Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes

This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham; an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress. It is the province of the state to run its own elections. I am opposed to the anti-lynching bill because the federal government has no business enacting a law against one kind of murder than another ... If a man can tell you who you must hire, he can tell you who not to employ. I have met this head on.

To these trusted public servants and to my family and those close friends of mine who have followed me down a long, winding road, and to all the people of this Union and the world, I will repeat today what I said on that sorrowful day in November 1963: "I will lead and I will do the best I can." But you must look within your own hearts to the old promises and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all.

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.

Our war on poverty, an unconditional declaration of war against one of the last bitter enemies of a great society, can be traced, I think, in large part to the courage and the compassion and the commitment of the Peace Corps volunteers. Because, by fighting hunger, illiteracy, and poverty abroad, you have shown us that we can and we should and we must fight them at home. So I expect returning Peace Corps volunteers to play a major role in this war on poverty. We need your experience. We need your sense of duty. We need your imagination if we are to win this war. And win it we must.

Tonight, for myself, I want to turn back to the ancient Scriptures for the answer: "He that observeth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." If we were to try, this restless and stirring: and striving nation would never live as the captive of a comfortable consensus. So we must know that the times ahead for us--and for the world, for that matter--are not to be bland and placid. We shall know tests. We shall know trials--and we shall be ready. For I believe more will be demanded of our stewardship than of any generations which have ever held the trust of America's legacy before us. So let me be specific. We are at the threshold of a new America-new in numbers, new in dimensions, new in its concepts, new in its challenges. If the society that we have brought already to greatness is to be called great in the times to come, we must respond to that tomorrow tonight. The unity of our people--the consensus of their will--must be the instrument that we put to use to strengthen our society, undergird its values, elevate its standards,. assure its order, advance the quality of its justice, nourish its tolerance and reason, and enlarge the meaning of man's rights for every citizen. For I believe with the Justice Brandeis that: "If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold." And this is what we are striving to do here in your Capital City--and in your National Government.

Twenty thousand women will be needed, this summer, to help prepare deprived young children for success in school. All of you are needed to organize community action programs--to map the strategy and to carry out the plans for wiping out poverty in each community. The effort to restore and to protect beauty in America demands the volunteer efforts of private citizens, alert to danger, demanding always that nature be respected. In every area of national need the story is almost the same. The Great Society cannot be built--either at home or abroad-by government alone. It needs your sacrifice and it needs your effort. I intend to continue to search for new ways to give all of you a chance to serve your country and your civilization. And I hope to move toward the day when every young American will have the opportunity-and feel the obligation--to give at least a few years of his or her life to the service of others in this Nation and in the world.

We think that we are making progress on getting them to decide. They think they are making progress on getting us to decide to give up and pull out. But I think they will find out in the days ahead that we are reasonable people, that we are fair people, that we are not folks who want to conquer the world. We don't seek one acre of anybody else's soil. We love nothing more than peace, but we hate nothing more than surrender and cowardice. We don't ask anybody else to surrender. We just ask them to sit down and talk, meet at a family table and try to work out our differences. But we don't plan to surrender, either; we don't plan to pull out, either; we don't plan to let people influence us, pressure us, and force us to divide our Nation in a time of national peril. The hour is here. This Government has the best diplomats. This Government has the best generals. This Government has the best admirals. This Government has the best resources in every corner of the globe. Although I have had more Secretaries of State than any President in modern times, or more would-be Secretaries of State, I still think this Government has one of the most able and patriotic men I have ever known sitting in that chair, and I think his policy is sound. So as we go back to our homes, let's go back dedicated to achieving peace in the world, trying to get a fair balance here at home, trying to make things easier and better for our children than we had them, but, above all, trying to preserve this American system, which is first in the world today. I want it to stay first, but it cannot be first if we pull out and tuck our tail and violate our commitments.

