Remarks to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

Mr. Ellis and distinguished guests:

I am very happy to welcome to this Rose Garden and the White House such a fine group of taxpaying, economy-building, enterprising Americans.

It doesn't surprise me to find Clyde Ellis bringing you in here at this hour of the day. Last month our doorbell rang late one afternoon and when the policeman opened the gate, we found Clyde out there with 700 young people--just in time for supper.

Of course I think I ought to add I wanted all of you to stay to eat tonight, but Clyde told me he didn't think any of you liked barbecue. So we called off our plan. I'll let you settle that with Clyde after you leave.

Of all the work that I have been privileged to do in my public career, nothing has been more gratifying to me than my association with the rural electrification program. By many measurements, that program stands today as one of the most successful enterprises ever undertaken anywhere, at any time, by anyone.

There are many memories that I think we could share together of the years gone by. But we don't serve our country's interests, and we don't serve our program's interests, by reviving the past and talking now about who was right or who was wrong in some of those days when we had differences.

America and Americans, if they are going to continue to .provide the leadership for the free world, must constantly look to the future.

So in our society today we serve no really useful purpose by keeping alive differences and divisions of yesteryear. We don't need to cling to the issues of the past. We do need to take hold of the issues of the future.

I am very proud to say that this is happening across the country. It is happening in the communities, and I am proud to tell you, above all, it is happening in the Congress. I think we are seeing today the strength, the talent, and the imagination of today's America being put to grips with the challenges of America's future and what to do about it. We see this in the very basic and the very important things that we have envisioned and we have dreamed and we have talked about--all my lifetime, at least, and I read where other people were talking about them before I discovered America.

We see this in education. We see it in health. We see it in regard to our beloved aged people--I signed the Older Americans Act early this morning. We see it in regard to our cities. We see it in every aspect of our national life. Quite frankly, and quite honestly, I am convinced that this is a period of sane and sensible but real, stirring progress, without parallel at any time in American history.

You will be proud to remember the day that you stood here in the garden of the White House during this period.

Now what does this mean to the rural electrification program, of which you are a part and which has filled a very vital role in the strengthening of this Nation and in the development of this Nation?

Well, you just cannot rest on the past. You must not just content yourselves with remembering old battles, or castigating old enemies, or parroting old slogans. None of us can do that and survive, whether we are business people, or laborers, or farmers, or politicians--but, least of all, men and women who are part of something that is as dynamic as the rural electric cooperatives.

So what do you need to do? You need to look far into the future--beyond 1965 or 1966 or 1970. And you really can't look far into the future, and you really cannot provide the leadership that you ought to provide, and you really cannot be a doer if you just ask yourself constantly, "What will I get out of this?" and "How does it serve me?" You have got to be selfless.

You have got to have a desire and an ambition to help .people who can't help themselves if you are to provide the leadership that we need in the 20th century. You need to look to the America of 1980, and what it is going to be like, not just let it slip up on us--and 1990. You must look to the year 2000, when the clock turns and a new century begins. You must take the lead, therefore, in planning today for what is going to happen 35 years from now. You must take the lead in planning for a fuller utilization of rural America--providing the power and the services to meet your share of the future's demands.

If you don't do this, there is not going to be much rural America. They estimate in the year 2000, 80 percent of the people in America are going to be living in the cities, notwithstanding all of the things you are doing to try to keep them on the farm.

So you must, as I think you are at this meeting, give new attention to new responsibilities, to new management, to new planning. You must be concerned with developing the full water and power potential of this continent for the populations that are yet unborn.

I never go home for a weekend and look over a series of six beautiful lakes but what I remember when I was almost burned at the stake. I was investigated, I was condemned, and I was charged with everything under the sun. Right in the middle of all of it we had a big flood, and the dam hadn't been finished--and they said it was a manmade flood and I caused it.

Now you have to stand up to that kind of heat while you are doing this planning and this doing. And I think that you must also, as I know you are, turn your attention to horizons that are beyond your county, and your State, and your Nation, because you are living in a pretty big world.

There are 3 billion people in this world and America has less than 200 million of them. So for every American you find there are 15 others. And there is hardly a corner of this big earth, where 3 billion people live, where rural electrification is not needed now as much as it was needed when Roosevelt came to this town and issued an Executive order creating the REA.

So I am very grateful to all of you, and to Clyde Ellis, for the fine support that you are giving to our efforts to try to provide leadership, economic assistance, and rural electrification to southeast Asia.

Let me remind you of one thing in passing. The American people have invested more than any other people in history to preserve peace and freedom, not just for ourselves, but for all mankind.

Since World War II we have taken 100 billion of our treasury and spent it all over the world, to bring prosperity and peace to other parts of the world.

I was looking at one nation this morning-we spent over $8 billion in one country alone, made up of nearly half a billion people. Now we do not intend that this great effort that we have been going through since World War II shall have been in vain.

Where we have commitments, we intend to keep them. Now there are going to be some long debates, there are going to be some eloquent speeches, there are going to be some differences of opinion, and there is going to be some criticism of your President. But three Presidents--President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President-have made a commitment in the name of the people of the United States, and our national honor is at stake in southeast Asia. And we are going to protect it, and you just might as well be prepared for it, and we can do it better if we are united.

We have a good many generals in our own army, and we have a good many that are not in the army, that have their own individual programs. But you can follow whichever one you want to, but you better get ready to follow, because where our national honor is at stake politics stops. We have opportunities and we have challenges, and we have obligations and we intend to fulfill them, and we intend to help others to fulfill theirs, too.

And where we have a duty, we are going to meet it. We do not expect the road to be smooth, and you just be sure it is not going to be short. But we do intend that the end result shall be a better world where men of all lands and all colors and all cultures can enjoy in their lifetime something of the advance that we have known in our lifetime.

Think what would have happened in Korea if we had turned our back? What would have happened in Iran, in Greece, and Turkey if we had walked away? What would have happened if we would have been concerned with creature comforts in Lebanon or Formosa?

We have had our responsibilities around the world and we have lived up to them, and we expect to continue to. We love peace. We hate no man. We do not seek to bury any other people anywhere, but we are not going to be buried, either, and we are not going to ducktail and run from our responsibilities.

Now there are going to be some dark days and there are going to be some times when we may call on you for some help, and I don't think you will be found wanting.

I am sorry Clyde Ellis wouldn't let you stay for dinner. However, since Lady Bird is away, we might have had to eat out of the icebox anyway. So, I hope you will enjoy yourselves tonight and I hope you will come back again.

In the meantime, I want each and every one of you, from whatever State you come from, whatever party you belong to, to realize that your President is proud of the record that you have made and he is going to count on you in the days ahead.

Thank you very much.