"John Kennedy once said, "I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens." As I sat here on the platform this morning, I reviewed some of the efforts that were made as a result of his inspiring leadership to make possible the ground breaking that will take place here today. I recalled that we all met in the White House under the leadership of his mother-in-law, and we used the first house of this land one of the first times to raise funds to make this event possible. I remember going to Mrs. Post's home and meeting with patriotic and dedicated citizens who in their generosity were willing to come there and spend the evening to try to add their bit to this great effort. I recall the contribution of the Members of the Congress, and, through them, all the people of the United States who took the funds from the farmer and the laborer, the banker and the artist, to appropriate them so that we might be here today and participate as we are."

"If it fulfills our hopes, this center will be, at once, a symbol and a reflection and a hope. It will symbolize our belief that the world of creation and thought are at the core of all civilization. Only recently in the White House we helped commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare. The political conflicts and ambitions of his England are known to the scholar and to the specialist. But his plays will forever move men in every corner of the world. The leaders that he wrote about live far more vividly in his words than in the almost forgotten facts of their own rule. Our civilization, too, will largely survive in the works of our creation. There is a quality in art which speaks across the gulf dividing man from man and nation from nation, and century from century. That quality confirms the faith that our common hopes may be more enduring than our conflicting hostilities. Even now men of affairs are struggling to catch up with the insights of great art. The stakes may well be the survival of civilization. The personal preferences of men in government are not important--except to themselves. However, it is important to know that the opportunity we give to the arts is a measure of the quality of our civilization. It is important to be aware that artistic activity can enrich the life of our people, which really is the central object of Government. It is important that our material prosperity liberate and not confine the creative spirit."

"This center will have a unique opportunity to bring together worlds of poetry and power--and bring it to the benefit of each of us. It must give special attention to the young; to increasing their interest and stimulating their creativity. It can serve as a model and instructor to other cultural centers around our Nation. It should open up new opportunities to be heard to young singers and filmmakers and playwrights. It must take the lead in bringing the best in the performing arts to every part of our beloved and rich country; so that theater and opera are not the privilege of the lucky citizens of just a few metropolitan centers. Yes, this is our ambitious program. But so was the vision of the man in whose memory this center is today named."

"Our military forces must be so organized and directed that they can be used in a measured, controlled, and deliberate way as a versatile instrument to support our foreign policy. Military and civilian leaders alike are unanimous in their conviction that our armed might is and always must be so controlled as to permit measured response in whatever crises may confront us. We have made dramatic improvements in our ability to communicate with and command our forces, both at the national level and at the level of the theatre commanders. We have established a National Military Command System, with the most advanced electronic and communications equipment, to gather and present the military information necessary for top level management of crises and to assure the continuity of control through all levels of command. Its survival under attack is insured by a system of airborne, shipborne and other command posts, and a variety of alternative protected communications. We have developed and procured the Post Attack Command Control System of the Strategic Air Command, to assure continued control of our strategic forces following a nuclear attack. We have installed new safety procedures and systems designed to guarantee that our nuclear weapons are not used except at the direction of the highest national authority. This year we are requesting funds to extend similar improvements in the survivability and effectiveness of our command and control to other commands in our overseas theatres."

"We aspire to nothing that belongs to others. We seek no dominion over our fellow man, but man's dominion over tyranny and misery. But more is required. Men want to be a part of a common enterprise—a cause greater than themselves. Each of us must find a way to advance the purpose of the Nation, thus finding new purpose for ourselves. Without this, we shall become a nation of strangers."

"The issue presented by the present challenge to our Constitution and our conscience transcends legalism, although it does not transcend the law itself. We are challenged to demonstrate that there are no sanctuaries within our law for those who flaunt it. We are challenged, also, to demonstrate by our prompt, fitting and adequate response now that the hope of our system is not force, not arms, not the might of militia or marshals-but the law itself."

