Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks in Rodney Square, Wilmington, Delaware

October 13, 1966

Governor Terry; Congressman McDowell; my dear friends of many years in the Senate, Senator Allen Frear and Mrs. Frear; Lieutenant Governor Tribbitt; distinguished Mayor; the next Democratic Senator from the great State of Delaware, James Tunnell; your able candidate for Attorney General, Sid Balick; my fellow Democrats, and my fellow Americans:

I won't be here long. I can't speak as much as I would like to, but you are here today because you, I think, care about Delaware. And I am here because I care about Delaware.

You came here today because you care about your country. And I am here today for that same reason. I care about our country, too.

I believe that most of you are here because you believe in the Democratic Party. You want a party that has a program for all the people. You believe in action. And you believe that we are going to get that action when you elect Democrats November 8.

Now in 4 days' time, I shah be departing on a long journey. I am not a candidate for any office this year. But I did not want to leave and be in the Pacific area for almost 3 weeks without fulfilling my promises to Governor Terry and to Congressman McDowell to come here and talk a few minutes to every Delaware family in the sound of my voice about matters that mean a lot to every mother, every father, every boy, and every girl in this fine State.

You are going to be hearing a good many complaints and a good many claims between now and November 8. There are always people who know how to do it better. There are always the critics and the complainers. They will have a good many things to say about your President and your Congress. But we have the right of free speech in this country and people will exercise it. And your President has the right of free speech, too.

I remember in the darkest days when they tried to hoodwink the folks, when they tried to mislead the people, that President Roosevelt used to go on the radio and say, "My friends."

So I came here today to talk to "my friends" because I may not be able to have enough money to tell you over the television, for there are two or three men who determine what goes on the television in this country.

I may not be able to tell you all that I want to tell you by television. And the newspapers don't always publish everything I would like for them to publish.

So I am going to tell you in a very few minutes some of the things that I think you ought to know. You ought to know it for your own good. I want you to know what your President thinks about the 89th Congress. Now since the first Congress met 174 years ago, we have had 89 sessions of Congress.

History records only a few Congresses that earn the mark of greatness.

The first Congress in 1789 clearly deserved that label--for that first Congress helped create our American Government and that first Congress gave meaning to our Constitution.

Another great Congress was the 59th Congress when Theodore Roosevelt was President. That Congress served the needs of all the people and that Congress made the Constitution a living document for all the families of this land.

Now we all know that the 63d Congress in Woodrow Wilson's time and the 73d Congress under that great leader, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, earned the badge of greatness. They extended freedom from economic want and from fear and they gave hope to all the people.

But I want to say this today and I want history to remember it: When the future historians gather, I believe and I predict that they will put this Congress--the 89th Congress, the Congress to which you sent us Harris McDowell, one of the finest Congressmen in Washington today--the historians are going to put the 89th at the top of the list. And we are going to be justified in teaching our children and our children's children it was--The Great Congress.

Now if you remember nothing else that I say today, I beg you to remember these six things--and when you go home this evening you tell your family what your President told you here at high noon today.

- My first point is education.

Education for our children, for tomorrow.

In the 174 years before I became President, 88 Congresses passed only 6 education bills.

Since November 1963 Congress has passed not 6 bills as the first 88 Congresses did, but 18 education bills for the benefit of your children.

In the first 174 years of this Government, Congress appropriated $5 billion 800 million for education, or about $33 million per year.

The 89th Congress will spend $9 billion plus--more than twice as much as all the other 88 Congresses put together or almost $4 billion 800 million per year.

So for 174 years we spent $33 million educating our children. In the last a years we have spent $4 billion 800 million per year on our children. And I don't think I have to spell out any further what that is going to mean for the education, prosperity, and well-being of every child in Delaware.

That is education.

- My second point is health.

There is not anything more important than learning for your mind and health for your body.

In 1960, the last Republican administration appropriated $841 million for health.

