Remarks to Student Delegates Attending the 1968 Senate Youth Program.

Distinguished students, ladies and gentlemen:

I understand that you young people hold high elective positions in your schools. It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you here to the East Room in the White House as office holders.

If any of you have decided to run for reelection, I have a word of advice. The only thing that I know that is harder than holding an office is running for an office. So, be sure to preserve your strength--you may need it in the stretch.

I have been hearing so much about young people that I am ready to believe what a columnist had to observe recently: "One of the worst things that can happen to an American child nowadays is youth."

I have not asked you to come here this morning under any pretense that I am going to analyze you. I think enough people have you on the couch already--fussing about your morals and your manners, your hair length, and your hemlines.

But I want to talk instead in the few moments that you have given me, about a subject that intrigues you and disturbs me: How can young Americans influence the policies and events which determine so much of their own lives?

Well, the truth is they can--and they can't.

Mr. Clifford was not the only man who was considered for Secretary of Defense for a period of many months. But I must admit that none of his competition was under 25. There never will be a Senator under 30, or a President under 35--not without a constitutional amendment. Most heads of corporations and universities--most great generals, most scientists, professors, bankers, lawyers, journalists--if you please, most of the so-called "power structure" are not going to be under 30. That is the way it is; and any who say otherwise are only flashing "fool's gold."

But I am not here this morning to discourage you. I recognize your restlessness. And I welcome what someone has written of you:

"Probably the most powerful head of steam ever created is that of young people trying to set on fire a world that they think is all wet."

But we must ask ourselves this question: How can this youthful head of steam become a constructive force in our national policy? How can your restlessness and your drive be satisfied--so that all America gains from your energies and from your ideals?

We have found many of the answers. But we must find more. Young people may have less power than they want. But let me tell you this: Many of you have a great deal more power than you think.

The longer I work in this house, the more I see how sensitive this Government is, how strongly it responds to the people's needs and desires. When the American people say something, when they really care about something--then the American system really works. It works not only for those over 30, but it works for those under 30 as well.

It works best not for those who "turn off" or those who "drop out"--but particularly for those who "butt in." And that is what I would remember--and recommend to those of you who want to change the world. I would suggest to you: "butt in", "butt in" to politics, "butt in" to politics hard, and loud, and clear; and then you have a chance to change the world from within.

You have something else going for you. Hard as it is for you to believe now, you are not going to be 17 or 18 forever.

But the basic power and the great advantage of youth is staying power. When these tense moments that we undergo today are just footnotes in our history, you young men and women are going to be running this Nation. It will be your turn then to cope with the tense moments that come your way. It will be you who confront them in government and business and science, and every field of human endeavor. I might add that your time of testing--the time when you will have the opportunity and responsibility to demonstrate your wisdom and to accept your responsibility--may be closer than you think. Look around this room and this house. Look at the faces of the people who labor here and those who turn off the switches after midnight every night. The men and women who make the White House go and really make it tick, who really keep this country moving, are generally your kind, mostly young, some of them not even 30, most of them under 40.

So, as you can see, youth always wins in the long run. And I think that is something that each of you will do well to remember.

Your Government's responsibility to you is to create the widest possible range of opportunities for your talents to exploit. Where those talents are threatened by disease, or by prejudice, or by poverty; wherever youth is wasted by circumstance--there is where a responsible government should and must intervene.

Not to write your ticket for you; but to set you free to write your ticket for yourselves.

That is what we are trying so hard to do. What I hope you will do is take advantage of these opportunities that you have---opportunities that are greater now for more of our people, for more of our youth, than they have ever been in the history of man.

That, really, is youth's real power. You have only to reach out and to seize it and thus to shape your own society. Let me ask you this question: How many young people in other countries can claim the power that you possess? What other generation has ever had your chance to speak up, to stand out, to make the world what you want to make it?

Make no mistake. When you young people speak up, people around here sit up. You won't see many people wearing hearing aids in the White House. You won't find anyone in this administration who wants to tune you out. We hear you. We want you. We need you considerably more, I think, than any of you may know.

I have spent 37 years of my life in government. If I have learned one thing in those 37 years it may be that the most important instrument of government is the ear.

I will go further than that. I use it about 20 hours a day. The test and the art of leadership and democracy is not the hand that rules, but the heart that hears.

I want to leave you with a promise. That promise is this: So long as I lead, you will be heard.

I have been listening to young voices all of my life, and other voices too.

This morning I am reminded of a voice that I heard more than 30 years ago when I was quite a young man. I was stirred, stirred by the eloquence of Franklin Roosevelt, who said: "The destiny of American youth is the destiny of America."

Some may ask today: What is our destiny?

Well, I believe I know the answer.

I look at you young people--the smartest, the healthiest, the most prosperous, the best dressed, with more creature comforts and more advantages than your fathers or your grandfathers ever dreamed of, and yet you are the most straightforward and you are the most concerned generation that I have ever seen in all of my life. I draw a conclusion from that. I look at you and I know that America is going to make it--and America is going to make it big.

Thank you very much.