"First, we must strike down the barriers which limit the hopes and the achievements of some of our people. No person should be stifled and restricted because of his race, or the circumstances of his birth, or the lack of an adequate education, or because he comes from a poor home. Through our pursuit of equal opportunity, the war against poverty, we are going to change things in this country. Your own very able and popular Congressman is leading the way in that effort. The people of this area of Texas know the taste of poverty. For generations the adobe-caliche soil has yielded forth a harsh living to those who worked it in this area. We have come a long way since those days when I lived in the school garage here on the campus. Incidentally, I lived there 3 years before the business manager knew about it. And I don't think he ever would have if the coach hadn't told him that I was bathing in the gymnasium. But in that period, want and hunger were no strangers to San Marcos. The energy and the will of the people of this area have created a city of hope and fulfillment for many. But now we have an opportunity to unite in will and heart and spirit to bring a final end to poverty. Along with Congressman Pickle, Senator Yarborough, and your distinguished Governor Connally, we propose that San Marcos be the first city in the entire Southwest to organize and to begin to fight the war against poverty."

"Today we are at the edge of a new era of progress toward the American dream. It is an opportunity as large and as exciting as that granted to those who settled this continent. Our basic goal has not been changed, but the growth of our Nation, the progress of science and knowledge, the change in our way of life, makes it necessary to shape new tools to reach old goals. And by moving ahead only can we hope to preserve the values of the past."

"The expansion of education is going to receive special emphasis in the budget that I am now preparing. We have one of our Cabinet officers, Secretary Udall, who wonders how much education is going to take from the resources that he is interested in, the conservation effort. But I am going to take him down here when we get through here this morning and do something that I had really never anticipated doing before: walk him from the campus to Riverside along the same route that I used to walk with a lovely blond, through the fish hatchery. I hope it will be as attractive to him as it was to me."

"And now I want to tell you that we have a great event in store for all of you: The happy warrior, the eloquent spokesman for the Democratic Party, the new Vice President of the United States, is arriving tomorrow at noon, and in his honor and in the honor of the men and women who traveled with us in this campaign, we are going to have a barbecue out on the banks of the Pedernales. I knew in Atlantic City that I had made the right recommendation to that convention so far as the Vice President was concerned, because I had observed him very closely ever since I became a Member of the Senate, but in the weeks that have followed that convention, I know even more that in my heart I was right. Hubert Humphrey left that convention with no orders and no instructions, and he traveled to 40 States and made no mistakes. Everywhere he went the people received him warmly and applauded his pronouncements. I predict that he, aided by his charming wife, Muriel, and their lovely family, will make one of the greatest Vice Presidents that this Nation has ever known."

"I would like to leave you tonight with the words of Abraham Lincoln, as a century ago he left his friends and neighbors to become President of the United States. He said, "Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail .... To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell." I do not know what happened in every hamlet or voting box in America today, but I think I discerned what happened in all America today. I doubt that there has ever been so many people seeing so many things alike on "decision" day. And with that understanding and with the help of all of them, we will be on our way to try to achieve peace in our time for our people and to try to keep our people prosperous. So to all of you that have gone this long road with me, particularly to the 'press and television people who have worked 18-hour days for many weeks now, I say I hope you have a good rest tomorrow."

"I have traveled a long way from this college to the office that I now occupy. In few times, yes, in very few nations, in man's journey has it been possible for any man to travel such a road. In Washington I am surrounded by men who have come from every walk of life to the most responsible posts of government. For that is what your government really is. It is not a strange and alien power in a remote and menacing city. It is a banker from New York and a druggist from Minnesota, the son of a tenant farmer from Texas. Some day it may very well be some of you. America has succeeded more than any other nation in the world in making it possible for a man to achieve whatever his ability would allow. The idea that man's only limitation would be his talent and intelligence, and his willingness to work, has been at the heart of the American dream, and for some of us it has come true."

