Remarks in Seattle at the Silver Anniversary Dinner Honoring Senator Magnuson

Senator Jackson, "Maggy," Governor Rosellini, my former colleagues from the Senate, Mrs. Green, Congressman Magnuson, Congresswoman Hansen, Mike Kirwan, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my great pleasure at being with you here tonight in honor of our distinguished friend, Senator Magnuson.

Most Members of the Senate, as you can already judge, have developed the art of speaking with precision and clarity and force. The secret of Senator Magnuson's meteoric Senate career has been the reverse. He may make clear speeches to you on great public questions, but in Washington he speaks in the Senate so quietly that few can hear him. He looks down at his desk--he comes into the Senate late in the afternoon-he is very hesitant about interrupting other Members of the Senate--when he rises to speak, most Members of the Senate have left--he sends his messages up to the Senate and everyone says "What is it?" And Senator Magnuson says, "It's nothing important." And Grand Coulee Dam is built.

Today he drove me through the town and pointed out a $12 million Federal building at this new scientific center. And he said, "You remember when you voted for that?"

This summer two Senators from the East who had developed the art of speaking clearly asked for a small amount of money in order to have a study made of a possible contribution to their World's Fair. They explained this carefully to Members of the Senate--answered all questions--and it was overwhelmingly rejected.

So it was necessary, therefore, for me to be here tonight. I'm glad to be here also with "Scoop" Jackson, who carries on as a Member of the Senate, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, as chairman of the Subcommittee on the Military Uses of Atomic Energy, for the Atomic Energy Committee, and also for some of its peacetime uses at Hanford and other places, and who has spoken for this State and this country-and with other Senators from the West and from the East.

I was appreciative of what was said about Mike Kirwan, who they said did more for the development of the Northwest United States, perhaps, than any man, but who came, as you noticed, from the State of Ohio. He recognizes that the Northwest United States is as much a part of Ohio as Ohio is a part of the United States; and therefore it is quite natural that Senator Muskie should come from Maine to Washington tonight, or that I should come from the Capital in Washington to this State of Washington, that Jennings Randolph should come from West Virginia--that friends from all sections of this country should come here and pay tribute to Senator Magnuson--should come here in friendship with Senator Jackson, to join the Members of the Congress from the Northwest United States in re-affirming their commitment to the development of this section of the country and this section of America.

This country from its earliest inception has been divided between those who prophesied doom and gloom for the future and those who recognized that their brightest hopes for this country would be more than fulfilled. That has been true of the career of Senator Magnuson. In the 25 years that he has served in the Congress, he has seen the Northwest United States move steadily ahead.

All those who planned for the future of this section of the country--the power, the wood, the reclamation, the conservation-all of those programs which were so strongly opposed in their inception, have in fact all proved to be inadequate. Those who bet on the United States, in the long run have proved to be correct. Those who have been bold about this country have seen their great predictions and estimations come true.

When he was elected, this State and country was in despair and a front page story on November 1 by a distinguished newspaper of this city predicted the closest electoral vote in 1936 since 1916--and warned that the people of the United States would be in for a surprise--and so would the Roosevelt regime. They predicted a gain of 50 to 80 seats for another party. And they said that FDR had made his biggest mistake in the 1936 campaign in discussing social security. But on the following day the Seattle Times reported two noteworthy-events, the re-election of Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide majority and the election of King County's prosecuting attorney, Warren G. Magnuson, described in that story as handsome and young, as a Member of the Congress of the United States.

This State was half sagebrush. The Columbia River ran unharnessed to the sea. There was no atomic energy plant at Hanford, no aluminum plants, no dams or locks, no up-river navigation. Today there are more than a million acres of new fertile farmland, more than 50,000 men working in the aluminum plants, millions of kilowatts of electrical energy are produced by a vast complex of hydro-electric power plants--the Columbia has been largely tamed and great ships sail its waters.

Senator Magnuson, Senator Jackson, the Members of the Congress, Presidents of the United States, have committed themselves to this program, because they recognized 10, 15, 20, 25 years ago that this country was going to explode--in people--in resources and things--and that we must plan for them.

I visited today the University of Washington which was founded in this country's darkest days a hundred years ago. It was rounded because a hundred years before a group of men who regarded the Northwest United States as Michigan and the States around it, committed themselves to educating the people of this country.

Now that University and your State University and Seattle will in the next 10 years have twice as many young boys and girls applying for admission to those colleges as there are today. In our large universities in every State we are going to have to build more buildings in the next 10 years than have been built in the whole history of this country. And what is true in education is true in power, in land, in housing, and the rest.

And therefore those who say in 1961 "We've had enough," those who wish to stand still, those who wish to stand against all programs which commit us to the growth of this country, are as wrong today as they were 25 years ago.

Those who say that the United States should not commit itself to being a leader in the peacetime use of atomic energy-those who say we should waste those re-sources which we have now in the Northwest and which have been fought for by Senator Jackson at Hanford--those who say no to this country, I believe are going to find as time goes on, in the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, that all their predictions of failure and disaster will have been proved as wrong as they have been in the last 25 years.

And when we gather together, old and tired, while "Maggy" is young and handsome on his 50th anniversary, we will realize that this country is moving ahead steadily.

We bet on this country. We believe in its prospects, and we are ready to face what difficulties there are in our time.

Senator Anderson reminded me tonight of an old saying of Thomas Paine, "If there is going to be trouble, let it come in my time, so that my children may live in peace."

We live in a troublesome time, but let it come in our time, so that in this country and around the world our children and their children may live in peace and security.