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 cours… - 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.

We have carried our quest for peace to many nations and peoples because we share this planet with others whose future, in large measure, is tied to our own action, and whose counsel is necessary to our own hopes. We have found understanding and support. And we know they wait with us tonight for some response that could lead to peace. I wish tonight that I could give you a blueprint for the course of this conflict over the coming months, but we just cannot know what the future may require. We may have to face long, hard combat or a long, hard conference, or even both at once. Until peace comes, or if it does not come, our course is clear. We will act as we must to help protect the independence of the valiant people of South Vietnam. We will strive to limit the conflict, for we wish neither increased destruction nor do we want to invite increased danger. But we will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, and every dollar, and every decision—whatever the cost or whatever the challenge. And we will continue to help the people of South Vietnam care for those that are ravaged by battle, create progress in the villages, and carry forward the healing hopes of peace as best they can amidst the uncertain terrors of war. And let me be absolutely clear: The days may become months, and the months may become years, but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle. There may be some who do not want peace, whose ambitions stretch so far that war in Vietnam is but a welcome and convenient episode in an immense design to subdue history to their will. But for others it must now be clear—the choice is not between peace and victory, it lies between peace and the ravages of a conflict from which they can only lose.

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.