"Next we must move to enlarge the horizons of all Americans, and this effort is what we will pursue in the Great Society. It is founded upon the idea that the ultimate test of any society is really the quality of the men and women that it produces, and the quality of the life that they are permitted to lead. These goals can never be measured in guns or statistics. They do not flow automatically from wealth or power. They must be made a careful, conscious objective, and they must be pursued with dedication and labor. And that we intend to do. Even the greatest of past societies were founded upon the exploitation and the misery of many. So we in beautiful America can be the first to enrich the quality of the life of all of our people. We do not make money just to build factories. Yes, we have the tools to do such a job. We make money to make it possible to enrich the lives of human beings. We are the richest and we are the most powerful nation on earth. Our knowledge and our insight into our own problems are growing daily. And now I believe today we can see our real goal. That goal is not an idle dream. And it is not a vague Utopia. It has concrete goals and it requires specific programs. Even as we meet here today, some of those programs are being prepared for my review. The one I just announced I reviewed on the helicopter coming down here this morning. These programs will attack the problems of making our cities a decent place to live in. They will seek to preserve the beauty of our land. They will strive to make it possible for every child born in this country to receive an education of the highest quality, to the full limit of his ability, no matter how poor he is, no matter where he lives, no matter which side of the tracks he was born on. It will do all these things and more, much more. It will not be a program for a hundred days or even a program for the next 4 years. It will point toward the year 2000. But it will provide the base on which America moves forward and builds."

"No words are adequate to really express the feeling of this occasion. Most of all, I wish to be equal to your confidence, and to the hopes of all of the people of America. We have voted as many, but tonight we must face the world as one."

"I have taken a long journey from a tenant farm in West Texas to this platform in Madison Square Garden. I have seen the barren fields of my youth bloom with harvest. I have seen despairing men made whole with enriching toil. I have seen America, my America, grow and change, and I have seen it become a leader among the nations of the world. In our early days, some thought that the Mississippi would be our final boundary. But farseeing Thomas Jefferson sent his explorers across the continent and the American tide rolled after them. We, too, stand at the margin of decision. Ahead is the prospect of a shining nation of towering promise. Behind is a threatening tide of change and growth, of expanding population and exploding science. And there is only one way to go. The only way to preserve the values of the past is to meet the future. The path to progress stretches in front of us, not back along the way we came. And with the help of that Almighty God who has guided us whenever we have been true to Him, that is the way that we are going."

"I know that I was only one of many, because we had a group of outstanding candidates throughout the Nation, and we had men of independent views and men and women of both parties who put their country before their party. Now, tonight, our purpose must be to bind up our wounds, to heal our history, and to make this Nation whole. I know that this is more than a victory of party or person. It is a tribute to the program that was begun by our beloved President John F. Kennedy--a program that he carried on until he was taken from us. It is visible evidence of the work of a devoted and unselfish Cabinet, men like Dean Rusk, Bob McNamara, and Douglas Dillon, and all of the other members of the Cabinet and the independent agencies whose service has not been partisan, but has always been in the national interest. It is a tribute to the men and women of all parties in the Congress and the Nation. It reaffirms the achievements and the policies which have emerged over generations from common American principles."

"We are going to take another course. We are going to work to enlarge the freedom of the American people, and we have the capacity to do that on a scale that is greater than ever before in the history of man. Our first task is to complete the work of the last 30 years. So we will work to give every citizen an equal chance to hold a job, to vote, to educate his children, to enjoy all the blessings of liberty, whatever his color, his religion, or his race. Will you stand with me on that? We will work to eliminate the conditions which chain men to hopeless poverty, and in this way to eliminate poverty in America. One hundred years ago Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery. Tonight, the Democratic Party pledges itself to abolish poverty in this land. We will work to protect the old and feed the hungry, and care for the helpless. Will you stand with me on that? But this is just the beginning. We are rich and we are powerful, but that is not enough. We must turn our wealth and our power to a larger purpose. Even the greatest of past civilizations existed on the exploitation of the many. This Nation, this people, this generation, has man's first opportunity to create the Great Society. It can be a society of success without squalor, beauty without barrenness, works of genius without the wretchedness of poverty. We can open the doors of learning, of fruitful labor and rewarding leisure, not just to the privileged few, but we can open them to everyone."

"New York has had many great leaders. One of them has an important meaning for this campaign--that great American Al Smith. When he received the presidential nomination, he said he would follow the principles of Woodrow Wilson: "First, the people as the source, and their interests and desires, as the text, of law and government. Second, individual liberty as the objective of all law." Well, today there are those who call upon us to abandon our historic principles under the pretense of pursuing that individual liberty which Al Smith prized so highly. And yet, time and time again, they themselves have struck at the foundation of our American freedom. They call for freedom and then they attack the courts which protect that freedom. They call for freedom and they would strip away the rights of those accused of crime, rights developed over centuries to protect against arbitrary power. They call for freedom and yet accuse their opponents of being soft on communism or even worse, branding as heretics or traitors all those who ever disagree with them. They call for freedom and they attack our religious leaders for trying to exercise their ancient responsibility--as clergymen and citizens--to guide people in the course of life. But worst of all, they call for freedom and yet they help create the atmosphere of hate and fear and suspicion in which individual liberty faces its maximum danger."

