Remarks to New Participants in "Plans for Progress" Equal Opportunity Agreements

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I have a railroad strike on at 5:45 and my time is going to be necessarily limited. We want to try to ask both the employers and employees to give us a little extra time and I am due to meet with them in the Cabinet Room, so I will necessarily be briefer than I would like to be.

First of all, I want to say to you that you are welcome here in your house as you have come here to work for your country. I want to especially and personally thank you gentlemen for your efforts in advancing the cause of justice and the cause of decency.

There are today 192 major American corporations employing more than 7 million persons who have joined in a national partnership voluntarily on their own volition because they believe it is right to make equality of opportunity not just a phrase, but a fact. I have personally signed each of these 192 plans on behalf of the committee, as its chairman. It was a proud signature that I signed, because this movement of our industrial society has been shaped by cooperation and has been formed by reason.

The Senate of the United States today is engaged in a great debate. from that great deliberative body and that debate will come, I am confident, a bill of civil rights, of equal rights that is a reaffirmation of the native decency of our American society. This debate is evidence that this Government of free men, constitutionally sound, born of struggle and agony, can endure a difference of opinion and can stand still and erect and strong when the issue has been settled.

We are going to pass the civil rights bill. Nothing has happened to deter us from that course. The demands of justice and decency make that necessary. But the challenge we face goes beyond the passage of a single piece of legislation, for any law is insufficient unless it is supported--and all of us have had some experience in this field--by the moral commitment of the people of the country.

The burning issue, then, is simply, "What does America stand for?" I believe America stands for progress in human rights. I believe America stands for full and equal rights for all of its citizens, for the realization of freedom and justice for all of its people, for equality of treatment, and equality of opportunity for all of its citizens in every sphere of national life.

So it is to these great goals that we are all committed. We must, therefore, realize that the passage of this bill only leaves us on the side of the hill, with the big peak still above us. To reach that peak is going to require the cooperation, the good will, the moral courage, the determination, the good sense, and the patriotism of every single American.

What I urge on you today is to look ahead to that day very soon when this bill that has already passed the House and is now under debate in the Senate--look ahead until the day when it becomes law. Congress, as the final result of that national debate, will have an obligation to our Nation and our Constitution to accept the law that has been passed.

The problems of our society will not automatically disappear with the passage of that bill, you can be sure. They will still have to be dealt with by all Americans.

The civil rights bill can only chart in law the directions that we must take as individuals. Now, how swiftly and how harmoniously and how effectively we take those directions depends in measure on the leadership of men and women like you.

I am proud of you. You have come to the top of a great company, of many great companies, because of your judgment and because of your character and because of your understanding of your fellowman and because of a great many sacrifices that you and your families have made. Today you meet here in the first house of this land with your chin up and your chest out, standing proudly and erect and happy to say, "I am an American businessman." Now, there have been times in this country when men didn't go around wearing that badge, and if they did wear it they were not as proud of it as you are today.

But this society is such and our economy is such and our leadership in the world is such that you are the envy of your counterparts wherever you may find them. You can give great assistance not only just in your little immediate company that, relatively speaking, makes up a small part of the millions of workers, some 70 million, that work in this country, but you can give it on your boards, in your churches, in your lodges, in your communities, by increased understanding.

The best way in the world for you to give it is just to forget that you are the president of the company or the vice president or the officer, and imagine that things are reversed and you are in the other fellow's position. Assume for a moment that you are Mr. Hobart Taylor 20 years ago in Houston, Tex., trying to get a job with one of these great companies, American Home Products, or Sterling, or Anheuser Busch, or others that I have met here today, and do unto him as you would have him do unto you.

Bear in mind that golden rule--"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and examine your personnel department; examine your own conscience. See if you are doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you are, then we can say, "Well done, thou faithful servant." But until you can say that, until you can do that, until there is increased understanding, until there is a desire to put this bill into effect and make it work, we still have our job to do.

Let's not take too much for granted, Mr. Businessman. Let's not assume for a moment that we can just sit in our rocking chairs and let the rest of the world go by.

I have talked to a great friend that I worked for as a young boy, who proudly owns the King Ranch of Texas. He was talking to me the other day about a ranch that he did own in Cuba. I think that both of us, as a result of that discussion, really forgot some of our gripes of the moment and took pride in this great constitutional system that is ours. Let's not just make the Constitution apply to property. Let's let it apply to people, and let's not forget that a great President that we all revere today, that lived in this house 100 years ago, took the chains away from the slaves of that time and freed the slaves of their chains.

But until education is blind to color, until employment is unaware of race, you can free the slaves of their chains, but you have not freed society of bigotry. Emancipation may be a proclamation, but it is not a fact.

So I appeal to you to give us the leadership that will make it a fact because we businessmen are outnumbered in America. We Americans are outnumbered in the world 17 to 1. If we don't want a decision tonight that is based on man's religion or that is based on his race, or that is based on his color, or that is based necessarily on the numbers because might doesn't make right, because if it is based on any of those things, we Americans are outvoted.

So I suggest that in this Nation of laws that you, as community leaders, make this legislation work as smoothly and as effectively as possible. Make your plans that you have promised to promulgate a reality; make them a living thing that you can really take pride in and pass on to your children, the heritage that Lincoln has passed on to us, because today your action is just as necessary as his was--to the good and the future and the leadership and the pride of your country, for in the final end of it all, what is really supremely important to you and to me and to every citizen in the land, is that our differences be settled by constitutional and lawful processes in the courts. That is what we are trying to do instead of in the street and in the alleys, and might making right.