This year, this Congress will spend not $841 million but $8 billion 200 million, including Medicare payments, which is ten times as much this year as health got in the last Republican year.

Ten times as much for health. Twice as much for education in all the history of the Government.

We have passed 24 health measures all the way from hospital construction, to dirty air and pollution control, to mental health, to heart, cancer, and stroke, and finally the granddaddy of them all--Medicare.

It will take care of our grandfathers and our grandmothers and we will no longer have to worry about what is going to happen to them when they pass 65--their hospital bills and their doctors.

I don't want you to forget this--November 8--nine out of every ten Republicans in the House voted to recommit Medicare and to kill that bill.

- Now my third point is food.

Education, health, food. Food for the hungry people.

Hunger poisons the mind; it saps the body. It destroys man's hope.

This year the Congress provided assistance to more than five million needy Americans.

Food for freedom, friends, during the 6 years of the Kennedy-Johnson administration practically doubled those of the last 6 years of the Republican administration.

Twice as much food, twice as much education in all the history, ten times as much health care.

In 2 years we saved the taxpayers of this Nation $400 million in dead storage costs storing agricultural commodities. We saved $400 million. We put food in hungry stomachs instead of hungry contractors' concrete storage bins.
Education, health, food.

- My fourth point is conservation, recreation, and beautification.

The 89th Congress passed 20 major conservation measures. This week, I will sign, as President, 7 acts to extend our parks where our children can play, to build scenic waterways, to save our historic sites in our cities, to preserve our national seashores, to open up some land where the people from the city can take their little children on Saturday afternoon and Sunday and their day off.

This year, this Congress will help bring more than one million acres into parks and playgrounds--and many of them are going to be near our cities where the people live and where they work. They can't go all the way to Wyoming, all the way to Montana, all the way to Colorado, to take their children to the park on Saturday afternoon. So we are putting the parks where the people are instead of where they are not.

- Now my fifth point is income.

Education, health, recreation, and income. The Republicans talk about inflation. They have been talking about inflation lately. Well, they ought to talk about it because they are experts on inflation. They are experts on fear and inflation.

In the final 67 months of the Republican administration, the last almost 6 years of the last Republican administration--some of you haven't forgotten it yet, 6 years ago--prices went up 11 percent.

In the 67 months of the Kennedy-Johnson administration, since 1960, prices have gone up. Employment has gone up ten million. Wages have gone up. Disposable income has gone up 20 percent after you allow for the high prices.

But our prices have not gone up yet 11 percent. They have gone up 9 percent compared to their 11 percent.

But listen now--here is the clincher: During the final 67 months of the Republican administration, your personal income--after the high prices--increased a little over 2 percent.

In the 67 months of the Kennedy-Johnson administration, after paying the high prices, you had enough to spend and enough to save at a personal income increase of not 2 percent but 20 percent.

Now, wouldn't you rather have an income increase of 21 percent to pay a 9 percent price increase than to have to pay an 11 percent price increase with a 2 percent income?

I don't think you have to be a Mellon or a Pugh or a DuPont or a Rockefeller or anything to figure that one out. You don't have to know any high mathematics. You don't even have to be successful in business. The average American would rather pay 9 percent higher prices with 21 percent more income than to pay 11 percent prices with 2 percent more income.

And I believe the average Republican would rather do it. That may be why 30 percent of the Republicans supported us in 1964. And we invite all of them to come help us build a better America by voting Democratic this year.

- Now the sixth and final point--and this is it--is peace.

Your 89th Congress has supported your President's efforts to try to find a lasting peace in the world. Everybody wants peace. Everybody hates war. Every boy is afraid to die. All of us want to live as long as we can. But we found in World War I that when dictators were on the march and jumping on helpless people that sometimes you had to have some help. You find it which is why you have a sheriff and why you have enforcement officers. You found it when Hitler went through Poland. We sat back and did nothing for a while. But finally, to save ourselves we had to go in. So we believe we must have a lasting peace by being strong. We believe we must have a lasting peace by keeping our word to 100 little countries that we have told, "We are not going to stand by and let them burn your house down and eat you up."