"These goals cannot be measured by the size of our bank balance. They can only be measured in the quality of the lives that our people lead. Millions of Americans have achieved prosperity, and they have found prosperity alone is just not enough. They need a chance to seek knowledge and to touch beauty, to rejoice in achievement and in the closeness of family and community. And this is not an easy goal. It means ensuring the beauty of our fields and our streams and the air that we breathe. It means the education of the highest quality for every child in the land. It means making sure that machines liberate men instead of replacing them. It means reshaping and rebuilding our cities to make them safe and make them a decent place to live. Yes, it means all these things and more, much more. I have already assembled more than a dozen groups, the best minds of America, the greatest talent that I could find, to help get the answers to these problems that I have talked to you about tonight. For the first time in man's weary journey on this planet, an entire people has greatness almost within its grasp. This is the goal within our sight. This is your goal. This is America's goal. This is the goal to which I pledge that I will try to lead all of you."

"It is a mandate for unity, for a government that serves no special interest, no business government, no labor government, no farm government, no one faction, no one group, but a government that is the servant of all the people. It will be a government that provides equal opportunity for all and special privilege for none. It is a command to build on those principles and to move forward toward peace and a better life for all of our people. So from this night forward, this is to be our work, and in these pursuits I promise the best that is in me for as long as I am permitted to serve. I ask all those who supported me and all those that opposed me to forget our differences, because there are many more things in America that unite us than divide us, and these are times when our Nation should forget our petty differences and stand united before all the world."

"Let there be no mistake. The objectives we seek will not be handed to you by a beneficent government. The work of a few men in Washington will not make life easier. No one man can lead this Nation, and you cannot sit idly by, quietly waiting for the day when someone else will make everything better for you. These goals are going to demand your effort and your work and your sacrifice, and the best from every American. It will mean that each of you must participate in the affairs of your community and your State and your Nation. It will require the help of government at every level, of labor and of business, of farmers and consumers. A President can lead and teach, and explore, and set goals. He can have his eyes in the stars, with a vision that will flow therefrom, and he can have his feet on the ground, with a solid foundation that we need. But no leader can make a people more than they are, or make them more than they really want to be. My success and America's success will depend on you."

"This is the last chapter in a great tradition. This is the last presidential campaign to reach its climax in this arena. But it is the continuation of another tradition, for here we end a campaign which will see the American people choose the leadership of the Democratic Party. And won't that be a wonderful day for all the country?"

"I have come to New York in the final hours of this campaign. I come to say to you once again that your President will need your prayers and your President will need your support, and your President will also need Democratic Congressmen in the House and Bob Kennedy in the Senate. I don't have to tell you of Bob Kennedy's talents or his energy or his great patriotism. He has demonstrated this in ways and actions that are far beyond my inadequate description, but it seems to me--it seems to me that this great State, symbolizing America and its ancestors, ought to have, and deserves to have, at least one Democratic Senator. So help your country, help your President, help your State. Work hard, vote early, and send to Washington a full delegation of Democratic Congressmen and send Bob Kennedy to the Senate where he can continue to work with Hubert Humphrey and work with me for the people of New York."

"Four years ago I came here one night with John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and he promised you that we would get America moving again. We have fulfilled that pledge. In fact, this administration has passed more legislation, has made more progress, has fulfilled more promises than any administration since the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I came up here to New York tonight to tell you that we have just begun. We are going to keep moving forward. We are going to keep moving forward with the leadership and the support of the great State of New York. The leaders of New York have always believed in the future. When I first came into the White House, I moved a desk into my office which had been used by one of the towering figures of American history, Franklin D. Roosevelt of the State of New York. I was so happy to greet his great manager, that ever youthful Jim Farley, who came up on the platform a few minutes ago. And now whenever I feel that I have done a good day's work, whenever I feel that I have really accomplished something, I look at that desk and then I go back to work because I know I have only begun."

