Remarks to Overflow Crowd in Fort Wayne Coliseum

I wanted to say to all of you that I just couldn't miss the opportunity to come down here and to thank you so much for staying here in this room and giving me the chance to greet you and to present our fine candidates and also the Governor and the others.

When I think of the fact that you couldn't even get in the room upstairs, you weren't able to see the musical organizations and all the rest and that you have stood here all this time, that is certainly a very heartwarming thing.

I thought you might be interested. I will tell you a couple of things I didn't tell them upstairs. Okay?

We found---one thing that we have been very impressed with as we have traveled around the country this year, these last 2 or 3 days, is the way people come out in the rain.

Today, down in Johnson City, Tennessee-that is out in east Tennessee--we had rain. There was an enormous crowd. They just were out there. They stood along the roads all the way. I got over to Asheville, an hour later. The rain was pouring down. The people were still out.

And it has always been my view, and I will relate this to you, it is when people come out in good weather that, of course is impressive. When people come up and sit up in the hall, that is impressive. When people will stand down in a hall like this where they can't even see the speaker or the entertainment, that is very impressive. But boy, when they will stand up in the rain, that means we are going to win.

I want to tell you something else-another thing that was interesting, speaking of rain. I just returned, as you may know, from a trip to Europe. And on that occasion, I visited countries that were very different in political philosophies. I see a lot of you young people here. You probably have social studies tomorrow and the college students in political science. This is something you can report on.

I visited Yugoslavia which is a Communist country, somewhat independent in its foreign policy with regard to the Soviet Union but, nevertheless, a Communist country.

I visited Spain, where you know is the government of General Franco.

I visited Italy and England, a brief stop in England, and also Ireland.

In Yugoslavia--and this was extremely, it seemed to me, significant--this is a Communist country, you understand, their policies, their system differs from ours. They have been quite critical of us on many, many issues. But in Zagreb, Yugoslavia--that is in Croatia, the capital is Belgrade, as you know, and then Zagreb is in Croatia--350,000 people stood in the rain and welcomed us as we came into that city.

What did that mean? Well, it didn't mean that they were there to welcome me as a person because basically I, to them, was simply a name. But they were trying to say something about the United States.

What they were really trying to say in my view is very simply this: To millions of people in the world, in Europe, in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, in Communist countries, as well as non-Communist countries--because I had the same thing happen in Communist Romania, I had the same thing happen 10 years ago in Poland, I have had the same thing happen in Novosibirsk in the middle of the Soviet Union in 1959--for hundreds of millions of people, the United States, our country, is still as it was in the beginning--it is the symbol of hope, of freedom. It is the symbol of opportunity.

Oh, they know we are rich, and very rich. We are the richest country in the world. They know we are very strong, and we are the strongest country in the world. But it isn't just that, because there are other countries that are rather rich and rather strong by comparative terms.

But the important thing is we stand for something else. They were there because America to them was not a country that threatened their independence, that threatened their freedom. It was a country to which hundreds of thousands, yes, millions of Europeans have come, Asians, others from other countries, and have found opportunity here such as you can't find anyplace else.

I just want to say to the young people here that there are lots of things wrong with this country. We ought to do a better job on a lot of things. We would like to get peace sooner than we have had it. We would like to have peace at home. We would like to have better opportunities for all of our people of various racial groups in this country.

We are moving along. But the important thing to remember is this: When you think of what is wrong about America, don't overlook what is right.

This is a good country. I have been to 70 countries. I have been now to almost 70 countries. And I have enjoyed every visit and I have liked the people of every one of those countries. I liked the Russian people, and I liked the Romanian people, and I liked the Hungarian people, and I liked the Polish people, and the French and the Indians and the Indanesians and all the rest.

Never forget that when you do travel to all these continents you will have the same feeling, because once you get to know people, you will inevitably like them.

But when you go to these countries, you see what they have, you see their systems and you see what we have. The significant thing to notice is this: that as far as people who have a chance to choose, the traffic is all one way. They are coming this way. They like to come to the United States.

And so, I say while we are not perfect, the glory of America is that we have a system that provides the means that we can change what is wrong. And while we are not perfect, the glory of America is that we are so rich that we can use that wealth to raise the standard of people in this country to heights--all people--that have never been realized in the history of the world.

And beyond that, because America is the country it is, we can have in this country a quality of life, something that money can't buy, something more important than a new automobile or the television set, or something that you are trying to get for your house or this. It is something that we call freedom, we call opportunity, a spirit that we have had from the beginning.

And believe me, we have still got it in America. Don't you ever forget it. You have got it here in Indiana.