Remarks to a Group of Foreign Students.

IT GIVES me a great deal of pleasure to welcome you here as the honored guests of the American people, to the house which is their home.

A great American, Robert Frost, once said that you never know what a young man's chances in life are going to be until you know the kind of thing for which he will neglect his studies.

Since all of you seem to have neglected your studies to come to the White House, I think your chances are pretty good.

I am glad that Mrs. Johnson asked me to speak. I thought of the story of the man and his wife who were having an argument. The man's neighbor said to him, "I understand that you and Mary had some words." He said, "Yes, I had some, but I didn't get to use mine."

I appreciate Lady Bird giving me a chance to use some of my words this afternoon.

You have been studying here in America. Many of you will soon take your place in the forward march of your own society. I hope that what you have learned here will help you advance the progress of your own people, for this is no time for men of knowledge and learning to be above the battle, to stand aloof from the fight for a better world.

Your education is a solemn trust. It carries the responsibility of a lifetime of service to your own country and to the world.

I am glad that you have had this chance to see America, to know its people, to understand its problems as well as its achievements. For, like your own countries, we are an unfinished society. I know many of our people live in a better life than is possible in other places. We are very proud of these achievements, and we look forward to the day when the same standard of living is available to every person on this planet.

But we also know that we have a long way to go before all citizens can share in the fruits of our society. Many Americans suffer unjust discrimination because of the color of their skin. Many more do not have a chance to escape from a life of poverty and despair. We admit these problems and we admit them freely. We discuss them openly among ourselves. Only in this way and only through the unfettered play of free minds can all our resources be mobilized to overcome all of our difficulties, to bring justice to all of our people, and to continue the great work of building a great land.

I believe it is one of the strengths of the United States that we have never had a single, rigid ideology. We do have deep beliefs, beliefs for which millions have fought and died and, today, all of our efforts and our hopes are directed to securing a world in which men can live for their beliefs rather than to die for them.

But these are beliefs in man's right to freedom, to the good life, to spiritual fulfillment. They are beliefs which concern the hopes of people; they are not systems of thought which strike at the dreams of the individual in the name of the state or in the arrogant belief that a single man or group of men can prophesy the demands of history or the needs of nature.

The variety of human experience cannot be contained in a single law or a single system or a single belief. We cannot make experience conform to dogma. We must adapt action to experience. This is what shapes our attitude toward the world.

No man or nation is wise enough to prescribe a single economic system or a single set of political institutions to meet the needs of more than a hundred countries, each with its own history, its own resources, its own culture, and its own proud spiritual traditions.

Each must be free to seek its own destiny in its own way, and that is what we believe for every American in this country; and that is what we believe for every country in this world.

From your experience here, you already know how hard a thing it is to explain democracy. One of our great poets, Carl Sandburg, said when he wrote, "Of course, we can't answer the question 'What is democracy?' smoothly and easily like we answer 'Where is the railroad station?' or 'Which way is the post office?'"

Yet we know definitely where democracy is not, as we do where the railroad station is not, or where the post office is not.

Around the world we, too, know where freedom is not, where man's hopes are being denied and where human dignity is not respected. We know of such places in America and we are trying as best we can, in every way we can, to wipe them out. And I hope that as you return each to his own land, each to your own work in your own way, I hope that you will always feel close to us as you carry forward that same task and you carry it forward in every corner of this earth.

Thank you.

I see in the audience one of our revered statesmen and one of the great men of this country who has a very deep interest in all of you, the distinguished Secretary of State. I wonder if he would come up and let me present him.

It is my proud privilege to present to you a man who happens to be and is the kind of a Secretary of State that any President would like to have.