Remarks to Delegates to a Conference on Voter Registration Sponsored by the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education

Mr. Meany, Al Barkan, Andy Biemiller, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to welcome you to the White House again. I think most of you have been here before. I see a good many familiar faces from a good many old battles.

I think in attempting to assay the usefulness of what you do, that rather than looking at the immediate future, however important that may be to us, I think we can get a better judge of the character of your work by looking back over the last 30 years and considering the things for which the labor movement has stood, the kind of battle it has waged at home and abroad.

This country is very strong. It is, on the whole, rich, with serious islands of real poverty, but on the whole it has moved through the years since the Second World War--18 years--without the tragedy which we experienced 10 years after the First War and, indeed, in the early years, 1921 and 1922 There have been a number of explanations for that, but I think probably the most important was the solid framework of legislation established in the thirties which has put a platform under the lives of most Americans, whether it is minimum wage or social security or unemployment compensation or housing, urban renewal, protection of the bank deposits, all the rest. We have really proceeded through 18 years of an extraordinary economic story.

And what we have done at home, I think, we have done even more significantly abroad. And the AFL-CIO has strongly supported those domestic measures and those great international measures which will not affect just labor and labor issues, but affected the well-being and the security of the United States from the NATO, the Marshall plan, Point IV, the Alliance for Progress, our efforts in disarmament, our efforts to keep this country strong.

I think that is an impressive record. I think that is an extraordinary story.

Our job, it seems to me, in the 1960's is to build upon that past, and that we are trying to do. It may sometimes seem that our progress is imperceptible, but I am hopeful that after sufficient time has passed that we can look back on these years in which we took important steps at home and abroad to match at least in some ways what was done before. That is our effort--to try to provide in the national arena, in those areas where government policy affects, to try to arrange and develop policies which will maintain our economic momentum, the thrust of our growth which will deal with the problems of chronic unemployment, which will deal with the problems of the chronic business cycle, which will provide equality of opportunity for all Americans. That is what we are attempting to do, and I think with your help and the help of other responsible and interested citizens we can do a good deal of it.

So I want to express a welcome here. I think you have a good deal of reason, you in the labor movement, to be proud of what you have stood for, and I want you to know we appreciate what you stand for today.

Thank you.

I am glad to see you. I hope to see you again soon.