Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks to Key Officials of the Internal Revenue Service.

February 11, 1964

Secretary Dillon and Mr. Caplin:

I appreciate very much your coming here today and visiting in your house. I am grateful for that fine introduction.

I am glad to talk with the men and women who administer our tax system. As a taxpayer I am interested in how well you do this job. I don't suppose we will ever get to the point where people are ever pleased to pay taxes, but we owe it to them to see that the collection is done as efficiently as possible, as courteously as possible, and always honestly.

Taxpayers are people. They are you and me and millions of our fellow citizens. I think we constantly have to bear in mind when we are dealing with the taxpayers what we should bear in mind in dealing with all of the 190 million people that make up this country and that is that we are all equal on election day. After all, the decision of the many is much to be preferred to the judgment of the few, as Thomas Jefferson said, and the decision of the many determines the leaders of our system, so every man is a king in the ballot box and therefore we must realize we are his servants and not his masters.

Taxpayers must be treated with courtesy. They have a right under our democratic system to be treated reasonably and they have every reason to expect from the men of the Internal Revenue Service total integrity, and integrity in tax administration is something that we take for granted, but the price of integrity is eternal vigilance.

So I am going to ask each of you to exercise special responsibility and I am going to count on you gentlemen never to let that vigilance sag. Because you are all in the civil service it means you are all professional managers. As managers I know you share my interest in economy and frugality. That does not mean that we pinch pennies. It does mean that we war on waste.

Is it wrong to expect a dollar's value from each dollar spent? In this Government our goals are very simple. We intend under this administration to see that we have a strong country, that we are militarily secure, that we have the power and the might and the determination to defend America any time, any place, under any circumstances. In order to do that we must be equally sure that we not only have a strong Nation but that we have a solvent Nation. Solvency will require application of our best talents every day.

We have a budget this year roughly equivalent to the budget last year. We all know in our personal living that it is difficult to keep expenses down next year to what they were last year, but we are trying to do that in this Government.

President Kennedy will have spent about $98,400 million in the administrative budget for this last year and we have recommended $97,900 million, or within half of 1 percent of what the President recommended.

If we had continued the next year as we had the last 2 years, we would have added

$5 billion to that budget because of increased population, unfilled needs, increased demands. It took us 40 days and nights to pare and prune. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and other leaders in our Government were extremely cooperative. We sent a budget to the Congress which I think made possible our reporting the tax bill and finally passing it in the Senate. So we are going to have a frugal administration, we are going to be a progressive administration. You don't have to be wasteful in order to be enlightened or to be progressive.

My mother was the most liberal person that I think I ever knew, yet she always had some pin money hid under the pillow to take care of our needs in time of distress. I think that we must have not just a war on poverty but we must have a war on waste. I am glad that the atmosphere and the thinking among the leadership in this Government is going to bring that about.

Now, if government is to serve any purpose it is to do for others what they are unable to do for themselves. If each of us could defend our country in time of war we would not need a Defense Department. If each of us could collect our own taxes and take care of all the expenditures necessary for roads and education and so forth, we would not need a Treasury Department or an Internal Revenue Service, but we can't do those things individually so we must do them collectively in Government.

Aside from being strong and aside from being solvent, this Government must always be compassionate. We must bear in mind that as I said before, we are the servants of the people. President Roosevelt talked with great eloquence about the third of our Nation that was ill housed and ill fed and ill clad. That was 30 years ago. By great dedication of selfless men we brought that one-third that was ill clad and ill fed and ill housed down to one-fifth that is now ill clad, and ill fed, and ill housed.

In our budget this year, we will apportion approximately a billion dollars to try to do something to reduce that one-fifth to maybe one-sixth or one-seventh or one-eighth or one-tenth because that is a worthy goal, following the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Imagine what government would mean to you that attacked the poverty program if your income was among the 20 percent that earns less than $3,000 per year.

The best way for you to understand how the other fellow feels is to put yourself in his place for a while and see how you would feel under similar circumstances. That is not only true of those who have suffered from ignorance and poverty and disease and illiteracy but that is true also of those who have suffered from discrimination-discrimination in schools, discrimination in housing, discrimination in employment, discrimination in public accommodations.

I tell this story because it is a rather touching personal experience that I have had. One of the great ladies that I have known is kind of chief of staff of our operation, our house. She has been with us 20 years, she is a college graduate, but when she comes from Texas to Washington she never knows where she can get a cup of coffee. She never knows when she can go to a bathroom. She has to take 3 or 4 hours out to go across to the other side of the tracks to locate the place where she can sit down and buy a meal. You wouldn't want that to happen to your wife or to your mother or to your sister, but somehow or other you take it for granted when it happens to someone way off there.

