Remarks at a Reception at Government House, Melbourne, Australia

Mr. Prime Minister and Mrs. Holt, Mr. Premier and Lady Bolte, Sir Edmund and Dame Mary, Mr. Chief Justice and Lady Winneke, Lord Mayor and Mrs. Beaurepaire, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen:

I have so much in my heart that I would like to tell you that I don't trust myself. I need not convey to you the admiration and affection that I have for the Australian people born in the grim days of World War II and increased and strengthened with each passing year for a quarter of a century.

Our two countries have so much in common. Our two peoples are so much alike that I feel--except for your reception here in Melbourne today--as though I have never left home.

But you gave me something in the reception here that they could never give me at home. Texans have the biggest of nearly everything--except receptions.

I appreciate very much the Prime Minister's generous reference and kind attentions to my wife. I am heartily in agreement with everything he said about her. I would like to add one thing that he didn't say--and I know that all of you who are here on the ground will agree with me: we both outmarried ourselves.

Our nations are, geographically, a world apart. But our roots and our goals, our faith in the future, are one and the same.

Australia, like America, is a nation of newcomers. We have both thrown open our borders to new talent, to enterprise, to ambition. We have applied the dynamics of a free economy and a progressive social policy to the building of a better life for human beings.

The results in Australia are quite plain. Your living standards are among the highest to be found anywhere in the world. Your riches are widely shared and divided among your people.

In America we still fight a war against poverty. Here, poverty and slums are almost unknown.

In America we call ourselves, with great pride, a nation of homeowners. But the percentage of Australians who own their own homes is much higher than ours and makes the blush of shame come to my cheeks.

In America we congratulate ourselves on approaching full employment. But Australia has had full employment since 3 years before I came here in 1942--at least 28 years.

My country still has much to learn from Australia, and about Australians. But we have learned this much

--We know your agricultural technology deserves its worldwide acclaim. By progressive soil enrichment and pest control, you are achieving remarkable productivity and you really serve as a model for the rest of the world.

--We know that your achievements on the land have been matched in your thriving factories. While your exports are still primarily agricultural, more Australians work in industry than work in agriculture.

--We know that the future of your industrial development is bright beyond compare. You are looking forward to doubling your mineral exports in 5 years. I think if I don't get Ed Clark out of here, you may double them in 3 years. Every time I try to increase our own production and I send for the head man, I'm told, "He is visiting Ambassador Clark in Australia." So, you are looking forward to doubling your mineral exports in 5 years and you will triple them in 10 years.

--We know that what you are doing to fulfill Australia's promise requires a great deal of private initiative, wise public policy, a rapid growth of domestic saving, and continued attraction of capital from abroad.

I am proud that more and more Americans are joining Australians in a creative economic partnership that is building the even better Australia of tomorrow.

You are in a goldfish bowl. You are the envy of many nations of the world. You have just begun to move. You have just begun to grow.

This common task challenges us both. The future of your nation offers unlimited opportunity. Vast Australia is still largely untapped, its enormous wealth is waiting to be converted to enrich the lives of its people--the only just use that can ever be made of the resources of our earth.

So this is the challenge that my country knows well, a challenge that we, like you, are still trying to meet. It is a challenge that we today are ready and eager to join you in meeting.

Let us dedicate ourselves tonight not only to building a better Australia, but in building with you a better world.

As we meet here in such a spirit of happiness, there are so many things to be thankful for.

We love peace. We hate war. No one wants to die. Everybody wants to live. We are doing everything that we know to have peace in the world. But it is not a one-way street, you can't make a contract by yourself.

You can't go to a conference and sign a treaty that is unilateral if you are the only one present. Unless and until those ambitious, selfish men recognize and realize this, we must constantly bear this in mind: that aggression doesn't pay, that might doesn't make right, that power cannot go unchecked in the 20th century.

Until they realize that they cannot win, all this talk about peace will be unilateral. When they do recognize that they can't win, that there is nothing to be gained by destroying their own sons and their own land-and a good many of ours--when they do recognize that, then they may be willing, in terms of the Prophet Isaiah, to come and let us reason together.

America knows its responsibility. It goes where it has responsibility. We have answered many roll calls across many oceans.

I am reminded of the time when I went to a neighbor's house to ask a lady if her little boy could go home and spend the weekend with me. He had a brother who was a rather fat little boy. He weighed about 200 and he was about 14 years old. We called him "Bones." He was very properly nicknamed "Bones."