"World peace depends upon reason, on restraint, on negotiation, and on responsibility. We must move forward on many fronts. We must continue to strengthen the United Nations. We must strengthen and expand the Peace Corps. We must build new bridges, new bridges to the friendly peoples of Eastern Europe. We must, most of all, take this world out from under the shadow of a poisonous toadstool cloud. We want our children to say that this was the generation that split the atom, and this was the generation that united all men in peace. We are a powerful nation, but we are humble before our God. We believe that man has made his own problems, but that man can solve them."

"The one overriding obligation of a leader of this democracy is to find or to forge a united policy for peace. I mean that tonight, and I will mean it tomorrow just as I meant it in 1960. There was a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, then, and I was the Democratic leader in the Senate. On foreign policy matters I voted with that Republican President 96 percent of the time. And in this campaign now, we are against another man who was in that same Senate and who voted on those same issues against that same Republican President 76 percent of the time. So the Democrat voted with the President 96 percent of the time and the present Republican nominee voted against him 76 percent of the time. I am proud to ask my Nation's trust in the continued building of its bipartisan foreign policy. But even here there must be no blank check. So I state my understanding: It is that Americans, almost as one, agree that to keep the peace we must be so strong of arm and arms that none anywhere can doubt that strength."

"So we tonight, assembled here, pledge ourselves to democracy's greatest tradition, the New Freedom of Wilson, the New Deal of Roosevelt, the Fair Deal of Harry S. Truman, the New America and the New Frontier of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and after Tuesday, November 3d, the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey. These are not campaign slogans. These are the beating pulse of the greatest political party in this country. They are the heart-beat of a Nation that is looking up at the stars and eager for tomorrow's dawn."

"Franklin Roosevelt once said, "Too many who prate about saving democracy are really only interested in saving things as they were. Democracy should concern itself also with things as they should be." So in this campaign we face those who are interested in destroying things as they are. These fellows are not conservatives in the American tradition. They are just interested in tearing down institutions, not in preserving them. They are dedicated to extreme ideas, not to old values. They advocate aggressive interference with other nations, not increased reliance on others to order their own affairs. This is not a conservative philosophy. This is not even a Republican philosophy. This is not a philosophy ever embraced by any major American leader. "Conservative" may be written on their banner and in their books, but "radical" is in their hearts."

"Nobody in this world can put on a political parade and a political rally like that great executive Dick Daley of Chicago. He makes it so much fun being a Democrat that you don't see how anybody could be anything else. I think he is one of the greatest political leaders in all the world."

"All of us who live today are also a race to be envied. These next decades can set the course of the world for a thousand years or more. There is much danger. But there is also the joy of great expectations. We are not in the grip of history. We are the makers of history. We have the power and the faith to forge on the anvil of the world an age tempered to the hopes of man. How fortunate we are to live at such a time, with such a belief, in such a young and resistless land. So come with me into that uncertain day already touched with dawn."

"We will win this election. But we will know that the voters of this country have not written a blank check; that there are differences which remain, and those differences must be honored. And they will be honored. But these things have been made clear: We have been settling for too little in this country. We are going to raise our sights. We are going to see that every American child has an equal chance at the fullest education that child can use. We have been educating most of our children. Now we are going to educate those who need it most. We have declared war on poverty, and we mean all-out war. Abraham Lincoln, a product of Illinois, abolished slavery 100 years ago. And now the Democratic Party adopts as its program the abolishment of poverty in this land. Prosperity for four out of five is not enough."

"A third field of opportunity and danger is our relation to the developing world. I do not believe that our island of abundance will be finally secure in a sea of despair and unrest or in a world where even the oppressed may one day have access to the engines of modern destruction. Moreover, there is a great moral principle at stake. It is not right in a world of such infinite possibilities that children should die of hunger, that young people should live in ignorance, that men should be crippled by disease, that families should live in misery, shrouded in despair. I will propose steps to use the food and agricultural skills of the entire West in a joint effort to eliminate hunger and starvation. We will seek ways to stabilize the prices of the tropical commodities which are the life blood of many economies. I will press for prompt execution of the worldwide coffee agreement, and seek action for other products. We will give our support most of all to those governments whose efforts are directed toward the welfare of all their people and not just a privileged few. We will always give first attention to our close friendship with the people of Latin America."

