Remarks at a Testimonial Dinner in Beaumont, Texas, for Representative Jack Brooks

My good friend, Congressman Jack Brooks, Mrs. Brooks, Congressman and Mrs. Jake Pickle, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, fudge Fisher, my very dear friends of Jefferson County and this entire district:

This has been a very delightful and very productive day for me. I can think of no way that I would enjoy concluding it more than doing just what I am doing here tonight.

I have come here to pay a tribute to a good friend and a great Congressman, the husband of Charlotte Brooks.

I have always thought that an appropriate time for me to announce any major political decision that I had in mind would be at a dinner in honor of a good friend, in your home State, among the people you love. I have never forgotten that Jefferson County made the difference in one of my landslide races.

Therefore, I am announcing tonight that there will be an investigation of the elevator industry and why they get stuck and I am going to be the first witness.¹

I must say it is a great pleasure for me to see so many smiling, friendly faces in one large room. In fact, this audience looks so friendly that I had a somewhat difficult time believing that you were all Democrats.

And after I saw all of these tuxedoes, I knew you weren't all Democrats. But it is almost enough to make a man believe in consensus again.

People sometimes ask me if some of the party bickering that we have from time to time doesn't bother me a great deal. I have to say in all candor--all candor--that I have been a politician long enough to prize party harmony above just about anything-and I have been a Democrat long enough never to really expect it.

As one of our great humorists once said, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

But I have learned something else over the years. I have learned that Democrats do their fighting before they have chosen the candidate-but once the candidate is named, we then have time to put aside our differences and to unite for victory.

I have read enough history to know that, after all, I have had it pretty easy and I shouldn't feel very sorry for myself compared to other Democratic Presidents.

Thomas Jefferson got along so miserably with his own Vice President, Aaron Burr, that Burr used to vote against him on all the major bills in the United States Senate. Burr finally joined up with the Federalists to defeat Jefferson in the next election.

Andrew Jackson had it even worse. As soon as he was elected, his party split right down the square middle. His Vice President, John C. Calhoun, caused so much trouble that Jackson finally had to dissolve his entire Cabinet to get rid of the Calhoun supporters in his own Cabinet.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was called every name in the book and some of them that never had gotten in the book. Then they made up some new names when he decided he would break precedent and run for a third term.

In 1940, with most of Europe in flames, four Democratic Senators, opposing mobilization-and remember we passed the draft act by a vote of 203 to 202 in August before Pearl Harbor in December--said that President Roosevelt could negotiate a just peace-that is with Hitler--if he would only make an effort.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

I suppose some of you are young enough to remember Harry Truman's plight. They tried to deprive President Truman of the nomination in 1948. They kept him sitting out in the anteroom until way after the midnight hours. And when he had the courage to fight naked aggression in South Korea, his poll of something over 60 dropped to something over 20--the lowest point in modern times--because he stood and fought for what he believed was right.

So you see, actually when you take everything else into consideration, I am leading a rather tranquil and somewhat united party, by comparison.

I am on very excellent terms--at least I was this afternoon--with my Vice President. I enjoy the cooperation most all the time of my congressional leaders. I don't have two splinter groups with their own political ambitions chawing at me from either side as President Truman did--at least I don't have them yet, anyway.

So I am not too concerned really about party conflicts. Next summer when the national convention chooses the nominee-whoever it may be--then I believe all the strays will come back to the fold. And we are going to welcome them with open arms.

In the meantime, I stopped off here in Beaumont tonight to tell you how very proud I am that you have produced men like Jack Brooks and sent him to the Congress--men who aren't afraid to stand up and be counted and represent all the people all the time.

Now, you have heard a lot about credibility and credibility gaps. And I thought, as I was driving over here, before I said all that was in my heart to say about Jack, I ought to tell you a story about Darrell Royal ² sending one of his all-Americans up to play on the Washington Redskins team--trying to at least get an assignment there.

He was a proud Texan. He was being interviewed by Otto Graham.³ And Graham said, "Tell me about yourself, young man. I know you made all-American. I know you are from the University of Texas and I know you are a triple-threat man, but just give me some specifics."

And the youngster summoned up all of his Texas courage and said, "Well, Mr. Graham, I can run the 100 yards in a little less than 10 seconds on a muddy field. I was the principal passer on our championship team. We have a lot of wind in football season down our way. My average pass was 64 yards against the wind last year."

And Graham said, "Well, what about your punting?"

He said, "71 yards, sir, average for the season."

"Well," Graham said, "that is very good. All of us have our pluses and our minuses. There are some good things and some bad, and you have a remarkable record of good things. Now, tell me some of the bad things about yourself." "Well," he said, "Coach, I guess I do exaggerate a little."

