Remarks to the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters.

President Fellows, ladies and gentlemen:

It is a great honor to appear before this distinguished body. In my mind there is some doubt as to the exact capacity in which I do appear. I see some of my friends of the press here. They know that I have been on Presidential press conferences where there has been television present. So it raises a question--Do I come as a co-worker or as a sponsor?

I understand that this is the first time in the history of your organization that a President has appeared before you. Governments notoriously move slowly, and sometimes this is a virtue. But I think that after this length of time, it is safe to make a tentative conclusion that radio and television are here to stay, and a President, therefore, can afford to take them quite seriously. Actually, not only here to stay but a mighty force in our civilization, one that is certain to grow. And because it will grow and be more powerful in its influence upon all of us, conventions such as this have very deep social and professional problems to consider, on which they must reach proper conclusions.

Nothing has been so important to us as an informed public. As long ago as Jefferson's time he said were he forced to choose between a government without schools or schools without government, he would unhesitatingly take a civilization in which he had schools without government, well knowing that an informed public would soon discover the need for government and establish a proper one among themselves. And in the reverse case, he apparently did not know what might happen, because government with an uninformed public can be, as we know, very vicious.

One of the things that has made us an informed public is the fact that we have had a free press, and now these great institutions, the radio and the television, have moved in to take their place alongside the older media of mass communications. And this means, if we are to draw any lessons from the past, that they in turn must be free.

It behooves you, then, I think, to discover the formulae and to evolve them among yourselves and to announce them and to follow them so that they will keep these great media free in the truest sense of the word.

We must not wait for governmental regulation, or compulsory governmental intervention in the form of suits and anti-trust actions and all the rest. We must grow up with this great force, assuring the freedom of people to express their proper opinions, with the whole industry governed by the same rules that govern newspapers, the normal rules of decency and good taste. As long as those are observed, any proper opinion--any opinion--can be expressed before the public.

There is a tremendous responsibility here--in some ways, I think, transcending that that is placed before the publisher. The publisher puts in your home a piece of print. It is essentially cold--although, of course, we admit that some writers have an ability to dress it up and make even disagreeable facts at times look fairly pleasant. But with the television or with the radio, you put an appealing voice or an engaging personality in the living room of the home, where there are impressionable people from the ages of understanding on up.

In many ways therefore the effect of your industry in swaying public opinion, and I think, particularly about burning questions of the moment, may be even greater than the press, although I am sure that my friends here of the press will have plenty to criticize in that statement. Nevertheless, it is something different, and you do introduce personality as well as cold fact. I think, again, that places added responsibility to see that the news, in those areas of the radio and television field that have to do with the dissemination of facts, is truthfully told, with the integrity of the entire industry behind it.

I once heard an expression with respect to newspaper standards: the newspaper columns belong to the public and the editorial page belongs to the paper. And, for myself, I find that an easy standard to follow and to apply as I examine a newspaper. I should think that some such standard could be developed among you. Of course you want to entertain. Of course you want people to look at it, and I am all for it. And I think everybody else is. But when we come to something that we call news--and I am certain that I am not speaking of anything you haven't discussed earnestly among yourselves--let us simply be sure it is news. Let all of the rest of the time be given to entertainment or the telling of stories or the fanciful fairy tales that we sometimes find in other portions of publications.

Now, to remain free, the government does have to interfere or to intervene, possibly, in your industry more than it does in those that deal with the printed word. After all, there seems to be only one canopy of air over the United States and in the rest of the world, and so there must be some means of deciding who is to use the various channels available. We shall always hope, of course, that that is done fairly and without any relationship of partisan politics or any other inconsequential factor so far as this great medium and problem is concerned. But beyond that one necessary intervention and the enforcement, as I said, of the rules of decency, my only plea is this: that you people take thought and counsel among yourselves to insure that this medium--these two great media--remain free--completely free of domination of any unfair kind and they belong to the people. Thus, as I see it, you will do a great and growing part in informing the public.

Now, just a moment on my favorite subject. I quoted Jefferson to you but I think if Jefferson were alive today he would state the proposition in language so much more emphatic than he then used that you would scarcely recognize the similarity. Never was it so important as it is today that the American public is informed. We have burning questions abroad that stretch from a four-power conference around the world to the Indonesian crisis--the Indo China crisis. It is absolutely essential that the Americans know the actual facts of these problems. Moreover, that they be helped to gain an understanding of the relationship between these facts, because knowledge alone, necessarily--always remember--is not sufficient. We must understand.

We must understand the relationship between the farmer working in Kansas in a wheat field, and the need for wheat in far off Pakistan or some other country. We must understand these things if we are to know why we have to promote trade, why we have to promote truth about our country abroad, why we are so anxious to take America in picture and in word and in printed form, and indeed in our arts, in our entertainment of troops, to other countries, to let them see, insofar as we may: What is America? Why are we so proud of it? Why has it brought the greatest standard of living and given the greatest opportunity for intellectual and spiritual development? This is the way that we must win the so called cold war. This is the way that we must win our way to peace.

I think everybody in the television and radio professions has a right to think of himself as a man bearing a great responsibility as a crusader and help to do this job of education, of ourselves and of others about us, and to bring home here an understanding of what goes on in the rest of the world.

I think today Jefferson's statement might be paraphrased to say: If I had to have international free communications or some kind of world government that could enforce the peace, I would unhesitatingly choose complete, free, international communications. And then we would be sure that we would find ways for sovereign nations to achieve man's age-old aspiration: peace among men with prosperity fairly shared by all.

I repeat, my friends, it has been a great honor to appear before you. If I have started a precedent, I am very proud of it, and I do trust that future Presidents will find it not only convenient but practically necessary to appear before you and tell you, in their turn, what is on their hearts at the moment.

Thank you, and good morning.