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 … - Lyndon B. Johnson
" "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.
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.
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Additional quotes by Lyndon B. Johnson
From the establishment of public education and land grant colleges through agricultural extension and encouragement to industry, we have pursued the goal of a nation with full and increasing opportunities for all its citizens. The war on poverty is a further step in that pursuit. We do it also because helping some will increase the prosperity of all. Our fight against poverty will be an investment in the most valuable of our resources--the skills and strength of our people. And in the future, as in the past, this investment will return its cost many fold to our entire economy. If we can raise the annual earnings of 10 million among the poor by only $1,000 we will have added 14 billion dollars a year to our national output. In addition we can make important reductions in public assistance payments which now cost us 4 billion dollars a year, and in the large costs of fighting crime and delinquency, disease and hunger. This is only part of the story.
This is our challenge--not to hesitate, not to pause, not to turn about and linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course so that we may fulfill the destiny that history has set for us. Our most immediate tasks are here on this Hill. First, no memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law. I urge you again, as I did in 1957 and again in 1960, to enact a civil rights law so that we can move forward to eliminate from this Nation every trace of discrimination and oppression that is based upon race or color. There could be no greater source of strength to this Nation both at home and abroad.