John F. Kennedy photo

Remarks to State Directors of the Selective Service System.

May 23, 1962

General, gentlemen:

I want to express my warm welcome to all of you. I don't suppose there is any task in this country of ours that must be filled with more fairness and with a greater degree of confidence by the American people than the job that you have, and those who are associated with you, and your predecessors.

In the last 20 years or so, I think you have registered something like 75 million Americans, 13 million of them have been put into service, some have been exempted for important reasons, some have been taken in.

Unless you and those who work with you were able to maintain the confidence of the Governors and the people of the various States in the equity of this System, I cannot imagine anything that would be more destructive to the common welfare. So I want to congratulate all of you and express our thanks to you.

When you take a man from his family and send him into hazard, and possibly extreme hazard, this places a great responsibility upon you. And I want to thank all of you, and also especially thank those who for so many years, and quite anonymously, have served on these boards in their communities. The pressures upon them are tremendous, too, and yet I cannot think of any branch of our Government in the last two decades where there have been so few complaints about inequity. Maybe complaints about going, but there have been very few times when anyone has ever suggested that the boards were not attempting to do the job in the fairest possible way. That is an extraordinary record dealing with men's lives as we do in this matter. So in thanking you we want to express our appreciation to the Governors and also, as I say, to the thousands of people who work very anonymously in a very important citizen function.

So you are very welcome to the White House, and I want you to know we are very grateful to all of you for coming down to see us.

Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:45 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White House. His opening word "General" referred to Lt. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Director of the Selective Service System.

John F. Kennedy, Remarks to State Directors of the Selective Service System. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235682

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