Remarks on the 55th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

Mr. Watson and members of the Scouts:

I want to welcome you here this morning. It is a particular privilege to have you come and visit this house.

Yesterday, sometime Sunday afternoon, someone around here suggested that this meeting should be postponed--on the grounds that we might not have much time this morning.

I vetoed that suggestion in a hurry. I said we might delay it but we wouldn't postpone it, because whatever comes to this house for decision and action, our first concern always is for the young men and young women of America. For every American President the number one priority and the number one interest has been, and I think always will be, the young people of our land.

I am very glad this morning that we can be together on this 55th anniversary of the beginning of the Boy Scouts of America.

Over nearly the full span of this century, scouting has served our Nation well and served it faithfully. Today there are more than 5-1/2 million members, from 4 million homes, that are dedicated to the goals of helping each boy to become a man of character, a responsible citizen, with a strong and vigorous body, physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

I congratulate all of you Scouts and adult leaders alike. I am especially pleased by your plans for a breakthrough in 1965--to extend scouting to all neighborhoods: rich and poor, educated or not, for all boys of all races and all religions.

Your new program will mean much for scouting, but it is going to mean a lot more for your country--the beloved America that is ours.

You, and all your contemporaries, are members of a challenging generation. You shall be challenged as none before us to keep the flame of freedom burning, to keep the hope of peace from being extinguished. But you will be challenged even more to find for yourselves--and to help others find with you--a new meaning for life on this earth. If the life you know has many comforts-as I hope it will--your life will also have many trials and tests. I believe and I hope that you will be ready for them.

Over the years of this century, men abroad--and some at home--have made great mistakes in miscalculating the character and the strength and the fortitude of the young people of America.

I hope that none today, anywhere, will repeat that miscalculation about our youth or about our Nation.

We love peace. We shall do all that we can in honor to preserve it--for ourselves and for all mankind. But we love liberty more and we shall take up any challenge, we shall answer any threat, we shall pay any price to make certain that freedom shall not perish from this earth.

I know that this is the spirit in your hearts.

Last night I read the winning essays in your Nathan Hale contest. I was impressed by the papers--but there was one I especially liked.

I don't know Cub Scout Jim Karkheck of Durham, N.Y.--but he is a young American and I would love to meet him. He wrote on "Why I Love America," and this is his paper, in full.

"I have three turtles. They have a beautiful terrarium with rather low sides. They have everything they could want except one thing--freedom. Every chance they have, they climb out.

"People in many countries in this world lack the same thing. "Not in America.

"In America we have freedom of speech, freedom to go wherever we please, freedom of the press, freedom to worship God as we wish, freedom to choose people to govern us.

"A boy like myself can grow up to be whatever he dreams of being. "That is why I love America."

So, my young friends, the Boy Scouts, I can only add one thing this morning. I hope all we are doing now--at home and throughout the world--all the things we are doing I hope will some day make it possible for all young men and young women to grow up and, as Jim said, be whatever they dream of being.

I want to thank you for coming here and I want to wish you well in the years ahead.

I will take great pride in watching your development as we go down the road together.

Thank you.