"A second field of danger and opportunity is in our confrontation with Russia and Communist China. Today there is no longer one cold war; there are many. They differ in temperature, intensity, and danger. Our relations with the Soviet Union have come a long way since shoes were banged on desks here in New York and a summit meeting collapsed in Paris. In Asia there is a different prospect. The final outcome will depend on the will of the Asian people. But as long as they turn to us for help, we will be there. We will not and we must not permit the great civilizations of the East--almost half of the people of all the world--to be swallowed up in Communist conquest. In Viet-Nam we believe that, with our help, the people of South Viet-Nam can defeat Communist aggression. We will continue to act on this belief without recklessness and without retreat."

"You and every citizen of this land can be proud of the role that we have played over the past 20 years. None has ever given of itself so freely to the needs and the protection of others as the United States of America. Of course, we acted out of enlightened self-interest. We are a nation responsible to our people. But the pages of history can be searched in vain for another power whose pursuit of that self-interest was so infused with grandeur of spirit and morality of purpose. We have done this because this is the kind of people we are, and this is the kind of a country that we have built. We have done this because we have never believed the complexity of human experience could be bound in an iron cloak of dogma."

"We will mean what we say from here on about full employment. We will have a government that doesn't waste a penny doing what is foolish, but doesn't waste a minute doing what is wise."

"We were promised this time that the American people would be offered a choice and not an echo. This was to be a debate about basic principles. And here, tonight, we are in the closing days of this campaign, and what do we hear? We hear not philosophy, but mudslinging; not ideas, but smears and scandal; not programs, but the old worn-out slogans of an old worn-out effort, written by the same old worn-out man trying to frighten the American people. Well, I don't think you are going to let it work. Are you? I think I can tell you why they are doing it. They found out that the American people would overwhelmingly reject their ideas, would reject their programs. They found out that the great silent vote was a myth. They discovered that the revolution of the extremist was a dying ember. They ran smack into the solid, good sense of the American people. They discovered, as far as the American people are concerned: extremism in the pursuit of the Presidency is an unpardonable vice, and moderation in the affairs of the Nation is the highest virtue. They are going to learn their final lesson on next Tuesday night."

"It was a hundred years ago, in 1864, that Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in this country. A hundred years later, here in the hills of home, we are inaugurating a movement to abolish poverty in this country. I rode on the train to Washington from where I opened my campaign here in San Marcos in 1937. A great President, a fearless leader, a man who preserved our Republic in its most challenging period, talked to me about the third of our land that were ill fed, ill clad, and ill housed, and he sought to do something about it. I had seen him stand in front of that Capitol only a few years before, when the banks were popping like firecrackers, when the farmers were burning their produce because they had no market to sell it in, and when soup lines were stretched around the corners of city blocks. But I saw him bring hope to a great Nation. He said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." During his leadership and the leadership that followed under President Truman, President Eisenhower, and President Kennedy, we have reduced that one-third that were ill fed, ill clad, and ill housed, to one-fifth today. So we put on our robes and march forth to abolish that one-fifth who live on incomes of less than $3,000 a year. I know that those of you who have enjoyed the fruits of your own labors, and have been the beneficiaries of the leadership and the planning of others, like Dr. Evans and Dr. Flowers, are willing to reciprocate by helping those less fortunate. So I call upon every student of this institution and every graduate of this college, every faculty member, to pledge himself not to the Emancipation Proclamation that Lincoln signed a hundred years ago, or not to freeing the slaves, but, instead, to declaring a war and abolishing poverty in this land."

"It is a source of great pride to be invited by His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman to participate in this dinner in honor of one of America's greatest men--Alfred E. Smith. I am particularly proud to say that in 1928, although I was not old enough to vote, I campaigned for his election to the Presidency of the United States. And it is with the deepest pride that I participated in helping our late beloved President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, prove to the world that there are no religious bars to the highest office in our land. And what I say to you tonight represents what I believe Al Smith would have endorsed had he been here tonight, because he was a man of true compassion."