We believe we should honor our commitments. We believe that we should show the Communists in North Vietnam that they cannot, by aggression, take over their neighbors.

We believe that we should go the last mile to search for the first faint sign to end hostilities.

If anyone asks you the question: "Why don't we go from the battlefield to the conference table?" you can look them straight in the face and say, "I will have our President and our Secretary of State at any conference table any day you can get Mr. Ho Chi Minh and the Communists in Hanoi to go there."

We have said and said and said, in every capital in the world, that we are ready to go from the battlefield to the conference table. But it doesn't do us any good to go into an empty room and talk to ourselves.

Ask some of these friends of yours who find what is wrong with your boys, what is wrong with your country, what is wrong with your Government, and what is wrong with your Secretary of State.

Admit for the sake of argument that we make a lot of mistakes. But say to them: "I looked in their eyes and I believe they will go to a peace conference." Now can't you get some of the folks you are talking about to go there and meet them? I will deliver my man if you can deliver yours.

Now at this moment, right now, another night has fallen out there in Vietnam. There are mothers and fathers in this audience who have boys there. These American fighting men went through another day of testing-not resting and not complaining. They do not shrink from their responsibility because they know that their country keeps their promises. And I am proud to tell you, as their Commander in Chief, that there never was a more patriotic, able, or better-equipped man who put on the uniform than the American serviceman in Vietnam.

He knows that we keep a promise and the complaints don't come from him--not from those that are out there.

We have promises that we must keep, though, and we must keep them here at home: promises to educate our children; promises to the poor, who need hope; promises to the old, who need comfort; promises to small nations, 100 small nations, who want to be free from the aggressor's heel and from the tyrant's demand. Now you are going to make a choice 26 days from now. But many choices like this have been made in our history and the issues are simple.

I hope that you will vote to return a Democratic Congress to Washington to work with your President instead of work against your President. I believe that you want your Government to function efficiently, effectively, and economically. I believe you want to say to the other 120 nations in the world that we are proud of our President and proud of our Congress.

Now, you can't do that if you have a President going in one direction and a Congress going in the other direction. You can't do that if everything your President does the Congress finds something wrong with or everything the Congress does your President finds something wrong with.

I just want to leave this thought with you now: I have talked to you about a six-point program. You can add that up, I guess, if you want to, in one word and that would help you all to remember it:

Food--that is "F." Recreation--that is "R." Jobs and wages and income--that is "I." Education--that is "E." Increased social security, Medicare, and health and nursing homes for our older folks--that is "N." And a strong nation that will defend us and help us get peace--defense--that is "D." That means food and recreation and income and education and nursing homes and defense and that spells out what the Democratic Party stands for: That spells "friend."

Friend of whom? Friend of all American families. So go and vote for the "friends" on November 8. Vote for food and recreation. Vote for income, high wages, and full employment. Vote for education, health, peace, and defense.
Vote "friend" by sending back to Washington one of the greatest Democratic Congressmen you ever sent to Washington, Harris McDowell. And by sending--at least give us one Democratic Senator--Senator Tunnell from the State of Delaware.

Note: The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. at Rodney Square, Wilmington, Del. In his opening words he referred to Governor Charles L. Terry, Jr., Representative Harris B. McDowell, Jr., J. Allen Frear, Jr., Senator from Delaware 1949-1961, and his wife, Lieutenant Governor Sherman W. Tribbitt, Mayor John E. Babiarz of Wilmington, James M. Tunnell, Jr., Democratic candidate for Senator, and Sidney Balick, Democratic candidate for Attorney General, all of Delaware.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks in Rodney Square, Wilmington, Delaware Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238238

Filed Under

Categories

Attributes

Location

Delaware

Simple Search of Our Archives