So if I do appear to be generous with Jack, I hope you will not charge it to my credibility, but to my generosity and to, maybe, my Texas exaggeration.

Jack Brooks is a man of unusual courage and great conviction and always possessed with great compassion.

He and I just left the old folks' home where the brightest thing in their life was a $10 or $12 increase in their social security check.

Every person who bought a ticket here tonight could have given them that increase for one full year.

Jack Brooks is a steadfast man who doesn't panic by the harsh headlines of the hour.

Jack Brooks is a pretty good carpenter. And I have seen the results of his efforts right here in Southeast Texas and I have been on the receiving end of some of his pleas. I have seen it from Beaumont to Galveston. I have seen it in new roads, new channels, new dams, new seawalls, new ports, new bridges, and what have you.

Most of all, I have seen it in new and growing industries.

Jack is a fellow that believes in the greatest good for the greatest number. He is a progressive man without being radical. He is a prudent man without being reactionary. And what do you expect to get out of your Congressman, if you have got all that?

The thing that I like to see that has flowed from his efforts and the efforts of others like him and those of you who support him is the faces of the working people of this district--earning good wages, living in good houses. I have looked at your bank deposits. I have looked at your corporation profits. I have looked at the prosperity that we enjoy in this Nation and particularly in this district.

Jack Brooks made a speech not long ago when he said, "What we seek is not security from the cradle to the grave, but what we seek is opportunity from the cradle to the grave--for every citizen."

He took advantage of his opportunity. He got tired of selling newspapers. He became a reporter and got in the Texas Legislature. He moved on up the ladder to one of our senior Congressmen.

While he is still young in years, he is old in experience and seniority. And he has just begun to move. You haven't heard the last of him yet.

This very day, today, is a birthday for your country. Today, this Nation is celebrating that birthday. It marks the seventh long year of the longest period of uninterrupted prosperity that America has ever known.

And that has been brought about by Republican managers and Democratic workers, or vice versa.

That has been brought about by private enterprise and public enterprise. That has been brought about by Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and men of all races and all religions and all regions.

But in these 7 years, our total production has grown by more than $300 billion. It has grown more in these 7 years than our total production 18 years ago. Our total production when I went to Washington--and I don't think I am too old a man--it is just 15 times more than it was when I went to Washington.

Purchasing power since 1960 per person, has risen 29 percent--oh, you say, the price has gone up, but that is after the price increases--up 29 percent.

Corporate profits since 1960--after taxes-have risen by 93 percent.

This prosperity has given us more than luxury and a great deal more than leisure. It has given us the opportunity for the first time, really, in our history, to try to attack the ancient enemies of mankind. And what are these real enemies of mankind? They are the sickness that I saw where you have diseased bodies, advanced age, and crippled bones. Illiteracy--boys and girls that never learned to read or write or never got through grade school. Human misery--broken homes, acquired bad habits, LSD, marijuana. poverty--between 20 and 30 percent of our people are still at the bottom of the ladder.

Some of us get so high up that we can't see down. But that doesn't mean that those down there are not still there and that we don't have to live with them and live by them.

This administration is trying to do something about those things.

When President Eisenhower left the Presidency, he was spending $3 billion a year on manpower training---equipping people to become skilled people to work.

President Kennedy raised that training program to $4 billion.

Men like Jack Brooks in the last 4 years have moved it from $4 billion to $12 billion, which means just about three times the efforts made to train people to hold jobs-and that is why more people are working tonight than have ever worked in this country before and unemployment is at its lowest level.

President Eisenhower did the very best he could for the poor people of this country. His Federal budget contained $9 1/2 billion for the poor.

President Kennedy was a champion of the poor--and the poor had a lot to do with electing him to the Presidency. He moved that $9 1/2 billion up to $12 billion in his 3 years in office.

This year the budget contains not $9 billion, not $12 billion, but $28 billion for the poor.

Health--we have passed 24 health bills in the last 3 years--more than have been passed by all 35 Presidents who preceded us.

Who can be against doing something about health? They did fight Medicare from Truman's day until my day. But there hasn't been one bill introduced to repeal it. They dare not.

Education--we have passed 18 education bills--more than have been passed in all the 35 Presidential administrations before.

Conservation--except for the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, we have probably brought more land into the public domain than any other administration. For the first time we have brought more in than we took out.

The social security bill this year is the largest single increase in the history of the Nation--$5 billion. That is more than the whole Federal budget when I went to Washington-just the increase this year in social security, the bill I just signed in December, that gave them an average increase of 16 percent.

In health, education, welfare, and security-when President Eisenhower left that office in 1960, we were spending $19 billion for the health of our citizens, for the education of our children, for the welfare of our people, and for the security in old age.

