Remarks to the 1964 Campaign Conference for Democratic Women.

WHEN Margaret Price called me and asked me to come over to speak to the Democratic women, I told her that would be a switch, because I have been listening to them for the past 30 years. So I welcome you as fellow members of the oldest political party in the world, and judging from what I see here, the best looking party in America.

For a moment, when I came in here tonight, I thought I was in a meeting of the Federal Employees Association, but I don't want the male members of our party to be worried. They will always have a place in the Federal Government as long as there is no woman to fill the job.

Many people had doubts and fears when I began the program of recruiting women. I want to report to you tonight that those fears were entirely unfounded and unjustified. We have not had to install more than one powder room in each Federal building. We have had to hire only a very few baby-sitters. And our Bureau of Husband Complaints needs only three people to handle the calls.

Bringing women into the Government has even increased new job opportunities for men. There is more of a demand these days for male secretaries than ever before.

The belief that women should be given a chance to serve their country is not new. Almost 50 years ago a great Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, said that "democracy means that women shall play their part in affairs alongside men, and upon an equal footing with men."

That's the kind of democracy that America needs. That's the kind of democracy that we are going to build in this administration.

Never again will you be called upon to elect leaders and then be deprived of your share in leadership. Never again will you be asked to work and struggle in the days of uncertainty and hope, only to be forgotten and neglected in the time of triumph and fulfillment. Never again will the dedication which helped build a great party be denied the chance to help build a great Nation.

I promise this tonight not because you need jobs but because the country needs you.

In the last 3 months almost 200 women have been appointed to positions of responsibility in the Federal Government. Almost 600 women have received promotions to upper grades above $10,000 per year. More and more of the great issues of the day are receiving the thoughtful attention of women.

I predict that women will assume an ever increasing share of the responsibilities of Government. I can see the day when none of the great offices of the Republic will be closed to women of talent, not even the office of President--although I hope you will forgive me for hoping that that day is still a few years off.

You can be proud tonight not only for what this Democratic administration has done for women but also for what we have done for the country. We have aimed at no goals and adopted no programs and accepted no principles which were not fundamentally designed to fulfill the hopes and to ease the struggle of individual Americans.

Our economy is operating on an all-time high gross national product which reached $608½ billion national income. Unemployment has dropped to almost 5 percent. But we are not working just so we can quote impressive statistics. Our concern is not with figures and balance sheets. Our concern tonight is with people.

Every achievement, every program, every action that we take must be subject to the same test: Is it good for the people? This is the test of compassion and concern. Only by passing this test can we be worthy of the great traditions of our party and of our country.

I came out here tonight to talk to you about three groups of Americans who need the qualities which you can bring to Government. These groups are: the unemployed and the underpaid; those threatened by disease and disability; the millions now trapped in hopeless poverty.

First are those who, in the midst of our great wealth, cannot find work, and those whose work does not bring them the reward of a decent living. Our new Unemployment Compensation Act has provided $769 million to 3.5 million men and women out of work. Through federally supported programs, we have provided more than a million new jobs.

Our Manpower Development and Training has taken hundreds of thousands of men and women thrown out of work by new machines or new techniques of production and given them new skills. Minimum wage extensions have given basic protection to 3.5 million more Americans under the Democratic administration.

Those were important steps, but new ones must be now taken. We need minimum wage protection for the thousands of women that are laboring tonight in hotels and restaurants and laundries throughout the land. We need the protection of migratory farm laborers against exploitation. We need increased compensation for the long-term unemployed, and a food stamp plan to make sure that no child in America goes hungry.

These new programs will not make people wealthy, or they will not give them serene security. But they will keep them from slipping below the edge of survival and beyond the call of hope.

Second, Americans threatened by disease and disability need a compassionate government. This is the largest group of all, for disease is the true democrat. It ultimately enters every home and every family circle, without regard to race, or religion, or economic circumstances. Our challenge tonight is to make sure that every parent and every child in America has access to the restoring powers of modern medicine.

The Hill-Burton Act has vastly expanded the ability of our hospitals to care for the sick. New vaccination programs have protected millions of children against polio and tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough, and unprecedented efforts have been launched to help the 126,000 babies that are born every year who are destined to be mentally retarded.

