Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks Upon Signing a Bill To Reduce Freight Car Shortages

May 26, 1966

Mr. Vice President, Senator Magnuson, Congressman Staggers, my longtime friends of the House and the Senate, distinguished guests:

I want to thank you very much for coming over here this early this morning. This is really a tribute to the House of Representatives. We give them special recognition for this.

I understand they are going in at 1 o o'clock and we never want to be followers, we want to be leaders, so we had to go in at 9 o'clock, although I am a man of an evening nature, myself. I don't like these early dates. But I do thank you for coming here.

We are here to take an important step, we think, in trying to eliminate a serious bottleneck that has affected most of our States and our economy. We face a freight car shortage that has gone from bad to worse in recent years. It has hurt our consumer and farmer, business and labor, and has in some respects curtailed our defense effort.

Since World War II our railroads have scrapped almost 300,000 more cars than they have purchased. By 1965 we had over a million less cars than we had just 40 years ago.

In the past, these cars have fallen into short supply primarily during our harvest season. We have let that situation slide now until what was once a chronic yearly problem now seems to be a problem chronically the year around. We don't want to tolerate that--

--not as long as a single farmer lacks a boxcar to ship the grain that he has worked so hard to grow against the weather and the insects;

--not as long as lumber mills must close because their products cannot be moved from their mill to their manufacturer and the shortages drive up their prices;

--not as long as businessmen have goods that are ready to ship, but must wait for freight cars and lose money during that waiting period.

This is a challenge that confronts all of us in Government, and industry as well. I am very proud of the transportation industry generally. The men in the railroad business, I think, have taken on a new look and a new approach. They are very concerned with their country and national interests and how they can improve the image of their business and the operation of it.

I think the same thing is true of the other elements of our transportation picture--the trucks, the waterways, and the others.

I really, genuinely, believe that our Nation has much to be thankful for when we recognize the competency and the efficiency of the men in the transportation industry, all of whom we hit over the head on occasions when problems develop. But all you have to do is just have a few hours or a few days of what we have in some of our ports overseas sometimes--Vietnam and other places-to really appreciate what you have at home.

Chairman Bush and the very fine members of the Interstate Commerce Commission have gone on the attack. They have been using their emergency powers. They are doing everything they can, but they, too, recognize that stopgap measures are not enough.

Our railroads have been forced to operate under some outmoded regulations because it is cheaper to rent a freight car, often for as little as $2 a day, than it is to build a freight car for $15,000 capital investment. So no wonder a railroad witness testifying before the Commerce Committee said, "it takes guts to spend money on freight cars, even if you've got the money."

Now this bill will improve that. It will benefit every farmer, consumer, and worker whose job depends on full production and the movement of his goods to market. It will benefit the railroads by increasing freight capacity--that is the most profitable part of their business, as we all know.

The freight car shortage is only a symptom of our larger transportation challenges, so the measure that we will shortly sign is not a cure-all, certainly not a final answer. We make no pretensions about its overall, comprehensive, long-enduring effect on transportation, but it is a part of the total effort that we are carrying out on many fronts to use transportation--to use it in better and more effective ways, to give it more recognition and more respect, to serve the needs of our growing population, our expanding economy, and the great industries that have made America the leading nation in all the world.

In my transportation message to the Congress, I said, "America lacks a coordinated transportation system that permits travelers and goods to move conveniently and efficiently" across the country. I am very encouraged by the reception that the Members of the House and the Senate have given to these recommendations and to this message, and I have reason to believe there will be some adjustments and certainly some improvements on what I have recommended.

I hope before we go home this year that we will have a transportation system and a transportation department that will coordinate and make much more efficient all of these operations. The new Cabinet-level Department of Transportation before the Congress, I think, will enable us to do that. Our transportation system will neither speed nor strangle our progress. It will improve our living standard, and I think it is a matter that deserves first attention.

So I am confident that we will have action on the Department of Transportation for the same good reasons that we got action on the freight car bill. That is a tribute to the Congress because this Congress believes in taking action where there is clear and urgent need for action. So it gives me great pleasure this morning to sign this bill--and to particularly thank Senator Magnuson and Congressman Staggers and all of their hardworking colleagues for delivering this bill here.

