Equal Rights Amendment Remarks at a White House Reception for Supporters of the Amendment.

Rosalynn helped me write my speech this afternoon. [Laughter] She said she was going to introduce me and then made my speech for me. [Laughter]

I think all of you can look at the women behind me on the stage and see that the broadest possible support exists for ERA, not only in a peripheral or superficial way but in the deepest possible way.

Lady Bird Johnson, I think, personifies the finest in political service and the enhancement of the beauty of our lives in every possible manner in our country.

Lynda Robb—a politician in her own right, a strong ally of her husband, a forceful leader in her own life, daughter of a great President—understands the sensitivities of America and also the needs of our country, helping to give me advice as chairman of our advisory committee on women's affairs.

Liz Carpenter, a real tough infighter. [Laughter] Ellie Peterson, who pointed out to me that the Republican Party had ERA in their platform 4 years before the Democrats. [Laughter] But this is not a partisan issue. And I would like to remind this group, as Lynda Bird Robb reminded me this afternoon, that I am the seventh consecutive President who has endorsed the ratification and the passage of the equal rights amendment. This is not a transient thing. It is a permanent, deep commit. ment of many people, including all of you, and a deep need for our country.

This afternoon, ! met with my advisory committee. They had spent all day analyzing 10 States where we have a good opportunity to get the remaining needed States to ratify the equal rights amendment. And we've made a very important decision, which Rosalynn has already mentioned, and that is that in 1980 we are going to ratify the equal rights amendment to the United States Constitution.

This is a human rights issue. As I've told many of you before, some of you before, the first conversation I had with the Ambassador from the Soviet Union, just a get-acquainted session which lasted about an hour, we had a good exchange of ideas and views. And finally we began to talk about basic human rights, because I had made such an issue of the human rights issue itself in my Inaugural address and in my campaign. And his response, which took me aback somewhat, "You don't even have equal rights for women in the United States." Ambassador Dobrynin told me that. It's not the only time he's ever mentioned it. [Laughter] And I believe that this is, to a major degree, an indictment of our country.

This is not an athletic contest to see whether or not the equal rights amendment is ratified. There were those who said a few months ago that the extention of the time available to ratify equal rights was not fair, there was a violation of some dreamed up, unwritten rule.

I don't believe Americans felt that way in the 1860's, when slavery was a major issue in our country. I don't believe any reasonable person said, 7 years after our Nation was founded, "Since we still have slavery after 7 years, let's never change it." And when Susan B. Anthony was seeking the right of women to vote, I don't think she said, "Since the 7-year deadline passed and women still don't have the right to vote, let's not bring up the issue."

And when Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., began to move for equal rights in our country without respect to race, they didn't give up after 7 years of educating the American public about the needs to eliminate the intense and debilitating racial stigma, not just on blacks but on all of us, because there had been legal discrimination still not removed completely from the consciousness of America.

And I believe that 7 years has passed. We've got an extension now, and there's the same identical issue, that is, human rights, applicable to seeking equal rights for women. I'm determined to succeed. We've been waiting long enough for it. 1980 has got to be the year.

We have this afternoon gone through a list of 10 States where equal rights can be ratified by State legislatures in 1980. I think we must go all-out to prevail in these difficult tests of strength.

On the one side: the general populus, a heavy majority of Americans, a heavy majority of Governors, seven Presidents in a row, both parties, a heavy majority in the Congress, people who know what's right and who believe in fairness—dedicated to the ratification of ERA; on the other side: a minority representing no party, not representing a majority of any elected group of people, but basing their stand on intense feelings which they exemplify in every contest, and benefiting from inertia, benefiting from delay, benefiting from confusion, benefiting from rumor, benefiting, quite often, from political timidity, benefiting, however, from a tight, close-knit, well-organized, dedicated, opposition force.

The only way to deal with that kind of opposition is to have a tight, well-knit, well-organized force to present the facts to the American people and to analyze, State by State, where are the crucial votes? How can we approach the Members of the House and Senate in these 10 States or perhaps a few more? And what can we do to let the people in those States involved know the facts about the equal rights amendment?

We've got to assess the problem. We've got to divide up the responsibility. We've got to organize our own forces effectively. We've got to share information. We've got to put aside the inclination that we all have to find a scapegoat on which to blame a temporary setback. We've got to honor the capabilities of one another. We've got to share information about progress.

And we need never to be deterred. Our course is a proper one; our cause is right. And I predict that next year we will win. I'm determined to do so if you'll help me. Thank you very much.