But America stands for progress in human rights as well as economic

affairs, and a strong America requires the assurance of full and equal

rights to all its citizens, of any race or of any color. This

Administration has shown as never before how much could be done through

the full use of Executive powers--through the enforcement of laws

already passed by the Congress--through persuasion, negotiation, and

litigation, to secure the constitutional rights of all: the right to

vote, the right to travel without hindrance across State lines, and the

right to free public education.

I issued last March a comprehensive order to guarantee the right to

equal employment opportunity in all Federal agencies and contractors.

The Vice President’s Committee thus created has done much, including the

voluntary “Plans for Progress” which, in all sections of the country,

are achieving a quiet but striking success in opening up to all races

new professional, supervisory, and other job opportunities.

But there is much more to be done--by the Executive, by the courts, and

by the Congress. Among the bills now pending before you, on which the

executive departments will comment in detail, are appropriate methods of

strengthening these basic rights which have our full support. The right

to vote, for example, should no longer be denied through such arbitrary

devices on a local level, sometimes abused, such as literacy tests and

poll taxes. As we approach the 100th anniversary, next January, of the

Emancipation Proclamation, let the acts of every branch of the

Government--and every citizen--portray that “righteousness does exalt a

nation.”

HEALTH AND WELFARE

Finally, a strong America cannot neglect the aspirations of its

citizens--the welfare of the needy, the health care of the elderly, the

education of the young. For we are not developing the Nation’s wealth

for its own sake. Wealth is the means--and people are the ends. All our

material riches will avail us little if we do not use them to expand the

opportunities of our people.

Last year, we improved the diet of needy people--provided more hot

lunches and fresh milk to school children--built more college

dormitories--and, for the elderly, expanded private housing, nursing

homes, health services, and social security. But we have just begun.

To help those least fortunate of all, I am recommending a new public

welfare program, stressing services instead of support, rehabilitation

instead of relief, and training for useful work instead of prolonged

dependency.

To relieve the critical shortage of doctors and dentists--and this is a

matter which should concern us all--and expand research, I urge action

to aid medical and dental colleges and scholarships and to establish new

National Institutes of Health.

To take advantage of modern vaccination achievements, I am proposing a

mass immunization program, aimed at the virtual elimination of such

ancient enemies of our children as polio, diphtheria, whooping cough,

and tetanus.

To protect our consumers from the careless and the unscrupulous, I shall

recommend improvements in the Food and Drug laws--strengthening

inspection and standards, halting unsafe and worthless products,

preventing misleading labels, and cracking down on the illicit sale of

habit-forming drugs.

But in matters of health, no piece of unfinished business is more

important or more urgent than the enactment under the social security

system of health insurance for the aged.

For our older citizens have longer and more frequent illnesses, higher

hospital and medical bills and too little income to pay them. Private

health insurance helps very few--for its cost is high and its coverage

limited. Public welfare cannot help those too proud to seek relief but

hard-pressed to pay their own bills. Nor can their children or

grandchildren always sacrifice their own health budgets to meet this

constant drain.

Social security has long helped to meet the hardships of retirement,

death, and disability. I now urge that its coverage be extended without

further delay to provide health insurance for the elderly.

EDUCATION

Equally important to our strength is the quality of our education. Eight

million adult Americans are classified as functionally illiterate. This

is a disturbing figure--reflected in Selective Service rejection

rates--reflected in welfare rolls and crime rates. And I shall recommend

plans for a massive attack to end this adult illiteracy.

I shall also recommend bills to improve educational quality, to

stimulate the arts, and, at the college level, to provide Federal loans

for the construction of academic facilities and Federally financed

scholarships.

If this Nation is to grow in wisdom and strength, then every able high

school graduate should have the opportunity to develop his talents. Yet

nearly half lack either the funds or the facilities to attend college.

Enrollments are going to double in our colleges in the short space of 10

years. The annual cost per student is skyrocketing to astronomical

levels--now averaging $1,650 a year, although almost half of our

families earn less than $5,000. They cannot afford such costs--but this

Nation cannot afford to maintain its military power and neglect its

brainpower.

But excellence in education must begin at the elementary level. I sent

to the Congress last year a proposal for Federal aid to public school

construction and teachers’ salaries. I believe that bill, which passed

the Senate and received House Committee approval, offered the minimum

amount required by our needs and--in terms of across-the-board aid--the

maximum scope permitted by our Constitution. I therefore see no reason

to weaken or withdraw that bill: and I urge its passage at this session.

“Civilization,” said H. G. Wells, “is a race between education and

catastrophe.” It is up to you in this Congress to determine the winner

of that race.

