I AM SORRY I don't have my television cameras with me. This is one of the most pleasant visions that these eyes have ever beheld, to see the young leaders of our country come to the capital of the world to learn something about what is happening in the world and then to do something about it.
I just came from another meeting. I was in the hotel visiting with another generation: Dean George Meany and his postgraduate workers from the Committee on Political Education.
I also thought I ought to take advantage of this chance away from the White House to talk to some of the undergraduates; that is why I dropped by with you.
I have never seen a school where you could learn as much from the teachers as you could from the students. That is why I came here to learn.
I taught in a schoolroom for a long time. I know this is sound. Any teacher can learn more from his students than he can from his teachers, if he wants to do it.
I am glad to see so many of you young people who have decided that you would come here to Washington in the spring instead of the hot sands of Fort Lauderdale. Instead of that, I guess you will get on the hot pavement of politics while you're here. We need you.
I saw another young activist who was a little under the weather this morning before I left the White House. He is not feeling very well. He is teething. We think little Lyn is cutting his eighth tooth because he has a fever of 104. It may be that the campaign is just heating up and it is getting contagious.
I understand you have had several panel discussions here today. Someone told me you had a special one set up for me. It was called "What's My Line?" So, here I am, as your "mystery guest" to tell you how proud I am of this Nation, of what we are doing, of what we are going to do, of the progress that we have made, of the work that is yet undone.
In all the decades that I have been around, I have seen the croakers and the doubters who worry and are worried about what shape the world is in. But I have also known what our young people are going to do about it.
I have seen them in two World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, go far away from home to protect that flag and their liberty and our freedom. I have seen them come back without the blush of shame on their cheek and without a spot on them.
I believe that this generation loves this country as much as my generation loves this country. I think you are going to be able to do more about it. You are going to make it go farther faster. You are going to make it better, more prosperous, and more peaceful because of what you are doing.
When I was a young man struggling to get through high school and later trying to get out of college, my mother would frequently try to strengthen me and encourage me by saying, "Son, remember that these hardships you are going through and these sacrifices you are making only serve to develop character."
That was 'pretty hard for me to believe because I would just as soon have had some character without them. But I do realize that you don't get full employment without dreaming of it and without planning for it; without working for it and without fighting for it.
I do realize that you cannot rebuild our cities without plans, without work, and without the will to do something about it.
I do know that you can't have peace in the world just because you wish for it. I do know that some men have tried to get peace by avoiding war, only to bring on wider war.
I do know that drive and desire are very important for all people, particularly for young people. But drive and desire don't necessarily give you the answer to all of our problems.
In my time I have seen the Greek Communists 7 miles from Athens.
I have seen the American planes over Berlin feeding a hungry nation. In zero-zero weather those planes kept landing.
I have seen our men hemmed in, in a little area of space in Korea with a lot of people advocating "Come home."
I have seen the dark days when a conqueror would have dominated the entire scene of Europe and some of our own great leaders were advocating that Britain move to Canada for safety's sake.
Yet I have seen an American will that drove unemployment from our midst and that faced up to the ancient enemies of this country: ignorance, illiteracy, and poverty, and started programs to combat all of them, instead of just sitting around talking about it all day.
I know, as you know, that none of those roads were easy roads; just as none of those hours that a half a million young men are spending now protecting us are easy for them. Not a single one of them wouldn't like to trade places with us, but they wouldn't trade what we have in this country for what any other country has to offer.
I remember the croakers and the doubters who roamed our legislative halls when they refused to fortify Guam with $5 million that President Roosevelt had thought was necessary, when they almost sent the Army home by a vote of 203 to 202 in August before Pearl Harbor in December.
Yes, I have seen all these things in my day. I saw the prophets who said, "These beardless kids could never fly the bombers over Berlin and never bring Hitler to his knees."
But they came through, just like our young people are coming through now, at home and abroad. And he who underestimates them or lacks faith in them is making a tragic error of judgment.
I am proud of every one of the more than 3 million people who wear the uniform and I am proud of every one of you who are willing to courageously stand up here and support them.
There will be many dark moments. There will be many long nights.
In the words of a great eloquent trustee and protector of ours of another day, "There will be blood and there will be sweat and there will be tears," but the principles that brought this Nation into existence, the traditions which have guided us, the things in which we believe, the strength that we have, are going to be used to protect the weak and to lift up the helpless and to see that might does not make right in this world.
With your help and with God's guidance, we are going to build here a safer, a better, a freer, a more prosperous America for our children than was built for us--and that is saying a lot.
Thank you and goodby.
Note: The President spoke at 1:55 p.m. at the Washington Hilton Hotel. During his remarks he referred to George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, and to his grandson, Patrick Lyndon Nugent.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to a Group of Young Democrats. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238068