Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks at a Meeting of the National Alliance of Businessmen.

March 16, 1968

Mr. Ford, Mr. Austin, distinguished Mayors, Mr. Meany, Mr. Young, Mr. Smith, members of the Alliance, distinguished guests:

I wanted to come by here and principally do just one thing: to tell each of you--and through you your families that you have left this weekend--how proud your President is of the business community and of your recognition of the problems that this country faces, and also tell you how much confidence I have in your ability and your leadership to help me do something about these problems that I can't do by myself or I can't do with the other things that are available to me.

In all of my public life, I have never had anything that made me so appreciative as to know that men of Mr. Ford's, Mr. Austin's, and the other business leaders' background, stature, standing, accomplishments, and financial statements, if you please, would have enough concern for their fellow man to give their time, their money, their talent, and their heart to try and do something about it.

So that is why I am here. And I am especially happy to be with you when I think of the alternatives I have. I don't know, but you may have observed that there are several things going on in Washington this morning.

We have the negotiators on the copper strike who are here. There are bankers from all over the world down at the Federal Reserve trying to do something about the gold drain. And then there is the group at the Bobby Kennedy press conference.

But, Henry, I will take the businessman's luncheon every time.

Of course, always in this life that we all live, you have to take your chances. It seems everybody speculates these days. Some people speculate in gold--a primary metal. And some people just go around speculating in primaries.

The press asked for my reaction to the recent activities of the Senator from New York. I don't want to tell you all of my reactions this morning.

But when I read in the 'paper that he had pushed Henry Ford out of the "Meet the Press" program Sunday, I thought he was going too far too early.

If there is anyone anywhere who doubts the future of America, who has any concern about where we are going, I think it would do him good to come here and look into your faces to see where you have been. Then he could understand what our potential is.

You men come here this morning from cities across this Nation.

You have come here not to complain of a crisis, you have come here to meet it.

You have come not to just croak about trouble, but you have come here to tackle it.

You are really pioneers. Today, you are starting off on a journey of very high purpose.

You are launching the most massive and the most urgent job program in the history of this Nation--a job to provide hundreds of thousands of hard-core unemployed jobs in America's largest cities.

The Government is going to undertake to find these men and women and make them available to you.

Your mission is to train them, to hire them, and to try to get from them useful and productive employment.

In short, we want to take people who are destined to be continued taxeaters and through your processing, with some help from us, make out of those taxeaters fellow taxpayers.

Each time you place a jobless man on a payroll, you reduce his drain on you and on the Treasury and on your company. This will help to strengthen the Nation.

So yours is a challenging assignment. But American business has always been equal to its challenges.

There may be more than 500,000 who need your help. If there are, I expect you to meet your goal and then do what the doughboy did in World War I and what your sons are doing now in Vietnam--and what our men did in other wars, who were engaged in World War II and Korea.

So the spirit that brings you here, I think, is the spirit that makes America tick and go.

It is the strength that has guided this country in every crisis and every trial we have ever had. I think it will again.

Earlier this week in the East Room of the White House, I awarded the Medal of Honor to two of our bravest fighting Marines. As I stood there before them, and I heard once again the words "above and beyond the call of duty," I reflected on this. I recognized that not every man is called upon to give above and beyond the call of duty.

Not every man is called upon to give even his full measure of devotion. Not every man is called upon to serve his country, or to exercise his talents and his responsibilities.

But those who carry the burdens of public office must do their duty as they see it. They must do the right thing "as God gives us to see the right."

As your President, I want to say this to you today: We must meet our commitments in the world and in Vietnam. We shall and we are going to win.

To meet the needs of these fighting men, we shall do whatever is required.

We and our allies seek only a just and an honorable peace. We work for that every day--to find some way to settle this matter with the head instead of the hand. We seek nothing else.

The Communists have made it clear that up to now, thus far, they are unwilling to negotiate or to work out a settlement except on the battlefield. If that is what they choose, then we shall win a settlement on the battlefield.

