Remarks to the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association and to Its Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary

Board of Governors, Mr. Attorney General, members of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, ladies and gentlemen:

We are very glad that you could come back to the White House again. I extend to you a warm welcome this morning.

I want, first of all, to thank you for what you a-re doing for your country and to also suggest a few additional ways that you can help us some more.

You know that I can't let you get by with just thanks because there is so much for all of us to do.

Our association has been a very rewarding one for me--and I hope for you. I have tried to give the closest attention, and most serious consideration to your suggestions and your judgments on potential nominees to the Federal Bench.

It is very clear to all of us here that you have taken your responsibilities with the serious concern that they deserve, striving to be fair, striving to serve the law and the country and the President.

Your reward and mine will come in the constantly improving administration of justice here in America.

You have also made your voice heard on a number of social and constitutional issues. I am very happy to say that I believe it has been a voice of progress.

You have been indispensable allies in supporting the legal services program, one of the real success stories of our War on Poverty.

Your help on the new disability amendment to the Constitution was essential to its passage. You have made a very profound contribution to the electoral reform question.

You have been making your opinions dear to the Congress about the Safe Streets and the Crime Control Act. You have argued for Federal grants to the cities and States, for an effective gun control law, and against some of the very unwise and unfortunate amendments that have been proposed as Title II of that bill.

In short, you have been acting in such a way that the President might just express his gratitude and retire, if our times were what used to be called "normal times."

But, as you know, each of you knows these are not "normal times." They are very extraordinary times. They are full of danger and yet they are full of promise for our society.

Our old institutions today are under serious challenge. There is tension between the generations, between the "haves" and the "have-nots," between the schooled and the unschooled.

Attitudes are changing swiftly. Relationships between people are changing. The line between freedom and license has become unclear to many people. Threats and counterthreats fill the air every day. There is a degree of intolerance and almost totalitarian vehemence that says, "Either see it my way or you will be sorry." That is not the way of a democracy. Those are not the attitudes that have made us a great Nation and a free people.

We have always been a confident people, sure that we could accomplish whatever tasks there were to do. As a people we have been like a powerful worker whose muscles were freedom and whose bones were law. That interaction between law and freedom has always given us strength and elasticity and the will to endure, and the sense to change.

If the law is to remain strong and vital, then those who love it and those who live by it must make it an instrument of progress and not a weapon to defend every element of the status quo.

If freedom is to be the property of all, not just those who assert it at the expense of others, it must be governed and informed by law. It must rest on the sustained respect for the rights of others.

I hope the bar will carry the message of freedom under law into every community. As the old term has it--"You follow the law."

I hope you will also help to guide your fellow citizens through a time when the values on which our law depends have come under widespread challenge.

My association with you and our relationship with you has been a source of a pleasant operation with me. I have drawn from you both strength and comfort. Your counsel has been wise and your attitude has been cooperative.

I want to pay you all the tribute that I know how to pay you this morning, and say again, thank you very much for what you have done. Thank you more for what I hope you may be able to help us all do in facing the challenges that we see all around us.

Thank you very much.