Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks in New York City at the Annual Dinner of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation

October 14, 1964

Your Eminence, distinguished guests at the head table, ladies and gentlemen:

It is a source of great pride to be invited by His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman to participate in this dinner in honor of one of America's greatest men--Alfred E. Smith.

I am particularly proud to say that in 1928, although I was not old enough to vote, I campaigned for his election to the Presidency of the United States. And it is with the deepest pride that I participated in helping our late beloved President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, prove to the world that there are no religious bars to the highest office in our land. And what I say to you tonight represents what I believe Al Smith would have endorsed had he been here tonight, because he was a man of true compassion.

I have prepared a statement somewhat more lengthy than I think would be appropriate to give at this late hour, but I shall try to hit the high points, and I stand upon everything in the somewhat fuller exposition.

I was delighted to be welcomed back to the great State of New York by my old friend, the affable Governor of this State. I gather that he does not share some of his colleagues' views on immigration, or perhaps we are still free at least to emigrate between the States!

In any event, I always find it a source of strength to come to this, the leading city in America, this, the melting pot of our country. Here I get inspiration and stimulation.

America's policies toward the world have been carefully built through the years by the leaders of both parties. We will continue to follow this course because it has brought us a hopeful world.

We are, and we will remain, the strongest nation on earth. We are, and we will always be, ready to defend freedom anywhere.

Strength and courage are essential, but they are like the fuel in an airplane. You can't go without it. But neither will it take you where you want to go. For that you need a sense of direction, caution in the cockpit, and an experienced pilot.

But strength is not enough. Other nations feared the might of Hitler, but they would not follow him. They will not associate themselves with us just because of our bombs or our missiles or our factories. We have learned that to deal with the world it must be seen in all of its fantastic complexities.

Almost all general statements about the world are wrong. They are not necessarily false; they seem to me just to be inadequate.

It is true, for example, that communism is a deadly danger, but Russia is a different kind of danger from Yugoslavia. A small Communist Party in Africa is a different danger from the Government of Red China. These different dangers require different policies and different actions, and different replies.

As President, I have no special gift or prophecy. But I do have a special perspective, and a very special responsibility to anticipate the dangers and the opportunities of the future.

Tonight I would like to look forward to this future in three fields:

First, we will work to make the greatness of our institutions match the grandeur of our intentions. I intend to do even more to attract the best minds and the most brilliant talents to our foreign operations, regardless of background or race or party.

I want, also, to bring more young people to the conduct of foreign policy. This is the first generation to come of age in an outward looking America. It is a concerned generation. Its members are our greatest asset. We intend to encourage them and to give them early responsibility. This will be the first order of our business. Beyond the association of the West is the association of the world. I do not intend to withdraw from the United Nations. I do not intend to weaken it. I intend to do everything I can to strengthen it.

A second field of danger and opportunity is in our confrontation with Russia and Communist China.

Today there is no longer one cold war; there are many. They differ in temperature, intensity, and danger.

Our relations with the Soviet Union have come a long way since shoes were banged on desks here in New York and a summit meeting collapsed in Paris.

In Asia there is a different prospect. The final outcome will depend on the will of the Asian people. But as long as they turn to us for help, we will be there. We will not and we must not permit the great civilizations of the East--almost half of the people of all the world--to be swallowed up in Communist conquest.

In Viet-Nam we believe that, with our help, the people of South Viet-Nam can defeat Communist aggression. We will continue to act on this belief without recklessness and without retreat.

A third field of opportunity and danger is our relation to the developing world. I do not believe that our island of abundance will be finally secure in a sea of despair and unrest or in a world where even the oppressed may one day have access to the engines of modern destruction.

Moreover, there is a great moral principle at stake. It is not right in a world of such infinite possibilities that children should die of hunger, that young people should live in ignorance, that men should be crippled by disease, that families should live in misery, shrouded in despair. I will propose steps to use the food and agricultural skills of the entire West in a joint effort to eliminate hunger and starvation.

We will seek ways to stabilize the prices of the tropical commodities which are the life blood of many economies. I will press for prompt execution of the worldwide coffee agreement, and seek action for other products.

We will give our support most of all to those governments whose efforts are directed toward the welfare of all their people and not just a privileged few.

We will always give first attention to our close friendship with the people of Latin America.

You and every citizen of this land can be proud of the role that we have played over the past 20 years. None has ever given of itself so freely to the needs and the protection of others as the United States of America.

Of course, we acted out of enlightened self-interest. We are a nation responsible to our people. But the pages of history can be searched in vain for another power whose pursuit of that self-interest was so infused with grandeur of spirit and morality of purpose.

We have done this because this is the kind of people we are, and this is the kind of a country that we have built.

We have done this because we have never believed the complexity of human experience could be bound in an iron cloak of dogma.

We have deep beliefs. But we have followed where reason and experience led, never sacrificing man to the abstract arrogance of ideology.

There were those who thought this was a flaw in freedom, this was an advantage to the Communists. Well, they were wrong. Unquestioned obedience to an unyielding system will not satisfy the needs of man. And time is slowly unfolding this truth to all the world and to the Communists themselves.

All of us who live today are also a race to be envied. These next decades can set the course of the world for a thousand years or more. There is much danger. But there is also the joy of great expectations. We are not in the grip of history. We are the makers of history. We have the power and the faith to forge on the anvil of the world an age tempered to the hopes of man.

How fortunate we are to live at such a time, with such a belief, in such a young and resistless land.

So come with me into that uncertain day already touched with dawn.

Thank you.

Note: This is the text of a White House release entitled "Statement by the President at the Al Smith Dinner, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City." See also note, page 1331, following the President's remarks at the dinner.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks in New York City at the Annual Dinner of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/242296

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