Remarks at a Dinner of the Big Brothers of America.

Mr. Pearson, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Foley, Mr. Donohue, Judge Youngdahl, Mrs. Boggs, Justice Clark, ladies and gentlemen:

I hope it was only a tradition that prevented Drew Pearson from launching into a more generous eulogy in that introduction.

I wanted to get you on the record but we'll have to wait.

I was anxious to come here tonight for two reasons. First, because this dinner honored an outstanding citizen, Ed Foley, whose speech tonight, once again, I think indicates and illustrates why he is held in high regard by so many of the people here, by President Truman and others with whom he has lived and worked. And also because I think this cause which has brought together a good many busy people who have many other obligations and many other interests, is a most important cause to this country.

Drew Pearson had in his article this morning some statistics which I would hope every American would read. And I have three statistics here which I think are important. In the next 10 years 7 1/2 million American young people will drop out of school before they graduate. Two and a half million will not have finished the eighth-grade. In the next 10 years 26 million men and women, boys and girls, 25 years or under will come under the labor market and be looking for jobs. And during that same period of time the jobs available to those who are only semiskilled, who are not well-educated, who are not well-adjusted, who are not well-motivated, those jobs will become less and less.

Now, I feel that we are a city on a hill and that one of our great responsibilities during these days is to make sure that we in this country set an example to the world not only of helping and assisting them to fulfill their own destiny, but also demonstrating what a free people can do. We cannot possibly permit, therefore, the waste of hundreds and thousands of young boys and girls, who grow up in underprivileged areas, many of them in our northern cities, ignored in many cases by their families and their community, who drift into life without hope of ever developing their talents and who ultimately may end up, as so many do, in a life of crime when they're young, which stains their life from then on.

This is a free society, and many people write to me once in a while and say, "Will you say what can we do for America? What are we supposed to do?" Well, I suppose they feel that it might be easier if you could write back and say that you want them to go ashore on a bombarded beach, or to take some action one afternoon which would make a significant difference in the life and survival of our country. But those are not really the responsibilities, the kind of responsibilities which we're going to have to meet in the coming days and years. It's a much slower and more gradual task. There is no final definite responsibility or commitment which we must accept, and if accept, fulfill our responsibility. We must do all the gradual things which are unspectacular and in many cases seem unrewarding--to help a foreign student or to do what you are doing here tonight.

No one in the United States other than those who are associated in your work will possibly recognize that the effort that you make here tonight or, more importantly, that is made week by week, year by year, to assist one, two, or three boys or girls--no one could possibly feel that that represents a significant contribution to the maintenance of our country. But if it's done by enough people for enough periods of time it will represent a significant contribution.

The Government of the United States, the Vice President, or the President, cannot possibly in a free society command, or should they, those actions for the benefit of the state which our adversaries are able to do with ease. These things must be done in a voluntary manner. And they must be done by our own individual impulse. Therefore, I think this work that you are doing is work which is most important in a most important time in the life of our country.

If in that effort you are able by the passage of some hours of a busy life to make a significant difference in the life of one of our fellow Americans, who might, without your help slip into an experience which could prevent him from ever fulfilling his responsibilities to the maximum as a participant in our society, then I would hope you would feel that you've not only met your own obligations as an individual but also as a participating member of a great society.

So I congratulate you tonight and those who are joined with you. This is the sort of thing that I mean when I say what we can do for America.