Much of the Nation has already voluntarily enacted a civil rights bill. At least some desegregation of privately owned facilities of public accommodations are now open to everyone, regardless of race, in some 390 of the 566 communities in Southern States of over 10,000. Three hundred and ninety of the 566 have already to some degree desegregated in cities over 10,000.

I saw that great, beloved man who was denied the privilege of being with us now, John F. Kennedy, meet in this room with his brother, the great Attorney General of this country, and talk to restaurantmen, hotelmen, motelmen, employers, bankers, lawyers, and businessmen from every section of the land, and plead with them to please go home and try to get this voluntarily done.

I am proud to say that almost two-thirds of this progress has been since May of last year. Two-thirds, or 390 of the 566, have desegregated since then. They have desegregated in 284 cities, some restaurants in 298 cities, some theaters in 280 cities, lunch counters in 340 cities. This has all been done voluntarily, and if we can do this much voluntarily, the rest can and should be done by compliance with the law.

I have talked too long, but this subject is one that is intensely interesting to me. I could not leave this rostrum without an attempt to arouse within you the desire to heal this Nation, to unify our people, to seek remedy for what we believe to be wrong in those places where remedies and not rancor are to be found and, most of all, to make it sternly clear what this Nation really believes in and what this Nation really stands for.

I came to Washington in 1931. I saw the Bonus Army driven down to the Anacostia Flats. I saw the businessmen hauled up before the congressional committees, and I saw the Wall Street bankers with midgets on their knees. I saw all the great reform legislation born, but I am here to tell you today that we have had our ups and downs and our lows and our highs, but there has never been a period in our national life when businessmen could take greater pride in their achievements than today.

Relatively speaking, we have so many less economical problems than our adversaries that we ought not even worry about them. Our foreign relations are so much better than the problems that our adversaries have that we ought to really take pride, but we can't just let well enough be good enough. We have got to do these jobs that are undone, and whether you pick up a paper and see what is happening in Cleveland or Austin or Boston, until we learn that we can live together and protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, then we will have work to do.

Russia has more people than we have. She has many more resources in many more categories than we have. She has 600 million arable acres of land, compared to our 187 million. She has 225 million population compared to our 190 million population.

But the one thing she does not have is the imagination, the ingenuity, and the initiative that comes with the free enterprise system, where a capitalist is willing to invest his dollar in the hope that he will get a small return back on it and where the manager is willing to get up at daylight and work until midnight and develop stomach ulcers in order to get a better mousetrap at a cheaper price; where the employee will almost willingly get in a trot because he has pride in the product that his sweat produces.

Those three elements of our national society--the capitalist, the manager, and the worker put together--can outproduce and outdevelop and outsurvive any slave state where that incentive is not there and where that profit motive is gone.

So I don't speak to you as Democrats or Republicans. I hope I am President of all of the people of this country, because I am the only President that you have, at least for another 8 or 9 months. But I speak to you as Americans who want to leave this land a better place than you found it, who want your children to have the same opportunity that you have had and to go just as far as you have gone, and maybe a little farther, and who recognize that if we survive in this world that is part slave and part free it is going to be not because of our superiority of resources but our superiority of system of government.

Now, let's make that Declaration of Independence, let's make that Constitution that we embrace when it comes to protecting our property rights, let's make it a living, breathing thing for all human beings. We demonstrated that for the first time in our national life you could elect a Catholic a President of the United States, and that was a proud day, because our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence had indicated and implied that you could always do that and that we had religious freedom, but until we actually did it, no fait accompli was there.

We also demonstrated you could elect a Southerner Vice President. I found myself after this terrible tragedy of last November with the problem of transition, the continuity of this Government, with the eyes of the world looking on us, and with 190 million people in doubt. And the businessmen and the captains of industry and the leaders of labor came to this house by the dozens and by the hundreds and said, "We are enlisted for the duration. Ask me not what church I belong to or what party I vote for. Just count me in the pot as doing what is good for my country."

That spirit of unity and closing ranks never made me more proud of my heritage. The Business Council has been here a number of times, and labor and management has been here a number of times. I am going now from here to meet with the railroad titans of this Nation, the executive board, and to the railroad workers, and I am going to plead with them to please work for another 20 days to try to settle this strike so that we will not drive our gross national product down, so that we will not create great unemployment, so that we will not injure this Nation, so that in the words of the prophet Isaiah, "We can come and reason together," and reason these things out.

So I say to you, this is not just a pro forma thing for me. I feel what I am saying, and what I am doing, and I am grateful to each of you as individuals and to your company and to your board of directors for setting this kind of an example. I hope that in the months ahead, sometime we can meet again here and look at our record of achievement, and look at the record we have written in our individual companies and in our individual towns and in our individual communities, and we can take pride in our achievements.

Please accept the gratitude of a grateful President who is doing his dead level best to keep us pulling together, keeping our ranks closed, keeping us loving our brother and our fellowman, instead of hating him, keeping us united before the world instead of divided, because in unity there is strength, and in division there is disorder and defeat.

We are living in a challenging period and a dangerous period, but we have so much to preserve and so much to protect. You are the guardians of a good deal of it. So go back and do this job as you have done the job of progress in your own company, and know that your Nation will continue to be proud of you.

Thank you very much.