Today we can walk the road of peace because we have the strength we need. We have built that strength with courage. We have employed it with care. We… - Lyndon B. Johnson

You have helped to fight many battles on many fronts. I remember one that you fought and just to show you how much progress has been made, when I came here I was one of the few Congressmen the first year I was in Washington from my section of the country--only three of us from the South signed a petition to call a caucus to discharge a committee on the wage and hour bill. The other two, Maury Maverick and W. D. MacFarlane, both got defeated at the next election on account of their signing that petition. They were revolutionists and they were rebels and they kicked over the dinner pail and they caused a lot of trouble. And we actually, though finally with President Franklin Roosevelt's great support and by a fireside chat, we passed that bill that gave working people a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour. That was in 1938.

So long as I am President, I intend to honor the mandate of the Constitution that I am sworn to uphold. I intend to see that this Government, as the servant of this great people, "provides for the general welfare." Welfare is an old and honored work of our system. One of the first acts of the first Congress, under President Washington, was to provide pensions for invalid soldiers. Under John Adams what was to become the Public Health Service was established. President Abraham Lincoln proposed the first assistance for widows and children. President Theodore Roosevelt called the first White House Conference on Care of Dependent Children. It was President William Howard Taft who first established the Children's Bureau. These were works of compassion, triumphs of justice. But there are factions today which condemn social justice as the work of those that were bent on centralizing power in Washington. They forget their history, and they betray their ignorance of the American people.

I think, I hope, I believe I know what the farmer wants--and I want the farmer to have it. I think that all of you want a fair price for your products--and if I have the power, you will have it. I think that all of you want assurance that rising costs will not wipe out a lifetime investment--and I pledge you that if I can help you, every resource of mine you will have, including assurances that we will do everything that we can to control rising costs. You want parity--you want a fair deal-you want an even chance to share in the rich and good life of this Nation--and I want you to have it. You want the justice, the decency, and the opportunity that every American has the right to claim as his native right--and you will have them. And so long as I am your President, you will always have my understanding, my admiration, and my wholehearted support in fighting with you to try to reach these goals. And we know that it will be a fight.