Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks to Student Winners of a Contest Sponsored by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

June 08, 1966

My good friend, Clyde Ellis, members of the Association, students:

Clyde Ellis has just told you that your annual Washington visit is the result of a suggestion that was made several years ago. I am very proud of that. I wish all my suggestions were carried out so faithfully for so long.

I am delighted, with Mrs. Johnson, to greet and welcome you to the White House today. I believe deeply in your effort to learn more about your Government. I have strong feelings about the program which is responsible for your being here--the rural electrification program.

You are a bit young, perhaps, to remember the days when rural America lived in darkness; when farm families gathered in the kitchen in winter because it was the only warm room; when a mother did her sewing and her children did their homework by the flicker of a kerosene lamp.

You are perhaps too young to remember the first days of the REA--that exciting time when lights went on across the land and families went into their front yards at night to see their windows glowing. The farmer and his wife learned then the happiness of being freed from the backbreaking work that had been their heritage.

There are many of us here, though, today who do remember--and for us the greatest proof that all the effort, all the political combat, all the struggle was worth it, is to see the young people who have benefited from our efforts--young people who will never have to remember the darkness.

Rural electrification wasn't an isolated event in our history. It was part of a continuing revolution in America which has brought the marvels of science and technology within the reach of all.

Today we are still in the midst of that revolution. And today, more than ever before, progress brings problems as well as promise.

The pace of change is getting faster. In earlier ages, man had trouble learning to change fast enough, but today we are faced with the difficulty of keeping up with our own progress. We have thrust ourselves headlong into the world of the satellite and the computer--and we have learned again that power to create also means power to destroy, that power to produce means also the power to pollute, that power to change destroys old values.

So you will inherit this technical revolution-and you will face the same question that it poses for your elders: Will man be the master or the servant of his inventions? Will our future be one of growing happiness--or growing confusion?

Before long, you will be able to span this continent--or the Atlantic Ocean--in 2 hours or less. This new mobility will bring its problems--for the old certainties of time and place will never be the same again.

You may someday learn your lessons by engaging in long conversations with a computer. Your diseases will be diagnosed with the help of a computer, and you may gain added life from an artificial heart or transplanted organs. Every one of these developments raises serious questions for you-some of them as deep and mystifying as life itself.

In your future, jobs requiring little imagination can easily be performed by machines; clerical and maintenance work will grow more scarce. Your generation will be required to think seriously about the proper function of human beings--when our old ideas of work are no longer useful to us any more.

In your lifetime, space will become more crowded and less quiet. You will be faced not only with the problem of achieving peace on earth but perhaps on the moon as well.

It will be commonplace for you to see live television programs relayed by satellite from the other side of the world; you will dial telephone calls to Europe and Africa. And this progress, too, will present a problem: What good is it to know more about the world, unless we really understand more?

A while ago I received a report from the National Commission on Technology and the Economy--a study which lays down some very stern challenges for the next 10

years.

By 1975, just a few years away, the experts tell me more than 18 million more Americans will need jobs than in 1964. So we must provide about 1.7 million additional jobs each year for the next 10 years.

More than a million people--perhaps you among them--will leave our rural areas in the next 10 years to live in cities. Will our cities then be able to provide a decent life for this increased population?

By 1975 the demand for unskilled workers will decrease even more--and, as that happens, our obligation to educate and train our citizens will be even greater.

Even as we struggle with the demands of fast change, our Nation must tackle an urgent backlog of unfinished jobs--in education, in health, transportation, pollution control, resource development, recreation.

Who will work to improve our inadequate schools and our libraries?

Who will build the parks and clear the slums?

Who will clean up the countryside and restore our natural resources?

Who will patrol the streets, and operate the hospitals and the rest homes?

Who will staff social welfare agencies, teach in the colleges, and plan the new towns?

Who will lead the way in beautifying the cities and the countryside?

Well, I hope that you will provide the answer--by considering a career in public service.

I made a suggestion several years ago that all of our young people consider offering some of their time to public service. I am glad that you responded to that by coming here today, taking this training, and engaging in this work, even though temporary, in your Nation's Capital.

Our changing future is going to require the talents of more and better public servants than ever before. There can be no higher or more urgent calling for you as you face the future.

But the new age will also require much of those who do not enter public service--the housewives, the businessmen. If we are to solve our problems, our citizens must develop a new sense of citizenship--a new concern for the public good. I pointed this out in our colleges and universities throughout the land. I spoke of it at the University of Nebraska a few years ago. I spoke of it at the University of Kentucky. And I remind you of it again here today.

We simply can't afford any longer the luxury of indifference--the indifference of the manufacturer who pollutes our streams, or the indifference of voters who deny their responsibility to support education.

The future will require more cooperation. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: We must all pull together--or our society could pull apart altogether.

We have come a long way since the days when the farms were lighted for the first time. The journey has brought us problems, but it has also created new possibilities for you--new chances for education, new economic security, new freedom.

Your most stirring possibility is the chance that you have--unequaled, I think, in any other land at any other time--the chance for useful service to your fellow man.

I hope that you will return your gifts of education and wealth and freedom--return them in service, for never was your help more desperately needed in this world.

My generation was blessed with the opportunity to turn on the lights of rural America. As we came along, less than 10 percent of our homes were electrified. Now almost 100 percent of our rural homes are electrified.

But your generation has a far more exciting challenge, and that is to bring the light of education, the light of abundance, the light of good will to all the dark places in this land and this world.

So be sure that by your visit to Washington, by your concern for your Nation's future, you are making a good start toward spreading that light.

Thank you for coming here. I hope you enjoy your stay. I know you will profit by it. And I should like to see each and every one of you spend some time in service to your country.

Thank you and goodby.

Note: The President spoke at 12:30 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Clyde T. Ellis, executive manager, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

The group was composed of about 800 high school students, winners of the 10th annual Rural Electric Youth Day essay contest sponsored by the Association. The weeklong tour of Washington for youths from areas served by rural electric systems was first proposed by President Johnson in 1957 while he was serving as majority leader of the Senate.

The report of the National Commission on Technology, Automation, and Economic Progress (210 pp., processed) was transmitted to the President on January 29, 1966.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to Student Winners of a Contest Sponsored by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238812

Filed Under

Categories

Location

Washington, DC

Simple Search of Our Archives