When I insisted to the mother that she let my friend go home with me--he talked about his little brother. Finally the mother said no, he couldn't. He thought that was unjust. He looked up to his mother and said, "Mama, why can't I go home and spend the night with Lyndon?" He said, "Bones has done been two wheres and I haven't been anywheres!"

Well, we have been two wheres several times. In the places we have been, the Australians have been by our side. So I have spent 2 very delightful days, a part of yesterday, last evening, and today, with your honored and distinguished Prime Minister. I have been President 3 years. During that 3 years' time I have received Prime Minister Menzies in the Capital in Washington 3 times. I have received Prime Minister Holt in the Capital 3 times. We have exchanged viewpoints and we continue to give each our very best judgments.

But we need the counsel of each other in these critical times. We need each of you to think about your future and what kind of a world you want to live in. You can't have that kind of a world just by wishing for it. America didn't come into existence just because somebody wished it would. It came into existence because men, good and true, faithful, loyal and fearless, were willing to stand up and fight for freedom and fight for liberty and put that at the highest priority.

As the aggressor marched in the low countries in the late 1930's, and ultimately wound up in World War II, there are aggressors prowling tonight, on the march again.

Their aggression shall not succeed. But I would remind you it is much closer to Melbourne than it is to San Francisco. It is time for you to stop, look, and listen, and decide how much your liberty and your freedom mean to you and what you are willing to pay for it.

If you want to sit back in a rocking chair with a fan and say, "Let the rest of the world go by," you won't have that liberty and that freedom long. Because when a dictator or an aggressor recognizes that you don't cherish it, that you are not willing to fight and die for it, that you are a pushover, then you are the number one objective.

So tonight the American boys, almost half a million of them, have left their families and their homes. They have taken our treasure to the extent of about $2 billion a month to go to the rice paddies of Vietnam to help that little nation of 13 or 14 million try to have the right of self-determination without having a form of government they do not want imposed upon them.

Tonight those brave Aussie lads are there by their side, not half way, not a third of the way, but all the way, to the last drop of their blood, because they are never going to tuck their tails and run. They are never going to surrender.

They are going to stay there until this aggression is checked before it blooms into world war III.

We wish it were not so. But wishing it were not so doesn't make it so. We wish we could transfer it from the battlefield this moment to the conference table, but we can't do it by ourselves. And until we can convince these people that we have the resolution and we have the determination, we have the will and we have the support of our own people, they are not going to come to their senses.

But so far as my country is concerned, don't be misled as the Kaiser was or as Hitler was, by a few irrelevant speeches. We don't fight with bayonets or swords. We don't even throw Molotov cocktails at each other in America. They may chew off an ear and they may knock out a tooth, they may take your necktie or your pocketbooks, but when they call the roll on the defense appropriation bill to support our men at the front, it will be carried 87 to nothing in the Senate.

So don't misjudge our speeches in the Senate. And I would warn all would-be aggressors who think they can march and get away with it, they must not misjudge them either.

Finally, I would say this: In 3 years in office I have seen your previous Prime Minister 3 times and your present Prime Minister 3 times. And I have just asked your indulgence once.

But I have wanted to come back to Australia since I left here 25 years ago and here I am. And I am happy and I am enjoying it. I liked it then and I like it better now.

I must admit I am traveling in a little different manner and in a little different company. That does make it nice.

But your Prime Minister said on the steps of the White House as if he were speaking to the American boys, with more than 100 of them dying every week, that while Australia did not equal our population or our resources that there is no nation in the world that exceeded the Australians in courage, patriotism, and loyalty. When they took their stance by your side you didn't get a crick in your neck looking around to see if they were coming. I found that out 25 years ago in New Guinea.

They may be ahead of you, but they will never be behind you--and they will always be by the side of you.

So the Prime Minister made the observation that they would be with us all the way. He didn't need to say that. I knew that. The boys that had served with them knew that. But some of the newcomers that were fresh may not have known it.

But he said, "LBJ, our men are in Vietnam and we are there and we are with you all the way to check this aggression before it flops over and moves on down."

We are going to Manila to try to find the formula for peace, to try to review our military operations, to try to bring that country closer to representative government, to try to exchange views with the leaders of seven countries who love liberty and who love freedom.

We don't expect any magic wonders; we don't expect any miracles. But we do think that each nation who has men committed to die--their leaders ought to get around the table and get the best thinking of the best men those nations can send.

So I want to thank you for your great welcome, for your delightful 2 days. I have benefited tremendously from meeting with your Cabinet and with your leaders. I would be too sentimental if I told you just exactly how I feel about the Australian people, but I think most of you had rather just judge that for yourselves and let me quit talking.

Thank you very much.