These are not unrelated measures addressed to specific gaps or

grievances in our national life. They are the pattern of our intentions

and the foundation of our hopes. “I believe in democracy,” said Woodrow

Wilson, “because it releases the energy of every human being.” The

dynamic of democracy is the power and the purpose of the individual, and

the policy of this administration is to give to the individual the

opportunity to realize his own highest possibilities.

Our program is to open to all the opportunity for steady and productive

employment, to remove from all the handicap of arbitrary or irrational

exclusion, to offer to all the facilities for education and health and

welfare, to make society the servant of the individual and the

individual the source of progress, and thus to realize for all the full

promise of American life.

IV. OUR GOALS ABROAD

All of these efforts at home give meaning to our efforts abroad. Since

the close of the Second World War, a global civil war has divided and

tormented mankind. But it is not our military might, or our higher

standard of living, that has most distinguished us from our adversaries.

It is our belief that the state is the servant of the citizen and not

his master.

This basic clash of ideas and wills is but one of the forces reshaping

our globe--swept as it is by the tides of hope and fear, by crises in

the headlines today that become mere footnotes tomorrow. Both the

successes and the setbacks of the past year remain on our agenda of

unfinished business. For every apparent blessing contains the seeds of

danger--every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope--and the one

unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.

Yet our basic goal remains the same: a peaceful world community of free

and independent states--free to choose their own future and their own

system, so long as it does not threaten the freedom of others.

Some may choose forms and ways that we would not choose for

ourselves--but it is not for us that they are choosing. We can welcome

diversity--the Communists cannot. For we offer a world of choice--they

offer the world of coercion. And the way of the past shows clearly that

freedom, not coercion, is the wave of the future. At times our goal has

been obscured by crisis or endangered by conflict--but it draws

sustenance from five basic sources of strength:

--the moral and physical strength of the United States;

--the united strength of the Atlantic Community;

--the regional strength of our Hemispheric relations;

--the creative strength of our efforts in the new and developing

nations; and

--the peace-keeping strength of the United Nations.

V. OUR MILITARY STRENGTH

Our moral and physical strength begins at home as already discussed. But

it includes our military strength as well. So long as fanaticism and

fear brood over the affairs of men, we must arm to deter others from

aggression.

In the past 12 months our military posture has steadily improved. We

increased the previous defense budget by 15 percent--not in the

expectation of war but for the preservation of peace. We more than

doubled our acquisition rate of Polaris submarines--we doubled the

production capacity for Minuteman missiles--and increased by 50 percent

the number of manned bombers standing ready on a 15 minute alert. This

year the combined force levels planned under our new Defense

budget--including nearly three hundred additional Polaris and Minuteman

missiles--have been precisely calculated to insure the continuing

strength of our nuclear deterrent.

But our strength may be tested at many levels. We intend to have at all

times the capacity to resist non-nuclear or limited attacks--as a

complement to our nuclear capacity, not as a substitute. We have

rejected any all-or-nothing posture which would leave no choice but

inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation.

Thus we have doubled the number of ready combat divisions in the Army’s

strategic reserve--increased our troops in Europe--built up the

Marines--added new sealift and airlift capacity--modernized our weapons

and ammunition--expanded our anti-guerrilla forces--and increased the

active fleet by more than 70 vessels and our tactical air forces by

nearly a dozen wings.

Because we needed to reach this higher long-term level of readiness more

quickly, 155,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard were

activated under the Act of this Congress. Some disruptions and distress

were inevitable. But the overwhelming majority bear their burdens--and

their Nation’s burdens--with admirable and traditional devotion.

In the coming year, our reserve programs will be revised--two Army

Divisions will, I hope, replace those Guard Divisions on duty--and

substantial other increases will boost our Air Force fighter units, the

procurement of equipment, and our continental defense and warning

efforts. The Nation’s first serious civil defense shelter program is

under way, identifying, marking, and stocking 50 million spaces; and I

urge your approval of Federal incentives for the construction of public

fall-out shelters in schools and hospitals and similar centers.

VI. THE UNITED NATIONS

But arms alone are not enough to keep the peace--it must be kept by men.

Our instrument and our hope is the United Nations--and I see little

merit in the impatience of those who would abandon this imperfect world

instrument because they dislike our imperfect world. For the troubles of

a world organization merely reflect the troubles of the world itself.

And if the organization is weakened, these troubles can only increase.

We may not always agree with every detailed action taken by every

officer of the United Nations, or with every voting majority. But as an

institution, it should have in the future, as it has had in the past

since its inception, no stronger or more faithful member than the United

States of America.