I might add that it would give me even greater pleasure--I'll enjoy it a lot more, Maggie, if you will bring that transportation department bill down here before this great and this productive 89th Congress adjourns.

I know that some of you are wondering how many bills we are going to have this year, and of what nature. I was delayed a little bit because a fellow was talking to me about taxes. I said, "How much more in taxes do you want to pay this year?" Well, he wasn't quite sure, and didn't know. But we have a great deal to be thankful for. We don't spend much time acknowledging it. We are all somewhat cynical and we really don't like to admit that things are good for us, but if we were citizens of another land for a very short time we would want to come back where we are.

I came to this town 35 years ago. And when I came here, the average factory worker got $17 a week. They are getting $111 now. But you say, "Well, there is a difference in dollars." Well, there is. The $17 then would buy about $39 worth of goods. So $39 and $111, that is the progress that the man who works with his hands has made.

When I came here 35 years ago, in Mr. Hoover's administration, just before November 1931, the average farmer had an annual income of a little over $300 a year. Now in today's dollars that is a little over $800. The net income per farm this last year was $4,400. That represents some progress for the man on the farm--$4,280 to be exact.

The dividend people have risen from $6.4 billion in 1932 to $19 billion last year.

Our population has increased, our country is bigger, but so are our dividends, $6 billion to $19 billion.

When I came here, 5 percent of all Americans were illiterate and during that period we have cut that in half.

Now we do have a prosperous economy. We do have our prices increasing. We are concerned that all of the advances we made are not eaten up with the cheapness of the dollar, the whittling away, increased prices, and inflation coming on. So some people said, "Well, why don't you put on controls?" We know the problem we had with wage and price controls during the war. We know that they were just absolutely not satisfactory to anyone.

Some of them said, "Why don't you cut the total expenditures that the Government is making?" All of us say that, all of us want to do that, and we all look over our budget just like our family budget. But the thing that I want to cut most, Mrs. Johnson wants to cut least. And the things both of us think we can get by without, Luci and Lynda just must have.

That is true in Government as well as it is in business. There is hardly any businessman who has reduced his budget through the years. Our Federal budget has increased less than the industrial budget in this country, the labor budget in this country, the State and local government budgets in this country.

Our capital investment is way down, Federally speaking, compared to theirs over the period of years. But this year, in an attempt to curtail and cool off and take from the economy, we have passed some tax bills. Some of you have forgotten them. We have pulled some things out of the economy.

We had a corporate speedup that took $1.1 billion out of the economy right at the first of the year. We signed it March 15th. We had an excise tax that was due to go off. We put it back on. That brought us in about $800 million. You haven't forgotten that. That's March 15th.

We had a graduated withholding increase, and that was almost another $1 billion-$840 million, to be exact. Last year you remember they said, when we put in Medicare, "We are going to have a recession because we are taking so much out." So we are taking out this year for those over 65, $6.1 billion for increased social security and Medicare.

We have had a collection speedup so the companies that withhold the money from their employees just don't keep it. They send it right on in within 3 days, and that brings in $900 million.

We have had an increase in revenue with the same tax rate. So while Congressmen don't make any more, a good many people who made $30,000 last year will make $44,000 this year, and the tax on that extra $14,000 puts them in a different bracket. So that brings us an additional $1.7 billion.

And the savings bonds. The employees-there are not many of them at the White House--but they are 100 percent signed up on a payroll savings plan. The Chrysler Company looked at it and Mr. Townsend is performing a great service for us. He got all of the Chrysler people to sign up 100 percent. Larry O'Brien has done an unbelievable job on the payroll savings. He has gone out and said, "Give your Government onehalf percent. There are a lot of men giving their lives for their country; you give them one-half percent. Let them buy a little bond every payday." As a result, they have gone up to 60 and 70 and 80 percent in nearly every department of the Government. So from savings bonds we will pull out an extra $1 1/2 billion.

