Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks Upon Accepting a Portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

January 31, 1967

Mrs. James Halsted, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., John Roosevelt, Madame Shoumatoff, members of the Roosevelt family, and friends of President Roosevelt:

The Presidency is a hazardous duty job-and I have learned recently that danger can lurk in unsuspected places: portrait-unveilings, for example.

But I am glad to join all of you for this one. Because it gives me an opportunity to speak not as a judge of painting, but as a judge of men.

I was a proud friend and follower of President Franklin Roosevelt.

For me, and for millions of others, any likeness of this man is an inspiration.

His face and his voice became symbols, in that other time of testing, of man's power to overcome.

President Roosevelt overcame a sheltered and privileged background to become a friend of the simple and the poor and the forgotten.

He overcame great personal tragedy and great pain--which was with him all the time--to become a living example of zest, courage, bravery, and vitality.

And he was even much more than all of these. President Roosevelt was a political leader of the first rank, whose political skill led his countrymen to recovery from depression and to victory in war.

As Mrs. Johnson was speaking, I was looking over this group. I saw a distinguished and colorful face of a man who is now a Member of the House of Representatives, who was formerly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

At one period, in the darkest days just prior to World War II, I think his was the only voice on that committee that spoke the thoughts of President Roosevelt. But he spoke them eloquently and he spoke them courageously, even though alone. His name wasn't called, but I want him to stand, too-Claude Pepper of Florida.

I was a new congressional secretary in March 1933 when President Roosevelt mounted the platform and that day quoted from Proverbs: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

The people he spoke to then believed that their nation had come to a dead end. One out of every four Americans in that period was without work, with no job. A few months before, the bonus marchers had been chased away from Pennsylvania Avenue to the Anacostia flats. President Roosevelt gave them hope--and he also gave them progress.

He knew that leadership requires not only vision but the skill to move men and to build institutions. And like every one of our great Presidents, President Roosevelt was a great politician. He proved again and again that politics--scorned by so many-is an honorable calling.

For his efforts, he won the admiration of most men. But he suffered the abuse of many. Ever since his day, his successors have found encouragement in remembering how many doubters plagued "that man in the White House." He endured them cheerfully for more years than any other President has ever spent in this house.

"One day," President Roosevelt said, "a generation may possess this land, blessed beyond anything we now know; blessed with those things, material and spiritual, that make a man's life more abundant." Well, we are richer in those things now than we were in his day. But we have not stopped working.

This painting will--as long as I am President-hang in my office where I can see it and where I need it. I hope that all who view it there will see in it eternal evidence that times of trial can bring out the best in men--and can bring out the best in nations.

This is somewhat of a homecoming for me. If I may, I am going to take off early this afternoon and visit with all of you, too many names to call, but all to whom President Roosevelt meant as much as he did to us.

Mrs. Johnson and I are so glad that you could come and be here with us on this occasion. We do so much thank you, Madame, because this is a portrait that I like.

Note: The President spoke at 4:50 p.m. in the East Room at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Anna Roosevelt Halsted, daughter of the late President, to his sons Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. and John A. Roosevelt, and to Madame Elizabeth Shoumatoff, the artist who painted the portrait.

See also Item 21.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks Upon Accepting a Portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238253

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