Remarks at the St. Louis Bicentennial Dinner.

Mr. Chairman, Your Eminence Cardinal Ritter, Ambassador and Mrs. Alphand, Governor Dalton, Mayor Tucker, Senator Symington, Senator Long, Congressman Bolling, Congressman Curtis, Mrs. Sullivan, Congressman Hull, Congressman Ichord, Congressman Randall, Congressman Price, my distinguished friends at the head table, ladies and gentlemen:

I am indeed indebted to my friend Gussie Busch for extending to me an invitation to come out here. I am further in the debt of your two great Senators for making me come. I am honored that so many members of the Congress, men of both parties, should come here and be with us this evening.

I appreciate the introduction Gussie gave me. I am somewhat overawed by it. I am reminded of the frustrating experience that a preacher down in my country had when he went to his church one Sunday in a little rural area, and he found that his parishioners had presented him with a new ford automobile as a present. He was so excited about the present and in the introduction he got up and said, "I do deserve it, but I don't appreciate it." Well, I do appreciate it, Mr. Busch, and I don't deserve it!

Tonight in this historic city of St. Louis, we are close to the very heart of our land. It is a fitting place and a fitting time to speak of what is closest to the hearts of all Americans. We cherish our past and we celebrate it proudly. But America is the land of tomorrow and not the land of yesterday. In barely more than a decade, our country will begin as St. Louis is beginning now--a third century of its life.

When the New Orleans fur trader Pierre Laclede came upon this site just two centuries ago in the fall of 1763, he said that the community established here "might become, hereafter, one of the finest cities in America." These were very prophetic words, and it was exactly 200 years ago today, February the 14th, that a young Frenchman arrived at the head of 30 men to clear a space in the wilderness and to build the first cabins. few American cities share with St. Louis the distinction of having been opened up by a 14-year-old boy!

As the Gateway to the West, St. Louis became one of the finest and one of the most important cities of the entire world. When at the very summit of her glory the blight that was to deface dozens of American cities also struck St. Louis. The incredible vitality of this proud queen of mid-America began to erode.

Men were turning away from "The City of a Thousand Sights," looking elsewhere for their homes and their businesses, and their future. You faced a hard choice, and you made it. The people of St. Louis chose progress, not decay. A new spirit of St. Louis was born, and today you look to the future with new pride and with new confidence.

The choice you have faced faces every American citizen. The life Americans are to live in the third century of our Nation's existence will be determined in large measure by the response that we make in this decade to the challenge of our cities.

Our cities are in crisis. They are choked with traffic. They are suffocated by fumes from factories and exhausts. Their transport is overloaded. Their schools are overcrowded. Their law enforcement agencies are overburdened. Their tax bases are overworked. Their poor are crowded into slums. Their citizens with higher incomes are fleeing to the suburbs.

In every region, in every State, the problems are the same in this country. If we cannot yet know all the answers we need to know, we can and do know that for the problems of urbanization, this is the decade of decision.

If by the year 1970 we are merely to keep up with the growth of our population, we shall have to build at least two million new houses each year, many new schools, libraries, streets, utility lines, transport systems, water and sewage facilities, and stores and churches.

If by the year 1970 we are to fulfill the ideals of our free society, we shall have to have ample housing for our low-income families, for our rural families, for our elderly families, and for the families of those who serve in our Armed forces.

If by the year 1970 we are to save the vitality of our cities, we must make continued progress in eliminating slums, in rehabilitating historic neighborhoods, in providing for the humane relocation of people that are displaced by urban renewal, in restoring the economic base of our communities, and in revitalizing our central areas.

This is an agenda, but only a partial agenda and only a partial answer.

If we of this generation are to do what must be done to preserve the quality and the character and the meaning of American life, we must, at home and in the world, make a basic choice. We must choose progress or we must choose decay.

Three weeks ago I sent to the Congress a Message on Housing and Community Development,¹ proposing a number of specific ways in which the National Government can work with citizens in localities throughout the country to meet the crisis of the city. Working together, strong civic spirit, strong local and national leadership can meet these problems.

