When I came to Washington in 1932, corporation profits were nonexistent. They had a loss that year of $3,400 million. In 1942, 10 years later, we got… - Lyndon B. Johnson

The average farm family doesn't ask for much: the right to earn enough to clothe the bodies of their children, and to fill the stomachs of their hungry; to provide a roof over their house where they live; to have a school that their children can attend and a church where they can worship according to the dictates of their own conscience; and occasional recreation--to ride a boat, to see a movie, or some little something once in a while. That is not asking much. It is not too much. But until we get it, we are not going to be satisfied--and we are going to fight together--until we reach those goals, until we reach those objectives. During the months to come, you are going to hear these programs cussed--you may hear something cussed besides programs, too--and you are going to hear them discussed. I tell you now, it is not going to be easy to pass them. It is going to be harder this session than it would be in a normal session, because some of you may remember that there is something coming up down the road in November. Some voices today express doubt that the American farm and the American farmer can survive. They say that we must sacrifice that priceless heritage--that American dream--on the altar of progress. I say that they are just as wrong as they can possibly be. If the farmers of America will only wake up and speak up courageously and forcefully in their own behalf--if we and you together have the patience and the determination, and the good, common horse sense to preserve, improve, and build upon the progress we have made in our agricultural programs-if we trust our hopes instead of relying on our fears and the demagogues who would mislead us, American agriculture can grow and prosper as it has never grown before. I believe--and I have been in most of the 50 States of this Union, and I am just a few hours away from rural America at this moment--that rural America stands for the very best in all America.

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.

In the two hundred years since St. Louis was born we have done many things in this land men have not done before. But the greatest of these has been the accomplishment of learning to live together, learning to live together in freedom and fulfillment, all religions, all races, all heritages, German and Irish, Italian and English, french-yes, even Texans. We have done much, but our work on this earth is not yet done; we walk a long road and we carry a precious trust. We are not looking for, we shall never look for, the short cuts. We shall never resort to battleship diplomacy or rely upon the umbrella of appeasement. We will be resolute but we will never be reckless. We will be restrained in the face of provocation because we know America's strength. We will never be reluctant in the face of peril because we trust that strength of America.