Remarks to the YMCA Youth Governors.

Distinguished Governors, and friends:

This is the second year that I welcome the YMCA Youth Governors to the White House. Speaker Sam Rayburn told me a long time ago that the way to stay young is to associate with young people. So my motives for meeting with you here on this late afternoon are not entirely unselfish.

The bond which unites you and which brings you here today is your deep interest in the process of the government of your country.

I hope that this interest will expand into service for your country, for government today needs your vitality and intelligence if it is to meet its growing responsibilities in this troubled world.

You may not be aware that half of the people in the United States are now under 30 years of age. The proportion is increasing. So if we are to achieve all of our many national goals, it is youth who will have to do it.

Your generation is perhaps the first in history for whom change is a normal way of life. You are inheriting a world that is filled with crisis and danger, but it is also a world that is filled with unlimited promise.

Since you were in elementary school, man has found the means to explore outer space. One barrier after another is falling to this surge of scientific progress.

Nine out of ten drugs and medicines that are used against disease today have been developed since you were in the first grade.

Mankind has doubled its store of scientific knowledge--doubled it just since you were born.

More new nations have emerged in 20 years than in the previous 200 years.

These are just a few of the indicators of the rapid change that is taking place in the world in which you live.

Every person is shaped not only by his family and his schooling, but is shaped as well by the time in which he lives.

So today's age of change has produced in you a hunger for change, too.

Your generation all over the world demands more freedom than mine ever asked for.

There has never been a more restless desire for liberty, for self-government, for education, for good health, and for personal attainment.

Our Government has placed itself firmly behind all of these hopes and aspirations for human progress. This is our natural role in history. But I must remind you although it is our natural role, it is not an easy role.

So as you move toward adult leadership, no one can promise you that you will not face the same problems and perils that we have always faced. Your future is by no means guaranteed. You will have to reach out for it. You will have to work every day for it. I ask each of you to work with me on your problems of today, and to solve them for the sake of your tomorrow.

The opportunities are all around you. For example, every 10 years in this country we hold a White House conference to discuss the needs and the opportunities of the young people in the United States of America. The last one was held in 1960. And so today I am asking Secretary Gardner of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to begin planning for the next conference in 1970. It is not too early to plan ahead. We are looking 4 years down the road because tomorrow is coming up very fast behind us.

I have asked Secretary Gardner to pump some young blood into that conference. I don't think we should just bring teachers, parents, and other older citizens to Washington to discuss young people's problems and tell young people what they ought to do while they are young. I want some of you here. Your President and your Government want young America here, not just to listen but to be listened to.

When this conference convenes, it could take its theme from something that Emerson wrote a long time ago. It seems to fit your era even better than his. He wrote:

"If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of revolution . . . when the energies of all men are searched by fear and hope . . . when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one--if we but know what to do with it."

I think this, too, is a very good time. I hope that you know what to do with it. It is the destiny of your generation to take this new world of limitless opportunity and to make it far better than it is.

You have come here today to the White House, the first house of your land. You can come saying that you are proud, through your leadership and achievement, that you have already begun this task. You have much to be thankful for, much to be proud of. And we, too--those of us who look to you for leadership--know that we are going to be proud of you in the years ahead.

Thank you very much.