President Kennedy moved that $19 billion up to $24 billion. The budget this year has $48 billion for health, education, and welfare.

Some people think that we are neglecting the home front while we defend freedom wherever it is attacked in the world.

Jack Brooks' voting record reflects a concern for every citizen in this district--from the oldest that we just left to the youngest that we just saw in the lobby. From the richest--some of whom are in this room-to the poorest--who are on the other side of the tracks.

I don't want to pin a label on him because he defies labels.

But I will just say this: He is an able, he is a dedicated, and he is a good public servant.

I don't know much more that I can say except to say that a man who has served you long and well as he has, a man who wore the uniform when our Nation was challenged, a man who supports the men in uniform tonight, is certainly worthy of what you good people have done by according him this honor.

And you have accorded me a great honor in asking me to come by here tonight and giving me this warm welcome.

I am leaving here real early in the morning to go up to Marietta, Georgia. There, the workmen of this country, the industrial genius and management of this land, the technology of the 20th century will roll off of the production lines the first Lockheed C-5A, which is a new jet transport aircraft.

It will be a first in moving great numbers of men great distances.

I spent a weekend a couple of weeks ago telling members of the 82d Airborne that I was sending back to Vietnam--most of them had been there once--and telling members of the Marine Corps that I was sending back to Vietnam--practically all of them had been there several times--and telling the crew of the Constellation carrier that was in port getting refurnished to go back again how much they had done for their country, and how much we in their country wanted some day to do for them.

I stood there on the steps of one of our C-130's as these husky men of the 82d Airborne, with that patch that they wear with such pride, with sad faces told their wives and their mothers goodby, and with a quick step marched onto that plane knowing that in 24 hours they would be landed in the I Corps area of Vietnam where the fighting is the hottest.

There was a time when a man was sent overseas when he had 24 days to get there. There is not much consolation knowing that when you tell your wife goodby that they are going to be shooting at you in 24 hours. But this wasn't a time for consolation.

I shook their hands and felt the strong response as they got on that plane.

Then I went on to California--this was in North Carolina at the headquarters at Fort Bragg. I went on to California to El Toro. And I told the Marines goodby.

It is Jack's old outfit. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

And I will give you a rule, if you need any advice--don't ever take on the Marines, here or abroad.

President Truman took them on here one time, much to his sorrow.

But some of these men are not only so well prepared to serve their country, so dedicated to what we stand for, but so determined to do it that I want to tell you this story, because it pulled my heartstrings out. It touched me to the core.

I asked most of them--I would stop every second or third man, and say, "Where are you from?" And he would say, "Iowa, sir," or "Illinois, sir," or "New York, sir," or "Texas, sir." We had a goodly number of them from Texas. One of them was from Lampasas, Texas, right near my backyard.

This young Negro man stood straight and at attention. And I said, "What is your State?" He said, "Ohio, sir." And I said, "Have you been to Vietnam before? .... Four times, sir." That kind of brought me down-cut me down to size.

And I said, "Do you have a family?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, how many are there in your family? .... One boy, sir." I said, "How old?" And it just looked like I was asking for it every time. He said, "Born yesterday morning."

Now, when you love your country enough to go and expose yourself to death four times in 5 years, and to leave your baby boy that was born yesterday morning, you have a right to be proud of your citizenship.

We have a right to be proud of those 500,000 men who are out there defending us because if they weren't defending us there, in my judgment, many more hundreds of thousands would have to be defending us nearer home.

They are giving a good account of themselves. When I explained to them why I had to ask them to go back the second time-the 82d Airborne, the Marines to go back-some of them the third and fourth time, I tried to make it as simple as I could.

I said, "There is no human in the world that wants peace any more than your President."

Nearly every man and woman in the United States wants peace, just like I think nearly every man and woman would like to be worth a million dollars---but wanting it and getting it are two different things.

On more than 30 occasions, neutral nations, or mediators or would-be negotiators, have made proposals that the United States has accepted and in each and every instance the other side has turned down.

We have said to the enemy that we seek nothing in Vietnam except for the people of South Vietnam to have the right to determine their government by self-determination and not have it imposed upon them from the outside.

Mr. Ho Chi Minh is determined to impose it upon them from the outside. The South Vietnamese have an elected President, an elected Vice President, an elected Senate, and an elected House--in a constitutional election.

But Mr. Ho Chi Minh, who has never been elected to anything in his life, has determined that his might will make right and that he will take that little country.

We are pledged to them. It is not a commitment that I made, but a commitment that the United States made. That is a pretty big commitment--the United States promise in 1954 that "in the face of common danger" we will respond to your need.

So we are responding. And until he is willing to leave his neighbor alone, we are going to be there defending that neighbor.

