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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… - Lyndon B. Johnson
" "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.
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About Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (27 August 1908 – 22 January 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician. After a long career in U.S. legislatures, Johnson became the vice president of the United States of America under John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963. A Democrat, Johnson became the 36th U.S. president in 1963, after Kennedy's assassination. He served in the role until 1969.
Also Known As
Native Name:
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Also Known As:
LBJ
Alternative Names:
Lyndon Johnson
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President Johnson
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L. B. Johnson
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Additional quotes by Lyndon B. Johnson
A third area of increasing strength is the struggle against subversion. Our adversaries, convinced that direct attack would be aimless, today resort to terror, subversion, and guerrilla warfare. To meet this threat we began a large effort to train special forces to fight internal subversion. Since January 1961 we have increased these specialized forces eight times. We have trained more than 100,000 officers in these techniques. We have given special emphasis to this form of warfare in the training of all military units. Our army now has six special action forces on call around the world to assist our friendly nations. They are skilled in the languages and problems of the area in which they are stationed. The Navy and the Air Force have several thousand men whose abilities, training, equipment, and mission are designed to combat clandestine attack. And behind these groups are five brigade-size backup forces ready to move into instant action. But just as subversion has many faces, our responses must take many forms. We have worked to increase and integrate all the resources, political and social as well as military and economic, needed to meet a threat which tears at the entire fabric of a society. But success in fighting subversion ultimately rests on the skill of the soldiers of the threatened country. We now have 344 teams at work in 49 countries to train the local military in the most advanced techniques of internal defense. Subversive warfare is often difficult, dirty, and deadly. Victory comes only to those with the desire to protect their own freedom. But such conflict requires weapons as well as will, ability as well as aspiration. And we will continue to increase this strength until our adversaries are convinced that this course too will not lead to conquest.
Now, this one final word: We ask every Senator, every Congressman, every farmer, and every businessman to join with us in our program of trying to unite this Nation, and trying to support our commitments and our own security. We thought in the early years of World War I, before the Lusitania was sunk, that we had no concern with what happened across the waters. But we soon found out that we couldn't stand on that position. We thought in World War II that we had no concern with what Hitler was doing in other parts of the world, and he wasn't very dangerous anyway, and we could sit this one out. But we soon found that we lived in a very small world. Even though we hadn't gone beyond our shores, they sank our fleet at Pearl Harbor. We soon learned that we must never permit an aggressor's appetite to go uncontrolled because the person he eats up today may make him more hungry for you tomorrow. We want peace and we are ready to meet now, this minute. But you may want peace with your neighbor, too, and you may be willing to go across the road and into his yard to try to talk him into it. But if he keeps his door barred and every time you call him the call goes unanswered, and he refuses to meet you halfway, your wanting peace with him won't get it for you. So as long as he feels that he can win something by propaganda in the country--that he can undermine the leadership-that he can bring down the government--that he can get something in the capital that he can't get from our men out there--he is going to keep on trying.
Our history has proved that each time we broaden the base of abundance, giving more people the chance to produce and consume, we create new industry, higher production, increased earnings and better income for all. Giving new opportunity to those who have little will enrich the lives of all the rest. Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to couquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of the Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The Act does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty. It can be a milestone in our one-hundred eighty year search for a better life for our people. This Act provides five basic opportunities. It will give almost half a million underprivileged young Americans the opportunity to develop skills, continue education, and find useful work. It will give every American community the opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan to fight its own poverty--and help them to carry out their plans. It will give dedicated Americans the opportunity to enlist as volunteers in the war against poverty. It will give many workers and farmers the opportunity to break through particular barriers which bar their escape from poverty. It will give the entire nation the opportunity for a concerted attack on poverty through the establishment, under my direction, of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a national headquarters for the war against poverty.
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