¹ Item 152

The Federal Government cannot act where local spirit and leadership are absent. But the federal Government tonight stands ready to help every city that is determined to become a place where children can grow up in decent neighborhoods, where children can go to decent schools, where children can play in decent parks and playgrounds, where children can have the benefits of a wholesome and a vital environment.

But it is not enough to build healthier local communities. America's larger task tonight is to help build a healthier world. These objectives are very related: we cannot secure the success of freedom around the world if it is not secure for all citizens in our cities; and no city in America can be certain of its safety until all the world is made safe for diversity.

In the past 3 years that safety has steadily grown, thanks to the leadership of your own Senator Symington, and to Senator Long and other members of your congressional delegation. The vast and rapid increase in our nuclear and conventional military strength has enabled us to meet each new conflict and to face each new crisis--front West Berlin to Cuba--with both courage and calm. It has likewise enabled us to bargain for an end to arms from a position of strength and conviction.

The very progress we have made, to be sure, brings problems in its wake. Many nations that are no longer frightened for their future now feel more free to press their more narrow national interests. Disputes between our allies and our friends in Cyprus, in Malaysia, in Africa or Kashmir or the Middle East tend to weaken free world cooperation, and tend to invite Communist exploitation. So it is in our interest not only as a world power but as a partisan of peace, to work patiently with our friends on any of these disputes where we can be helpful to achieve a just resolution.

I would remind you that we did not create these quarrels, but we can, and we must and we should, help to end them. In the Panama Canal Zone we ourselves are party to such a dispute and, too, here tonight we are working for a peaceful solution. It is a solution that is compatible with the interests of both nations and with the principles of a good neighbor.

Elsewhere in the world, particularly in Southeast Asia, conflict continues between those that are seeking to impose the Communist system by direct or indirect aggression and those who are seeking to protect their freedom of choice and their freedom of action. The United States is determined to help those free and peaceful peoples who need and seek our help. It is their land and their war, but we will never weaken our support for their effort, or we will never betray their trust in us.

All of these tense and troubled problems require much of the American citizen--a steadiness of purpose, a sense of perspective and, above all, enduring and persevering patience. We cannot expect perfection in an imperfect world, nor can we expect complete agreement among the world's free men. freedom prospers through the fair discussion of honest differences, both at home and abroad. We invite and we welcome such discussions.

But neither at home nor abroad is there any need for twisted arguments that would damage the good name of our country. The American people have little sympathy for those abroad who seek political gain from baseless denunciation of the United States because we have helped others and because we are a leader for peace. And they will equally reject such tactics if they are employed at home.

We are confident that our principles are sound and that our progress is good; that those who distort the truth to alarm the people, either at home or abroad, about either America's capacity or America's purpose, do not serve their children or serve their country, or serve freedom in the world.

This Nation, more respected than ever, more respected than ever respected before by friend and foe, by the great and the small, will always do its full part to achieve in our time a world without war in a century of peace.

Thank you and good night.

[Following applause the President resumed speaking.]

Many years ago an inquiring friend asked a great member of the Congress why the delegation from his State was the ablest in the Congress. He gave him a very fine and frank answer. I think that I should like for all the people of not just St. Louis and St. Louis County, but all the people of Missouri, to hear that answer tonight, and to apply it to your own great delegation.

He said, "Why does your State have the greatest delegation in Congress?" The answer was, "Because we pick them young and we pick them honest. We send them there, and we keep them there."

And so to the people of Missouri, I must admit, with apologies to Congressman Curtis, that if I had been picking them in the original instance, I might have confined them all to one party. That would have perhaps been a most narrow viewpoint, because we are going to have two parties in this country for a long time.

All I say to you in Missouri is this, that every day I sit in the White House and I see the decisions that Harry Truman made and didn't make. I see the men that he hired and the men he fired. I see the strokes of genius that came from his pen during those few troublesome years. I saw the injection of new policy known as the Truman Doctrine in Europe, and the Marshall plan that saved the world from communism. I never cease to be grateful to the State of Missouri for giving us that good and wise man in that troublesome period.

Although some of my party people might not approve of this statement, I would say to you for your delegation from Missouri, members of both parties, that you have picked them young, and you have picked them honest. You have sent them there, so keep them there.

Thank you and good night.