In 1961 the peace-keeping strength of the United Nations was reinforced.

And those who preferred or predicted its demise, envisioning a troika in

the seat of Hammarskjold--or Red China inside the Assembly--have seen

instead a new vigor, under a new Secretary General and a fully

independent Secretariat. In making plans for a new forum and principles

on disarmament --for peace-keeping in outer space--for a decade of

development effort--the UN fulfilled its Charter’s lofty aim.

Eighteen months ago the tangled and turbulent Congo presented the UN

with its gravest challenge. The prospect was one of chaos--or certain

big-power confrontation, with all of its hazards and all of its risks,

to us and to others. Today the hopes have improved for peaceful

conciliation within a united Congo. This is the objective of our policy

in this important area.

No policeman is universally popular--particularly when he uses his stick

to restore law and order on his beat. Those members who are willing to

contribute their votes and their views--but very little else--have

created a serious deficit by refusing to pay their share of special UN

assessments. Yet they do pay their annual assessments to retain their

votes--and a new UN Bond issue, financing special operations for the

next 18 months, is to be repaid with interest from these regular

assessments. This is clearly in our interest. It will not only keep the

UN solvent, but require all voting members to pay their fair share of

its activities. Our share of special operations has long been much

higher than our share of the annual assessment--and the bond issue will

in effect reduce our disproportionate obligation, and for these reasons,

I am urging Congress to approve our participation.

With the approval of this Congress, we have undertaken in the past year

a great new effort in outer space. Our aim is not simply to be first on

the moon, any more than Charles Lindbergh’s real aim was to be the first

to Paris. His aim was to develop the techniques of our own country and

other countries in the field of air and the atmosphere, and our

objective in making this effort, which we hope will place one of our

citizens on the moon, is to develop in a new frontier of science,

commerce and cooperation, the position of the United States and the Free

World.

This Nation belongs among the first to explore it, and among the

first--if not the first--we shall be. We are offering our know-how and

our cooperation to the United Nations. Our satellites will soon be

providing other nations with improved weather observations. And I shall

soon send to the Congress a measure to govern the financing and

operation of an International Communications Satellite system, in a

manner consistent with the public interest and our foreign policy.

But peace in space will help us naught once peace on earth is gone.

World order will be secured only when the whole world has laid down

these weapons which seem to offer us present security but threaten the

future survival of the human race. That armistice day seems very far

away. The vast resources of this planet are being devoted more and more

to the means of destroying, instead of enriching, human life.

But the world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his

execution. Nor has mankind survived the tests and trials of thousands of

years to surrender everything--including its existence--now. This Nation

has the will and the faith to make a supreme effort to break the log jam

on disarmament and nuclear tests--and we will persist until we prevail,

until the rule of law has replaced the ever dangerous use of force.

VII. LATIN AMERICA

I turn now to a prospect of great promise: our Hemispheric relations.

The Alliance for Progress is being rapidly transformed from proposal to

program. Last month in Latin America I saw for myself the quickening of

hope, the revival of confidence, the new trust in our country--among

workers and farmers as well as diplomats. We have pledged our help in

speeding their economic, educational, and social progress. The Latin

American Republics have in turn pledged a new and strenuous effort of

self-help and self-reform.

To support this historic undertaking, I am proposing--under the

authority contained in the bills of the last session of the Congress--a

special long-term Alliance for Progress fund of $3 billion. Combined

with our Food for Peace, Export-Import Bank, and other resources, this

will provide more than $1 billion a year in new support for the

Alliance. In addition, we have increased twelve-fold our Spanish and

Portuguese language broadcasting in Latin America, and improved

Hemispheric trade and defense. And while the blight of communism has

been increasingly exposed and isolated in the Americas, liberty has

scored a gain. The people of the Dominican Republic, with our firm

encouragement and help, and those of our sister Republics of this

Hemisphere, are safely passing through the treacherous course from

dictatorship through disorder towards democracy.

VIII. THE NEW AND DEVELOPING NATIONS

Our efforts to help other new or developing nations, and to strengthen

their stand for freedom, have also made progress. A newly unified Agency

for International Development is reorienting our foreign assistance to

emphasize long-term development loans instead of grants, more economic

aid instead of military, individual plans to meet the individual needs

of the nations, and new standards on what they must do to marshal their

own resources.

A newly conceived Peace Corps is winning friends and helping people in

fourteen countries--supplying trained and dedicated young men and women,

to give these new nations a hand in building a society, and a glimpse of

the best that is in our country. If there is a problem here, it is that

we cannot supply the spontaneous and mounting demand.