If their position changes--as we fervently hope it will--then we in the United States and our allies are prepared to immediately meet them anywhere, any time, in a spirit of flexibility and understanding and generosity.

But make no mistake about it--I don't want a man in here to go back home thinking otherwise--we are going to win.

At the same time, we have other commitments, other international commitments, and we have very urgent commitments here at home.

All of these commitments ultimately wind up, as you executives know, representing a drain on the Treasury.

To do what must be done means that we must proceed with utmost prudence. We must tighten our belts.

We must adopt an austere program.

We must adopt a program of fiscal soundness.

This week we passed a law removing the useless and burdensome gold cover.

This week the Federal Reserve Board has increased the rediscount rate in an attempt to bring some restraints.

We are meeting at this moment with the members of the Central Banks in the world as well as with the leaders of the Congress. We are talking to the congressional leaders about adjustments and reductions that can be made in our national budget.

Hard choices are going to have to be made in the next few days. Some desirable programs of lesser priority and urgency are going to have to be deferred.

That is why we hope that the free enterprise system--the private employers of America--can help the Government take some of this responsibility. Because every one of these men whom you can employ, help train, and prepare, means one less that the Government has to deal with.

But the key to fiscal responsibility is still unturned according to all the fiscal experts. The key is the penny-on-the-dollar tax bill that is now pending. This tax increase will yield less than half of the $23 billion per year that we returned to the taxpayer in the tax reductions of 1964 and 1965.

We are paying lower tax rates than we have paid any time since World War II. We are in the middle of a war in Vietnam and we have all of these problems here at home.

If we could just go back to the tax rate that was on the books when I became President-before two reductions--we would take in $23 billion more this year. So I appealed to the Congress last week--and I will again next week--and I call upon the Congress now to meet the urgency of the hour with the responsibility that it requires.

Now, with all of these measures taken, our fiscal position is going to be strengthened. We will be able to supply what is needed to win a just and a lasting peace in Vietnam---hopefully at the negotiating table, but on the battlefield if we must.

We will fulfill our commitments abroad and here at home to try to move forward with a program of better health, education, and training for all of our people--more security and better houses for all of our families.

If our economy is strong, we can take care of most of these essential needs--not as quickly as we would like--but soundly, efficiently, and, I hope, adequately.

None of this is going to be easy or pleasant. But I believe that Americans will resolutely bear their share of the burden in helping to meet their needs at home--rather than push us into fiscal chaos or rather than fail to give our fighting sons the help and the support that they need.

As a young man, I grew up hearing a lot of name-calling. Some of it was applied to the economic royalists and the business community and the free enterprise system. I am glad that has gone out of fashion in this country. I have not heard it in several years.

I am glad that Henry Ford, and the mayor of Cleveland, and George Meany can sit here at this table side by side, because they all represent something special to this country-as you do.

Now is the time for us to exercise the patriotism that we have by trying to unite together to support the worthy causes of our country and to try to solve the dangerous problems that our country faces. You are doing that.

This will be a memorable meeting. I hope that they get a picture from the front because I think that every person in this meeting will someday want to point to his children-and if he is fortunate enough, his grandchildren--and say to them: "I was there when this all began, when there was a real awakening on the part of the social consciousness of the business power structure in this country who gave their talents and their money and their time to try to help those who needed help and who could not help themselves."

I am grateful to each of you personally, regardless of what party you belong to, what church you attend, or what section you live in.

You are serving this Nation just as patriotically and as needfully as your sons are serving it who wear the uniform.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10:05 a.m. at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington. In his opening words he referred to Henry Ford II and J. Paul Austin, chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Alliance of Businessmen, George Meany, president, AFL-CIO, Whitney M. Young, Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, and C. R. Smith, Secretary of Commerce. During his remarks he also referred to Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Mayor Carl B. Stokes of Cleveland, Ohio.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks at a Meeting of the National Alliance of Businessmen. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237313

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