So the time has come in our national life when we have got to make our Bill of Rights real, when we have got to make our Declaration of Independence come true, when we have got to make our Constitution a living document. We have got to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Mr. Caplin touched on that subject, so I ask you when you go back with the good fortune that will be yours to be public servants, dedicated, trusted men of integrity, that first of all you be sure that you get a dollar's worth of value for every dollar you spend, and don't tell me you do because I have seen in your own shops a good many people in the halls when they could have been working. And I saw it in my own shop as I came over here today. So you can do better.

I wouldn't want to be held to this but the light bill on the White House a few months ago was $5,000 a month. This month it is $3,000. A lot of closets that had lights burning in them all day long and a lot of stairways that people didn't use that had lights burning, a lot of rooms in here where the chandeliers were going full time when no one was in here, they were all used, but when people got economy conscious and just started watching things like we used to on the REA line when we had a minimum bill of $2.50 a month and we never wanted to go over the minimum. Things can be reduced.

It has not all been due to our efforts. Some of it came about for other reasons, but we hope that next month it will come down another $500 a month. The people of the country, I think, will really appreciate when they realize you are saving $2500 a month on electricity in the house in which you live. You go back home and see how much electricity you can save in the building in which you work. See how many lights you leave on when you go out at night. See how many people you have that are not living up to the most rigid standards.

I have always said and thought that if I could have a son I would like for him to be a preacher or a teacher or a public servant because I have observed that there comes to those professions a sense of satisfaction out of doing a job that you never get from a paycheck. Most of you men would in private life draw several times the salary that you draw now.

Here is Secretary Dillon who has everything in the world that a man could want. He has wealth, he has prestige and he has a lovely wife and a wonderful reputation, but his great satisfaction comes from working here in Washington and leading a group like you, and spending several times more per year than he earns in his salary, trying to help other people. You are very fortunate to be one of those men who is not a preacher or teacher but a public servant, because you serve the greatest government in the world. You serve the leader of the world, the 113 nations, and yours is outstanding. There are only six of them that have a per capita income of as much as $80 a month. Yours has over $200 a month.

How long this Nation will endure and survive and meet the trials of leadership will depend largely on the quality of its public servants, their dedication, their honesty, their integrity, their enlightenment, their selflessness, their willingness to do unto others as you would have them do unto us.

We have problems in the world. We are living in a frustrating period, an exciting period, a developmental period. I have seen times when the skies were grayer. But we don't have on our hands this morning a missile crisis in Cuba. We don't have Laos; we don't have the conference in Vienna that we faced the first few months of President Kennedy's administration--the Bay of Pigs--all of those were major problems.

Relatively speaking, we don't have the problem that Mr. Khrushchev has with Communist China, 800 million people there and they are saying ugly things about each other. And 800 million is a sizable number. When they fall out among themselves it is something that must concern both of them.

We are concerned about Panama--that we should have a dispute with any of our neighbors. Our school children made a mistake in raising the United States flag without raising the Panamanian flag, but that does not warrant or justify shooting our soldiers or invading the zone.

Our plane was off course over Berlin and lost its communications system very likely, and was shot down. It should not have been in that territory. It would not have been if it had been able to follow our radar instructions but it lost its communications; but we don't think that they were justified in shooting it down.

The Cuban fishermen got in our waters and they were taken into custody. That is what normally happens when situations like that develop. We are sorry that they were in our waters but we don't think they are justified in cutting off our water and violating our contract, but since they did it, we told them we will 'provide our own water and we will make that base self-sufficient and that is what we propose to do.

But today the OAS Committee is in Panama. The Cuban situation is being worked out. We have problems between our NATO allies with the Greeks and the Turks but Secretary Ball is trying to evolve a solution that will keep them from fighting each other.

In Viet-Nam, we have a new government. It is the second new government that they have had in recent months.

In NATO alone in the last year, out of 15 countries, 10 of them have had new governments.

Of the 113 nations in the world, 50 of them have had new governments in the last 3 years.

We expect those things, and we are not the last word and we cannot expect to mash a button and have our wishes carried out all over this globe. All we can do is expect to do what is right, what is honorable, what is enlightened, and that we are doing.

We are not pulling out of Southeast Asia because we are not willing to yield that part of the world to the envelopment of communism. We are providing assistance to save people who want to save themselves.