Again, there is a long way to go before the richest nation on earth can be the healthiest nation on earth. Right now, the most important step that we can take is to pass a bill in the Congress to help the elderly people of America secure decent medical care under social security.

I have seen the aged lying embittered in their beds. I have felt the anguish that they feel, and I have sensed the hopelessness that ravages their soul while disease ravages their body.

Only last week in a valley of despair in the hills of eastern Kentucky one man told me that he sat up until late in the night with his neighbor who is 85 and who should have been in a hospital that he could not afford, but he needed the care.

So I come here tonight to say that our consciences cannot rest, our hearts cannot be at peace, until men like that have a fair and decent chance to get well. I have come here tonight for something else. I have come here--are you listening?--I have come here to ask your help in passing that bill which tonight languishes in the Congress.

Please, oh please, help us to match the actions of the Government to the convictions of the people. Please, oh please, help us tonight to help the helpless.

There is a third group of Americans in need of compassion, those millions of our fellow citizens who are condemned by circumstances and surroundings to a lifetime of poverty in the midst of the land of plenty.

I have here tonight a news ticker report which I pulled off of the machine as I walked out of the White House, a little late getting here, and it says, "President Johnson's war on poverty bill is 'headed for oblivion as soon as the Democrats can figure out a way to bury it,' the ranking Republican, Mr. Frelinghuysen, on the House Education and Labor Committee, said tonight. Mr. Frelinghuysen said the Democrats on the Committee are in disagreement."

Well, my comment on that is simply this: Poverty is heading for oblivion if I have anything to do about it. And just as soon as the American people this November have a chance to vote on the Republican obstructionists, they will be heading for oblivion, too.

Blind opposition for opposition's sake. Someone asked Mr. Rayburn one time what was the principal difference between the publicans and the Democrats, and he said, "The Republicans always hate our Presidents and their programs." Why anyone should hate an antipoverty program, I don't know. But I am told that the Republicans are lined up fighting it, one group because it is not enough and another group because it is too much. But both groups against doing anything.

Well, already 93,000 new housing units for low-income families have been approved. Already we have provided aid to families of dependent children. Already 5 million people are now receiving expanded social security benefits, and last year alone we restored more than 100,000 disabled persons to productive life through vocational rehabilitation.

They kept President Kennedy's tax cut proposal in the Congress for almost 1 year, but we finally passed it through, and it gives to every average worker in America $14 a month more take-home pay, and it will provide new jobs, expand the economy, and bring new opportunities.

But these alone are not enough. We must have an all-out war on poverty, a war to give people a chance, a war to give people education and training, a war to give opportunity to break the age-old cycle of economic bondage. Unless I misjudge you and unless I do not detect the attitude of all America, Americans tonight are ready and willing and eager to join this war.

Everywhere I go people come up and ask for the chance to enlist. They are surprised and a little ashamed that our rich country has so many sloughs of despondency. They want to win this war on poverty, and because they do, we are going to see poverty wiped from this land in our lifetime.

People who have no objectives and who have no goals, and who have no hopes, who have only fear and status quo in their soul, do not understand what we are talking about. But this is the way to continue to build democracy--not from the top with a grand design, but from the bottom with the needs of people, with compassion for our neighbors.

For this is the great society. This is the grandest design of all--a design which creates a state whose only reason for existence is the welfare and the happiness of its people.

America is an abundant country. In our early days it was the abundance of untapped land. Today it is the abundance of technology and human knowledge. So we continue on the great work of building roads to that abundance, broad paths along which all can go to find their own dreams. I have come along that path myself.

I have come here tonight to tell you that we can never rest until the roads that you and I have traveled to this great city, and to this large hall, with these prosperous and smiling and happy faces--until those roads are open to all who would seek to follow, regardless of race, regardless of region, regardless of religion.

This is a land of plenty, and its opportunities must be opened to all. With God's help, and with yours, we will pass through this Congress a program which all good Americans who have compassion in their heart for their fellow citizens, who are willing to extend a hand to the needy, can look to with pride and pleasure, and can point to in the days to come as an achievement that each of you had a little slice of.

Thank you.