Now, there are some people who think there are better courses. There are some people who think that you can have peace. Well, I am ready and in the market for their proposals tomorrow morning.

I examine every suggestion that comes to me. The best trained minds of this Nation do the same thing.

I asked the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense only yesterday to take Senator X's speech, and take Senator Y's television appearance, and take Senator Z's statement, and take General So-and-so and analyze them all and see if there is any alternative plan they have that we could profit from.

The President of the United States--not because it is me--any President has the best trained men whom West Point and other academies can turn out to lead our armies. They are not Johnson City boys. They are the best that our military academies can turn out.

Mr. Rayburn said one time about George Marshall--he said General Marshall wanted him to go look at the atomic bomb project. He wanted $2 billion and he couldn't tell him what he wanted it for. Now, he said: "If we can beat the Germans to it, we will win the war, and if we don't, we will lose it. I want you to appropriate $2 billion. I can't tell you what it is for. I can't put it in writing."

Mr. Rayburn said, "Well, I am going to give you the $2 billion. If the Germans beat us to it, why, I will have to resign because I will be defeated. But if you tell me you need it and you have got to have it, I am going to give it to you because if you don't know more about this war than I do, we have wasted a hell of a lot of money on West Point all of these years."

We have the most competent generals and we have the most skilled diplomats--and the general doesn't like to die or doesn't like to fight any more than you do. He is just as afraid of death as you are.

Secretary Rusk wants peace more than anybody, even maybe a little bit more than I do, because he has been working for it all through the Korean episode. He is a Georgia boy who is a Rhodes Scholar, who was head of the Rockefeller Foundation, who gave up dozens of thousands of dollars a year to come down and take the brutal treatment that always comes to any public servant who serves as Secretary of State.

But he is there tonight and working all day Sunday trying to find some way to do it. Now, if there is a way, we are going to find it.

But in the meantime, we are going to support those men out there. We are going to try to find peace with honor. We are not going to be quislings, and we are not going to be appeasers, and we are not going to cut and run.

At the same time we are going to do all we can to avoid a wider war. We are not going to fight the war that Asians ought to fight for themselves. The South Vietnamese are drafting this month all their 19-year-olds. In June, they will get their 18-year-olds although our average draftee is 20.4 years old.

If we had drafted as many men according to our population as they have drafted, instead of our having a little over 3 million in our service, we would have 9 million.

If we had lost as many men according to our population as the South Vietnamese have lost--you hear all of these ugly things about it--it wouldn't be 19,000--it would be hundreds of thousands.

The South Vietnamese have much to be desired. I don't think you can compare the American people to any other people and certainly not to the people of Southeast Asia. They die at 35 or 40 years of age. Their annual per capita income is less than $100 a year.

You cannot expect and you cannot get as much from them as you can get from that Marine whose baby boy was born yesterday morning. They have their weaknesses. Certainly, they have corruption just like we have in Boston, in New York, in Washington, and in Johnson City.

There is somebody stealing something in Beaumont right now.

Of course, they have their inefficiencies. You change officers every now and then because you think the one you had is not efficient. We are doing our best to get them to be as free from corruption as is possible.

We are doing our best to get as much efficiency in that government as we can get, just like I try to improve on my wife's ways of life. She is constantly working on me. But I don't think that it behooves either of us to come out here and say to the world that "Lady Bird is no good" and for her to say that her husband is no good, and that he is corrupt, inefficient, and incompetent.

We cannot win a war that way and we cannot win an election that way.

When you hear these people going over all those things, you just have to ask yourself, "What good is going to come from that kind of talk?" They are our allies. We want to improve them. Now, is that talk really improving them?

I said to Ambassador Bunker and General Westmoreland when I talked to them one time several months ago to see if they couldn't stretch just a little bit to meet some of this criticism in this country by improving the situation there--and both of them said to me: "We are just going to push it just for all we can, but remember this, Mr. President, and never lose sight of it: There is a great danger that if we push it to the breaking point, we will wind up with worse than we have."

So during these perilous times, I think that you all should know that we are not seeking aggrandizement. We do not covet anybody's territory. We do believe that if Hitler starts marching across the face of Europe that we ought not wait until the last minute to let him know that might doesn't make right.

And if Communist nations in Southeast Asia start invading their neighbors that we have a treaty with and a solemn obligation and a contract with, we have got to let them know that might doesn't make right. And we are doing that.

So I just ask you to try to remember that your leaders are just as concerned with the frustrations, the tribulations, and the problems today as you are. They are just trying to do as much as they know how about it.

I hope that any help you can give us, you will give us, any strength you can lend us, you will lend us, and any prayers that you can extend to us will be extended because I believe that in the end right will prevail. And I know we are right.

Thank you, and good night.