Well, I want you to know more about your Government. And I want your Government to know more about you. These men on this row are part of this countr… - Lyndon B. Johnson

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.

I have come here to thank personally each Member of the Congress who labored so long and so valiantly to make this occasion come true today, and to make this bill a reality. I cannot mention all their names, for it would take much too long, but my gratitude; and that of this Nation; belongs to the 89th Congress. We are indebted, too, to the vision of the late beloved President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and to the support given to this measure by the then Attorney General and now Senator, Robert F. Kennedy. In the final days of consideration, this bill had no more able champion than the present Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, who, with New York's own "Manny" Celler, and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Congressman Feighan of Ohio, and Senator Mansfield and Senator Dirksen constituting the leadership of the Senate, and Senator Javits, helped to guide this bill to passage, along with the help of the Members sitting in front of me today.

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.