Remarks in St. Paul at the Minnesota State Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Convention.

Chairman Farr, Governor Rolvaag, my friend and ally, Senator Gene McCarthy, my longtime friend and one of the great leaders of the United States Senate, Hubert Humphrey, Congressman Joe Karth--I appreciate that wonderful introduction--John Blatnik, Mrs. Joseph, George Farr, my fellow Americans :

I came here this afternoon to express the Nation's thanks for the work of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Your members man the highest posts of this National Government. Your programs have shaped the policies of this national administration. Your ideals and imagination have inspired this entire Nation with new purpose, with renewed vitality, with a fresh sense of our national destiny.

A few years ago you stood almost alone in the Midwest--a symbol of hard-hitting, progressive, imaginative leadership.

Today, as we meet here, the entire Midwest is filled with the ferment of progress that you began. Your National Capital is afire with the principles and the programs that you stand for. You no longer stand alone. You are part of a great national forward march, and I am here to tell you that as long as I am President of the United States you will never be alone.

In the past 4 years we have moved farther and faster toward the goals that we share than at any time in our country's history.

All America can be proud of that record. And you can be proud of the part that you played in making that record.

But we are not going to the American people and tell them that they never had it so good, or don't rock the boat, or let's keep what we have, or stand pat, or keep cool.

No, that is not the kind of a party you are, and that is not the kind of country this is.

We are going to tell the people that the progress of the last 4 years is only the beginning. It is the first step toward the greatness that is within our grasp.

We are going to tell them that this is not the end of the road. It is only the beginning of the journey.

We have a long way to go before we wipe out racial injustice and give every American of every color equal opportunity to vote, to go to school, and to share in American society. But that is the road that we are going to take.

We have a long way to go before our Nation faces up to its responsibility to give its farmers a fair reward for the enormous abundance they have created. But that is the road we are going to take.

We have a long way to go before every child in this world can grow up free of the threat of nuclear war. But that is the road that we are going to take.

We have a long way to go before we wipe out poverty in America and give every man a chance to find a job. But we are going to wipe out poverty and we are going to reach full employment.

Everywhere we look there are tasks more towering, challenges more complex, than your country ever faced before. They will not be faced easily and painlessly and without risk.

But you have proved in your own State, and we have shown in America in the last

4 years, that the only limit to our possibilities of the future is our vision of the

present.

In 1960 John Fitzgerald Kennedy came here and asked you to help him get America moving again. You answered his call. America began to move. And this year, you and I are going to keep America moving.

It is a long way from the fields of Minnesota or the hills of my native Texas to the center of government in Washington. But it was Woodrow Wilson who reminded us that: "No matter how humbly a youngster is born, no matter where he is born, no matter what circumstances hamper him at the outset, he has got a chance to master the minds and lead the imaginations of the whole country."

Many of us here today can testify to the truth of that observation. This State has supplied to Washington some of our greatest Democrats. Orville Freeman and Walter Heller are two of my strongest right arms. And no state in the Union has two better Senators than Gene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey. And in your congressional delegation in the House, of which Joe Karth is a very fine example, you have great quality but you need better quantity.

Yes, we are proud of the opportunity that is given to all Americans, and we are going to use all the skill and all the energy that God has given us in order to keep these doors of opportunity open for every child in the land.

It is wonderful to be here with you today. I am proud of this great welcome I have received in Minnesota. I hope you will invite me back.

Thank you very much.