Now all of these distress, and from time to time you will hear alarmists and people who like to jump on their government, people who like to criticize, people who find it quite impossible to be affirmative and constructive. They will join with some of our opponents and they will be almost as much of a problem as some of our other enemies. But that is no reason for us to lose hope or to be concerned. The best way to treat them is to just "God forgive them, for they know not what they do."

When I became majority leader, when President Eisenhower was President, I took the position that politics stopped at the water's edge--we had but one President and one Commander in Chief--that I would support his policies and give him strength and comfort, and that I would not be aligning myself with any enemies of the United States in criticizing him.

A great many of the times I supported him when his own leadership did not support him, but we made democracy work with a divided government because he put his country first, and we tried to do likewise.

So I ask you to be of strong heart, to realize how fortunate and how blessed you are that you are a part of America; that you have American citizenship.

My plane has landed in many continents, touched down in more than 30 countries in the last 3 years. The wheels have never stopped and the door has never opened and I have never looked upon any faces that I didn't think would like to trade citizenship with me.

I am very thankful that I have the good fortune to live in America. One of the reasons it is a good fortune to live in America is because men like you make the sacrifices you do. I feel in talking to you that I am talking to one of my very own, because I have spent 32 years in Government service and I have never seen a man that I really thought went into the service to do what he thought was wrong. But I have seen a lot of them that did wrong after they got in because of their lack of leadership, because of their lack of sensitivity, because of their lack of consciousness, because they did waste time and waste effort and bring about unnecessary adjustments.

So, these conferences are good for you. It is wonderful for you to come here and see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the House that belongs to all of you people, because it is a symbol of all that made America great and that has made us proud.

Since World War II we have spent a hundred billion dollars trying to help other people. When I drove down the streets of Rome, people ran out and stopped my car and said, "Look at that skyline, that industrial activity back there. Except for the help of Americans, we would have never made it. Never before in the history of civilization had the victors treated the vanquished as you have treated us, and we want you to go back and thank Americans."

So, regardless of what you hear and regardless of what some of the bellyachers say, we are a much beloved people throughout the world. We are respected and we appreciate it.

We will have differences. Men of different ancestries, men of different tongues, men of different colors, men of different environments, men of different geographies do not see everything alike. Even in our own country we do not see everything alike. If we did, we would all want the same wife-and that would be a problem, wouldn't it!

We must make allowance for the other fellow. A good way to treat him is just to assume that he wants to do for his own people what you want to do for your own. Try to find an area of agreement instead of an area of disagreement.

We have laid down our proposals for disarmament in Geneva. We have said to every thinking man in this Government, we want to follow the road of peace. We are going to yearn for it--not just yearn-we are going to search for it.

We know that Mr. Khrushchev can kill a hundred million people in Western Europe in a matter of minutes. And he can kill a hundred million people more or less in this country in a matter of minutes. And we can kill a hundred million people in Russia, in the Soviet Union, in a matter of minutes. That is not great statesmanship. What we have got to do is be prepared to defend ourselves, but also be prepared to find a solution to these many problems.

I have sat in the Security Council with your Secretary of the Treasury, and I couldn't let this meeting go by without telling you of the great confidence I have in him, the great faith I have in him, and the great feeling of security that I have when he rises to speak and gives his independent judgment. He is a man who puts his country first. Somebody called him a Republican. I think that is about the worst thing I ever heard said about him. But if you are going to have Republicans--and we are in this country; and we are going to have a two-party system, we are proud of it--I like to have Republicans like Doug Dillon. I like their own kind because he is the kind that has strong convictions and expresses them. But he is a free man first, an American second, a public servant third, and a Republican fourth--in that order.

I think we are lucky to have your Commissioner here. I have been checked lately, so I am up to date and I can be complimentary. I want to say that I never have known a more dedicated person or a more enlightened one, and I think he has done great things for the Internal Revenue Service. I know that he has got his eye over every one of your shoulders, and he is going to make you do better because America must do better.

But we can't be satisfied with yesterday. Tomorrow is going to be a better world for all of our people, better for all of our children than it was for us, and you are going to help make it so.

You are welcome in the White House. We thank you for coming. I am grateful for the opportunity of talking to you.

Note: The President spoke in the East Room at the White House. His opening words referred to Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury, and Mottimer M. Caplin, Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service, who made brief introductory remarks. Later the President referred to George W. Ball, Under Secretary of State, who had left for Europe on February 8 for discussions with British, Greek, and Turkish officials on the Cyprus problem.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to Key Officials of the Internal Revenue Service. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239940

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