Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Nancy Williams and members of the very fine Michigan delegation, your distinguished State officials, Members of the United States Senate:
I want to thank each of you and all of you for coming here to meet me this morning. Your happy smiles make us feel at home again in the great industrial metropolis that is admired and envied the world over.
This, I think, is the Labor Day that should be the happiest for the working people of this country since Labor Day was first promulgated in the administration of Grover Cleveland.
We have more to work for, more to enjoy, more to be thankful for. We are blessed in more ways, I think, than we have ever been before.
I came here to Detroit, to Michigan, in 1960, when many of your people in Detroit were unemployed. As I come back here today, most of our people enjoy high employment. Most of our people have high wages. Most of our people have high productivity. Most of our people realize that their children have a better opportunity for good health, good play, good schools--elementary, secondary, vocational, and higher education--than they have ever had before. And that is because your Congressmen and your Senators in the last 3 years have put in the law of this land some 30 health and education bills that we never had before.
We have come here today to honor the man who led the fight for our young, our aged, our workers, and our students, for Medicare and for elementary education, for high wages and high productivity and high employment--and it is higher than it is anywhere else in the world.
It all adds up to one thing: The worker in this land has a higher standard of living than you find anywhere else.
The man who contributed so much to this is the late beloved product of labor, who worked for 9 cents an hour as a boy, and who finished an illustrious career as a Member of the United States Senate and as a leader in all of these movements that I have talked to you about.
We will be seeing you later, but we thank you for coming here now. We remind you that as a result of what you gave us and what Michigan gave the Nation in Pat McNamara, the Nation is better, the workers are better, the children are better, the aged are better, and we are all thankful for it.
Goodby and God bless you.
Note: The President spoke at 10:50 a.m. at the Detroit Municipal Airport. In his opening words, he referred to Mrs. G. Mennen (Nancy) Williams. Later he referred to Patrick V. McNamara, Senator from Michigan from January 3, 1955, until his death on April 30, 1966.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks Upon Arrival in Detroit on Beginning a Trip in Michigan and Ohio Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238791
