Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill To Establish a National Memorial to Woodrow Wilson in the Smithsonian Institution.

October 25, 1968

I HAVE today signed S. 3174, to establish a National Memorial to Woodrow Wilson in the Smithsonian Institution.

In February 1967, following the report of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission, I asked Secretary Gardner of HEW to take the leadership, with the assistance of the other members of the Pennsylvania Avenue Commission, in formulating detailed plans for a Woodrow Wilson Center.

In my message on the Nation's first city in March of this year, I asked the Congress for legislation to establish the Center. I said:

"The dream of a great scholarly center in our Nation's Capital is as old as the Republic itself. There could be no more fitting monument to the memory of Woodrow Wilson than an institution devoted to the highest ideals of scholarship and international understanding."

The Congress has responded by enacting S. 3174, to establish this monument to a great American President--as a living memorial to one who combined great scholarship, a progressive spirit, and a practical understanding of political life.

Under the guidance of a distinguished board of trustees, I am confident that the Woodrow Wilson International Center will further the ideals of scholarly excellence and of international understanding that guided the life and work of the 28th President of the United States.

Note: As enacted, the bill (S. 3174), entitled the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Act of 1968, is Public Law 90-637 ( 82 Stat. 1356 ), approved on October 24, 1968.

The Report of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission to the President and the Congress, dated October 27, 1966, is printed as House Document 123 (89th Cong., 2d sess.).

For the Presidents 1967 and 1968 messages to the Congress on the District of Columbia, containing his recommendations for the Wilson Memorial, see 1967 volume, this series, Book I, Item 71, and this volume, Item 133, above.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill To Establish a National Memorial to Woodrow Wilson in the Smithsonian Institution. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236892

Simple Search of Our Archives