"You must follow a course of compassion and courage. You must love thy neighbor as thyself, and you must try to point the way, and to lift up the weak so that he, too, may be strong. Yes, you must point a course of courage in these trying times when smear and fear and intolerance are abroad in the land, the same courage that brought this Nation into existence, the same courage that held this Union together. The same courage that crossed the oceans on two occasions in our lifetime to preserve freedom in the world was never needed more than it is needed today. Unless I miss my guess, it has never been possessed to a greater degree than it is possessed today in the souls of each of you who sit in this room. Yes, we know not what the future may bring. We know not how we may be led. We know not what may be God's will. But His course is to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly. I would like to feel, as I leave this room and return to the lonely acres that are surrounded by a big, black, iron fence, that whatever I do, wherever I go, wherever my decisions may lead us, I will have your prayers and your support."

"I was delighted to be welcomed back to the great State of New York by my old friend, the affable Governor of this State. I gather that he does not share some of his colleagues' views on immigration, or perhaps we are still free at least to emigrate between the States! In any event, I always find it a source of strength to come to this, the leading city in America, this, the melting pot of our country. Here I get inspiration and stimulation."

"America must keep her trust with her senior citizens. We must let them provide for their hospital care and nursing home care through social security. We must concern ourselves with the level of their income. We must attack the problem of their housing, which is too often inadequate and too often takes more than half of their income. But America must keep her trust with her children, because in 6 more years there will be 10 million more young Americans--10 million more between the ages of 5 and 17, 5 million more between 18 and 21, and here again we must be concerned with the level of income on which many are supported. We must make sure that they can meet their health needs. We must act in every way to strengthen the life of their families. We must make sure that every boy and girl in America has all the education that they can use. We must be concerned with the nearly 2 million juveniles who get into trouble each year with the law. We must focus our concern on the causes of their troubles, not only on the youths themselves."

"This generation of Americans rejects the answer of a welfare state for our free society. We reject the regimentation and the stifling of incentive and the limiting of reward. We reject the idea of government decreeing who shall work and where they shall work, or where they and their families shall live. Here in America we know there is for us a better way. We have fashioned in our years a good society. We shall, in the years to come, dedicate ourselves to making it great. The object of all we do is to give our people a fair start or a new start in the race of life, whatever lot they are born to, whatever fate may befall them."

"Yes, to you good members of this honorable and responsible union there is work for you to do, for us to do--work to build this good society better, work to make this strong country the foundation of a great and a compassionate civilization. This is the American way of life, and this is the way that is under attack today from the fringe and from the extremes. I call upon you, here and now, to begin this hour to start fighting in order to save it. Our directions and our destiny must not be placed in the hands of those who would steer a reckless and a callous course. We must be guided not by those whose compass points backward, but by those whose eye and hearts are fixed on the stars that lead us forward. We have no time for arrogance or belligerence. We have no time for callousness on contempt, either in the policies of our Nation or in the hearts of our leaders. Our duty, our opportunity, is to fulfill the rights of all men all over our land, not only because we shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad, but because it is right."

"America's policies toward the world have been carefully built through the years by the leaders of both parties. We will continue to follow this course because it has brought us a hopeful world. We are, and we will remain, the strongest nation on earth. We are, and we will always be, ready to defend freedom anywhere. Strength and courage are essential, but they are like the fuel in an airplane. You can't go without it. But neither will it take you where you want to go. For that you need a sense of direction, caution in the cockpit, and an experienced pilot. But strength is not enough. Other nations feared the might of Hitler, but they would not follow him. They will not associate themselves with us just because of our bombs or our missiles or our factories. We have learned that to deal with the world it must be seen in all of its fantastic complexities."

"A nation so strong and free as ours can tolerate the widest diversity of opinion and belief, and it actually can be made stronger by full and responsible discussion. But there come times when men must turn and stand against those factions and factions who would lead the people to believe that the road to individual freedom is, in reality, a road to collective serfdom. This generation of Americans must not be deceived. The success of our system must not be mocked. The factions which bid for power over your lives and the lives of your children, and over the control of your government, bear many names, they wear many masks, they espouse many causes. But they are united today--as they have been united for 30 years--by the determination that your country shall not provide for the general welfare of its citizens. They may talk of changing the world, but what they mean to change is America first."