I ask immediate action on all these programs. What you are being asked to consider is not a simple or an easy program. But poverty is not a simple or an easy enemy. It cannot be driven from the land by a single attack on a single front. Were this so we would have conquered poverty long ago. Nor can it be conquered by government alone. For decades American labor and American business, private institutions and private individuals have been engaged in strengthening our economy and offering new opportunity to those in need. We need their help, their support, and their full participation. Through this program we offer new incentives and new opportunities for cooperation, so that all the energy of our nation, not merely the efforts of government, can be brought to bear on our common enemy. Today, for the first time in our history, we have the power to strike away the barriers to full participation in our society. Having the power, we have the duty. The Congress is charged by the Constitution to "provide . . . for the general welfare of the United States." Our present abundance is a measure of its success in fulfilling that duty. Now Congress is being asked to extend that welfare to all our people. The President of the United States is President of all the people in every section of the country. But this office also holds a special responsibility to the distressed and disinherited, the hungry and the hopeless of this abundant nation. It is in pursuit of that special responsibility that I submit this Message to you today.

We meet in grief, but let us also meet in renewed dedication and renewed vigor. Let us meet in action, in tolerance, and in mutual understanding. John Kennedy's death commands what his life conveyed-that America must move forward. The time has come for Americans of all races and creeds and political beliefs to understand and to respect one another. So let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law, and those who pour venom into our Nation's bloodstream.

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.

Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must rebuild the entire urban United States. Aristotle said: "Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life." It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated. Worst of all expansion is eroding the precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.

I accept your nomination. I accept the duty of leading this party to victory this year. And I thank you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for placing at my side the man that last night you so wisely selected to be the next Vice President of the United States. I know I speak for each of you and all of you when I say he proved himself tonight in that great acceptance speech. And I speak for both of us when I tell you that from Monday on he is going to be available for such speeches in all 50 States! We will try to lead you as we were led by that great champion of freedom, the man from Independence, Harry S. Truman. But the gladness of this high occasion cannot mask the sorrow which shares our hearts. So let us here tonight, each of us, all of us, rededicate ourselves to keeping burning the golden torch of promise which John Fitzgerald Kennedy set aflame. And let none of us stop to rest until we have written into the law of the land all the suggestions that made up the John Fitzgerald Kennedy program. And then let us continue to supplement that program with the kind of laws that he would have us write.

The role of Government must be a small one. No act of Congress or Executive order can call a great musician or poet into existence. But we can stand on the sidelines and cheer. We can maintain and strengthen an atmosphere to permit the arts to flourish, and those who have talent to use it. And we can seek to enlarge the access of all of our people to artistic creation. As a veteran of 24 years in the Congress, I am not a prophet but I do want to suggest to my friend, the new Senator from New York, he is in for listening to more poetry than he would surmise in some of the morning sessions of the Senate.

There are some people in this country who have forgotten that without farms there would be no factories. There are some people who must know that without our people, there would be no cities. There are those who no longer believe, it seems, in the partnership between the farmer and the Government--who tell us, on the airwaves from time to time, that we should "Get the Government out of agriculture." There are those who fail to realize that many of the problems of urban America are a reflection of the failures in rural America. And when you get the Government out of agriculture, you sometimes get the farmer off the farm. You know--as I know--that the farmer's problems are the problems of all America, and not any one group. And you know that the solutions to those problems are going to require the sympathy, the understanding, and the help of each good American in this country. So I did my spring planting a little early this year. Three weeks ago, the President sent to the Congress a message on the farmer and rural America. Just as I asked the mayors and the businessmen and other good Americans to read the report made by the national disorder commission on the problems in the cities, I ask each of you and all of you to get a copy of that message, and read the farm program outlined in that message. Try to help us preserve this freedom for the farmer and a reasonable amount of prosperity for his family. Now, when you read that message, or when you see that message, much of it is going to sound familiar to the Farmers Union, because you and your leaders designed much of it, recommended much of it, and supported all of it.

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans — not as Democrats or Republicans-we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.