That is $13 billion we have taken out of this economy this year. They tell me that if you add about $11 billion a quarter, that is a reasonable addition to the economy-an increase in our gross national product. In four quarters that would be $44 billion. They predict now it could be $55 billion to $60 billion that is being added, things are so prosperous. We are taking $13 billion of that out. So you add $44 billion and the $13 billion we are taking out from your $55 billion, and you see where we are.

Now it may be we ought to take out more. I wish I knew. If it were black and white, I would give you a recommendation this moment, but I don't know. I don't know how much more you all are going to take out in the Congress. The present record shows you are going to put about $3 billion in. But I have confidence in the Senate. While traditionally it hasn't cut appropriations bills deeply, during my period there-I am gone and they may have changed. I hope they have. We will have to see how much they take out of it.

But we are concerned that we don't go too far too fast. Now I had rather be concerned about that than concerned that my party is not going to have employment, and my party is not going to have good prices for their products, and my party is not going to have these things, or my Government.

A fellow said to me the other day that he was real distressed, that things were just going to pot right quick, because of these prosperous conditions. I said, "Well, one thing is sure, I believe I'll never be afraid of inflation if you are running things.

"My experience with you gives me some reason to believe that the farmer doesn't need to worry about having too big prices and too much income if you take over. He doesn't have to worry about all the people being employed and buying too much during that period."

So what we have to worry about this morning is what an even balance is. And by and large, we have nothing to really go home and cry about. This country is doing very well. That is not because of me. That is not because of you, or the Vice President, or the distinguished deputy Republican leader, my friend Les Arends.

That is because of this system we have that our forefathers figured out. When we run into these little obstacles like freight car shortages and others, we just all get together and put our shoulders to the wheel and try to solve it, and at least improve it with this measure.

In the days ahead, we are going to have a lot of problems to solve. But we are big enough to meet them and we are going to meet them and we are going to try to meet them in a spirit of understanding, in a spirit of faith in what our Founding Fathers did, and with a tolerance and an understanding of each other.

I went out to the hospital the other day to see a good many veterans, but one was a veteran of many wars, General Eisenhower. Another one was a veteran of a good many political and military struggles, the minority leader, Senator Dirksen. And then a good many from Vietnam.

I told General Eisenhower when I left there, "General, I tried to express a little understanding of your problems as President when I was leader, and some of my more vociferous Senators made criticisms at times about why didn't I go join your party that I voted for it so many times." I said, "I want you to know that I have been rewarded 100 percent in the 3 years I have been here for everything I did during that period. You have shown a little understanding and you have shown a little desire to cooperate."

So we don't get anywhere, really, when we divide up, slice up, and cut up our fellow man in the eyes of the world. The fact that you would come here this morning and participate in a little ceremony of this kind, members of both parties, all of you unite in this action, and I hope unite in other actions that are pending, correct what needs to be corrected, improve what needs to be improved, recommend to me what ought to be done.

If you don't think things are going right, put on your hat and come on down here. You have to wait 15 or 20 minutes sometimes, but come on down and tell me about it. I would even rather have you do that than write me, because somehow or other there is always somebody in your office when you write me a letter that lets it leak out and I read about it in the paper. Sometimes I read about my mail on the ticker, and I don't get the letter for a week. I just go looking for it. I have had to call one or two fellows and say, "Put it in the mail. Come on, let me have it so I can get to it."

But I think this is a wonderful Congress and you good people of both parties that make it up deserve a lot of credit. As long as I can--I might have to withdraw a little of it in late October or early November out there if some of you get after me too hot-but as long as I can, I am going to give you recognition for the job that you have done.

Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9 a.m. in the East Room at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington, and Representative Harley O. Staggers of West Virginia. Later he referred to John W. Bush, Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Luci Baines and Lynda Bird, his daughters, Lynn Alfred Townsend, President of the Chrysler Corporation, Lawrence F. O'Brien, Postmaster General, and to Representative Leslie C. Arends and Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, both of Illinois.

As enacted, the freight car bill (S. 1098) is Public Law 89-430 (80 Stat. 168).

For the President's Special Message to the Congress on Transportation and for his remarks upon signing the bill authorizing the Department of Transportation, see Items 98 and 523.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks Upon Signing a Bill To Reduce Freight Car Shortages Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238932

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