Remarks at the 1964 Democratic Congressional Dinner

Mr. Chairman, my old friends Maggie Magnuson and Mike Kirwan, that fighting Democratic warrior Jim Farley, Mr. Speaker and Mrs. McCormack, Ambassador Stevenson, the outstanding chairmen of the committees of the House and Senate, my former colleagues in the Congress, my fellow Democrats:

The valiant man who should have been here tonight would be the first to enjoy this occasion. An act of senseless terror took John Kennedy from us, but the system of government that he believed in and that he fought for and that he died for prevailed. That the country goes on, that the system is unshaken, only proves the rightness of the cause that he led and the cause that you supported.

What we have to do is to remember our duty and try to do it by always putting our country first and our party second.

I suppose I feel tonight like Abraham Lincoln felt when he said, "I shall do nothing through malice. What I deal with is too vast for malice." Not just because I am a Democrat, because I am an American, I am most proud to stand here tonight in the presence of the men and women of the 88th Congress.

Tonight we honor the chairmen of the standing committees of the Senate and the House, and those who were first elected in 1936. In so doing we make no narrow and petty discriminations as to party. It is just a most remarkable coincidence that those first elected in 1936 and still serving tonight happen to be--just happen to be--all Democrats !

The thing to be noted is not that they are all here this year, but the thing that we want to note and to remember is that they are all going to be back here next year. These men and the others of the 88th Congress have great reason to be proud. This Congress has done much for the prosperity of our Nation. Congress passed a tax bill. That bill puts an additional $25 million a day in the hands of the American taxpayers. It will create new jobs and new incomes and new payrolls, and I tell you tonight that the American economy is stronger than it has been at any time in your lifetime.

Thanks to the men at the head table, and in this room, this Congress is the greatest education Congress in the history of the Republic. It has done more than any other for the education of our youth and for the training of our unskilled. It has made provision for more vocational training, better higher education, more libraries for our people.

This Congress has done more for the common defense of freedom. Some of the largest authorization bills ever for defense have been passed and one will be signed tomorrow morning. Our military power was never more powerful. We are strong enough to win any war, and I hope that we are wise enough to prevent one.

This historic Congress is well on its way to doing more than any other for the rights of all of our citizens. The equal rights bill has been passed by the House and we hope soon that the majority of the Senate will work its will so that every American citizen will have equality. This Government and this administration is determined and dedicated to protect the constitutional rights of every American citizen.

This Congress has the opportunity to fight and to win the war on poverty. We have the opportunity for the first time in our history not only to fight poverty but to help eliminate it. It will not be done in a year or a day, or perhaps in this generation, but we have declared war on poverty and we will accept nothing less than total victory.

This Congress has the opportunity to do what needs to be done for medical care. Medical assistance through social security is the sensible, is the prudent, is the enduring way to give older people a chance to take care of medical expenses with dignity and hope.

This Congress has the opportunity to reverse the upward trend of Government spending. Our 1965 budget cuts the deficit from last year by 50 percent. It reduces spending by almost $1 billion. We are attacking waste and we are attacking inefficiency to give the American taxpayer a dollar's value for every dollar spent.

This Congress has done more than any other Congress to protect the life of our Nation, to preserve the liberty of our people so that we may all pursue happiness with our family. Here and around the world we will pursue the cause of social justice. But let no one in the world be deceived. We will be more than fair to all, but if others choose to tread on us, they will always find US firm.

With great pride I have come here tonight to salute the Democratic majority. With equal sincerity I salute those members of the Republican minority who are courageously supporting those programs for a better America. I say this because I have always believed that Democrats could be partisan without being blind.

Tonight in honoring the great Democrats first elected to Congress in '36, we commemorate the year of our party's greatest victory. At the first Democratic Party dinner that year, the issue was put squarely with the President of the United States, that great leader Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He said that night, and I repeat tonight, "The real issue before the United States is the right of the average man and woman to lead a finer, a better and a happier life." For our people and for our party tonight, that is the issue: To do what we can to make sure that the average man and woman can lead a finer and a happier life and together with their children they can all look forward to a better deal.

This has always been the basic purpose of the Democratic Party. But in these somber and confusing times, with their complexities, their challenges, and their change, it is all too easy for the individual to be forgotten, for the plight of the average man to be overlooked. But he must never be forgotten and his condition must never be ignored.

We of the Democratic Party care what happens to the average family and we care what happens to all America. So let the people of this land understand tonight that the leadership of the Democratic Party knows what a long and lonely and sometimes uncertain journey it is for them from each payday to each payday, from each crop to the next crop.

Let the people know that the Democrats understand that every need of the people is not economic, that every hope of the people is not material, that the average American aspires to lead a finer life, a happier life, a life richer in quality as well as quantity. Let the people know that the Democrats care not only about the tensions that exist around the world, but also about the anxieties that are alive here at home.

In Panama or Guantanamo, in Cyprus or Viet-Nam or in Zanzibar, our traditional love of freedom will always be reflected, and our interests will also always be protected.

We are not a foreign policy or a domestic policy party. America has no need for either alone. There are always priorities but they are never compartments. As the party of all the people, Democrats are dedicated to doing all the work that the well-being of our people may require whether it is at home or whether it is abroad.

So I speak as I do tonight from a strong and a growing conviction that in this year of 1964 there may well be a turning point in the conduct of our political affairs.

I believe that the American people have had their fill of partisanship just for the sake of partisanship; that they have had enough of opposing just for opposition's sake. I believe that the people are weary and no longer enchanted by the frivolity and the transparent theatrics and the silly showmanship which has been grafted on to the election process.

In that moment of cruel tragedy last November, we all saw that the American Presidency and all of the offices of American leadership are not prizes for partisans, but represent the greatness and the glory of the people themselves.

So I believe that in that moment of nightmare, there was ignited a new flame of unity and seriousness and soberness of purpose as is reflected at this head table tonight, the like of which I have not seen in more than 30 years in Washington. I thank those men for coming here.

I want our party to fan that flame, to lead and light the way for American democracy this year.

With the record that you write in this Congress, with the platform that we are going to write at that convention, with the purpose we as a nation write in history, let us go to the people this year with a decent campaign, with a unifying campaign, with an inspiring campaign.

Let us go and knock on every door. Let us go to those hard-working members of our own party. Let us go to those who have never been members of any party and to those who have grown weary of the divisions and the diversions of the other party.

Let us invite all the people to unite with us, to work with us in this truly national party which is a stranger to no region, an open party closed to none, welcoming all; a unifying party which knows no color, knows no creed, knows no North, no South, no East, no West.

I want to call on you tonight, not just one segment of our society but everyone in our society. Let our unmet needs be filled and our unfinished business be done, not just by the Federal Government but by all the State and local governments as well.

Let labor and business and housewife and farmhand, and corporation and community, the farmer and the rancher on the land, and the worker in the suburb--let them all join with us in doing what needs to be done for this glorious land in which we live.

Let free government, and free labor and free enterprise be partners in the creation of free and new opportunity, in the march of progress that is prudent, in the building of a prosperity that can be permanent, and in the search for peace that can be universal and secure.

This is what I see for the Democratic Party in this year of turning-point decision. It is our duty, it is our obligation for our party to guide this Nation, to lead this Nation and through this Nation lead the rest of humanity in the world toward a finer life, as Mr. Roosevelt put it, toward a happier life, as the President put it, and toward a better deal for all of us.