Remarks to Members of the Association of Student Governments.

IN WELCOMING YOU to the White House this morning, or I should say this afternoon, I should point out that in this historic room over the past 8 months I have had the opportunity of welcoming many distinguished groups.

This is the room in which we receive heads of state, ambassadors, and all of the great of the world and of the United States.

And I have always tried to find the appropriate words with which to address each group. But I think the way that I can bring home to all of you here--and to those who may be witnessing this ceremony on television or hearing it on radio-the significance of this occasion is that for the first time in 8 months I can say "fellow presidents."

Now, this should call forth from me some profound remarks about the problems of education in the United States today, the problems of the generation gap, the problems of the world, or any of the others with which I know you are deeply concerned.

I am not going to provide that kind of information for you today. I don't think that is appropriate. I don't think that perhaps would be of the greatest interest to you. I do want to have the opportunity to meet each of you, the presidents of the student government associations, and the presidents of the universities and colleges here, and to say a word to you as we go through the line.

But I would like to be permitted just a little personal reminiscence with regard to the position that you find yourselves in. And I speak now of those who are presidents of student government.

I have never been the president of a college or university. I don't think I could quite handle that problem.

I was once--and this gives me an opportunity, of course, to puff a bit--the president of student government at a small college in California and also president of my law school student body at Duke University.

I recall in those years--the years between 1930 and 1937--that we were concerned about the grave problems of the United States and the world. Perhaps as you compare the situation today with the situation then, it may seem that our problems were not too great.

We did not have nuclear weapons then. We have them now. But we did have a deep depression then. Our concern was, when we finished school, whether we could get a job and, if we got a job, whether we could be paid enough to make a living.

We also had on the horizon--and all of us could recognize it, particularly in the years between '35, '36, '37--the specter of World War II. Mussolini, Hitler, the other potential dictators and warmakers were on the loose. And we were sensitive enough to international conditions to know the future--what it might hold for us.

Despite that, we--just as you--were not discouraged, although possibly we should have been discouraged. We tried to seek the answers. We perhaps did not seek those answers in as aggressive a way as the generation today does. That may be to our discredit and it may be to your credit that this generation is--in seeking the answers to the problems in both student relations with the university and the college and also with regard to the problems of America and the world--it seems to be more in tune with modern problems than we were at that time.

What I am really trying to say is this: that while there is a generation gap, a generation gap that my two daughters often remind me of my daughter, Patricia, she even has a generation gap with those who are in college, because she is 2 years out of college. But while there is a generation gap, let me assure you that those of us in this administration, those in the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, are concerned about the problems that you are concerned about.

We are concerned when we see on the campuses of this country the frustration boiling up into violence, and we want to find answers with you. That is why I was so delighted to hear of this conference and to note that what you were trying to do was to search together for the answers, to search together with the college and university presidents for the answers to these problems.

Of course, you know you are not going to find them. You may find a way to approach the problems. You will not find the answers in a conference of 2 or 3 days.

But this kind of dialogue, it seems to me, may be tremendously useful on the campuses from which you come, and I know could be very useful to you in your lives in the future.

And I would simply add perhaps a little bit more from my personal experience, again not with any thought that this is so profound as to make an impression on this group.

I have found in my travels around the world--and you may have recalled that when I spoke at the United Nations a couple of days ago--I have met most of the heads of government presently in the world and most of those who have been heads of government of the nations of the world over the past 22 years. I have had the opportunity, in meeting them, to learn from them.

And perhaps there are three lessons that I have learned over those years that are worth passing on:

First, I have found that I learned a great deal more in my travels by listening. I don't mean that I didn't have ideas that I tried to get across. But by listening-and, incidentally, listening to not just those who led the great nations, but those who led the small nations--I learned a great deal, because wisdom is not limited to those nations which happen to have power and wealth.

Some of 'the most exciting conversations I have had have been with prime ministers, presidents, foreign ministers, leaders in some of the smaller nations of Africa and Latin America and Asia.

And second, I have learned, too, over those years that usually the man who talked the loudest had the least to say. I found that, and it is somewhat like a poker game--I am sure none of you play poker; at least you could afford it--but, nevertheless it is like a poker game. You can be sure that whoever is talking the loudest is pretty sure to be bluffing. And you watch out for that silent man who sits there and doesn't say too much. He has probably got the cards.

And I have found that those who talk quietly with firmness, firmness yes, but with some quietness, have an enormous effect compared with the others who bluster and shout and repeat without reasoning.

Then finally, this other lesson that I learned in these travels around the world and in the position that I now have the honor to hold. And it is: to have respect for the opinions of others. I find every day in this office, whether it is in foreign policy, in trying to find the answer to peace in the world, not only to bring peace in Vietnam, but to avoid other Vietnams, to have real peace in the world ahead; trying to find 'the answer to disarmament, trying to find the answer to the relations between the races in this country, to the answers to the problems of population in the world, which will eventually suffocate the world unless we do find a better answer, food production, the environment, all of these problems-I have found that I come in sometimes with a very well-briefed position and I am pretty sure that it is right.

Then, after listening for a couple of hours in a meeting to various groups of people express different points of view, it isn't that it means that you come away with an absolute certainty, but it does mean that you find a better answer, not the one that is infallible, but a better answer than you would otherwise have found.

I just leave this final thought with you. Everybody has a hobby in this great house. Mine is not reading westerns or looking at television. We have removed some of the television sets, although they have the Colts and the Rams on tomorrow. I will look at that.

But, nevertheless, it is reading and particularly reading in the field of history, which was my major, and it carried over to both my daughters. In this field, I am always fascinated with that magnificent story--I think it is magnificent---of how the American Constitution came into being. Perhaps the American Constitution today seems rather obsolete.

But for its time, and considering how it has been able to be the framework upon which we were able 'to build the society in which we live, I think most observers outside the United States would say that some way or other in Philadelphia came together the genius of people in this very small and new land.

At the time the Constitution was being ratified, Benjamin Franklin, the oldest of the delegates--he was 82, which is very old even now and at that time it was very, very old--he was 82, 20 years older than any other of the delegates. He really had a generation gap.

He was too old to come to that meeting. And so one of the other delegates read his remarks.

His bit of advice is the advice that I take and the advice that from him I pass on to you. He said: "I know there are uncertainties among members of the delegations as they come now to ratify this Constitution. But I would urge each of you to have a doubt with regard to his own infallibility."

This, I think, is the lesson we all need to know, on the campuses, in government. We do not think we are infallible. And I know that you, as intelligent men and women, do not think you are.

If we start that way, with respect for the opinions that we disagree with, perhaps we will find some of the answers.

That is what I feel and that is why I am so delighted to welcome you here today and now to have the chance to greet each one of my fellow presidents.

Thank you.