A newly-expanded Food for Peace Program is feeding the hungry of many

lands with the abundance of our productive farms--providing lunches for

children in school, wages for economic development, relief for the

victims of flood and famine, and a better diet for millions whose daily

bread is their chief concern.

These programs help people; and, by helping people, they help freedom.

The views of their governments may sometimes be very different from

ours--but events in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe teach us

never to write off any nation as lost to the Communists. That is the

lesson of our time. We support the independence of those newer or weaker

states whose history, geography, economy or lack of power impels them to

remain outside “entangling alliances”--as we did for more than a

century. For the independence of nations is a bar to the Communists’

“grand design”--it is the basis of our own.

In the past year, for example, we have urged a neutral and independent

Laos--regained there a common policy with our major allies--and insisted

that a cease-fire precede negotiations. While a workable formula for

supervising its independence is still to be achieved, both the spread of

war--which might have involved this country also--and a Communist

occupation have thus far been prevented.

A satisfactory settlement in Laos would also help to achieve and

safeguard the peace in Viet-Nam--where the foe is increasing his tactics

of terror--where our own efforts have been stepped up--and where the

local government has initiated new programs and reforms to broaden the

base of resistance. The systematic aggression now bleeding that country

is not a “war of liberation”--for Viet-Nam is already free. It is a war

of attempted subjugation--and it will be resisted.

IX. THE ATLANTIC COMMUNITY

Finally, the united strength of the Atlantic Community has flourished in

the last year under severe tests. NATO has increased both the number and

the readiness of its air, ground, and naval units--both its nuclear and

non-nuclear capabilities. Even greater efforts by all its members are

still required. Nevertheless our unity of purpose and will has been, I

believe, immeasurably strengthened.

The threat to the brave city of Berlin remains. In these last 6 months

the Allies have made it unmistakably clear that our presence in Berlin,

our free access thereto, and the freedom of two million West Berliners

would not be surrendered either to force or through appeasement--and to

maintain those rights and obligations, we are prepared to talk, when

appropriate, and to fight, if necessary. Every member of NATO stands

with us in a common commitment to preserve this symbol of free man’s

will to remain free.

I cannot now predict the course of future negotiations over Berlin. I

can only say that we are sparing no honorable effort to find a peaceful

and mutually acceptable resolution of this problem. I believe such a

resolution can be found, and with it an improvement in our relations

with the Soviet Union, if only the leaders in the Kremlin will recognize

the basic rights and interests involved, and the interest of all mankind

in peace.

But the Atlantic Community is no longer concerned with purely military

aims. As its common undertakings grow at an ever-increasing pace, we

are, and increasingly will be, partners in aid, trade, defense,

diplomacy, and monetary affairs.

The emergence of the new Europe is being matched by the emergence of new

ties across the Atlantic. It is a matter of undramatic daily cooperation

in hundreds of workaday tasks: of currencies kept in effective relation,

of development loans meshed together, of standardized weapons, and

concerted diplomatic positions. The Atlantic Community grows, not like a

volcanic mountain, by one mighty explosion, but like a coral reef, from

the accumulating activity of all.

Thus, we in the free world are moving steadily toward unity and

cooperation, in the teeth of that old Bolshevik prophecy, and at the

very time when extraordinary rumbles of discord can be heard across the

Iron Curtain. It is not free societies which bear within them the seeds

of inevitable disunity.

X. OUR BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

On one special problem, of great concern to our friends, and to us, I am

proud to give the Congress an encouraging report. Our efforts to

safeguard the dollar are progressing. In the 11 months preceding last

February 1, we suffered a net loss of nearly $2 billion in gold. In the

11 months that followed, the loss was just over half a billion dollars.

And our deficit in our basic transactions with the rest of the

world--trade, defense, foreign aid, and capital, excluding volatile

short-term flows--has been reduced from $2 billion for 1960 to about

one-third that amount for 1961. Speculative fever against the dollar is

ending--and confidence in the dollar has been restored.

We did not--and could not--achieve these gains through import

restrictions, troop withdrawals, exchange controls, dollar devaluation

or choking off domestic recovery. We acted not in panic but in

perspective. But the problem is not yet solved. Persistently large

deficits would endanger our economic growth and our military and defense

commitments abroad. Our goal must be a reasonable equilibrium in our

balance of payments. With the cooperation of the Congress, business,

labor, and our major allies, that goal can be reached.

We shall continue to attract foreign tourists and investments to our

shores, to seek increased military purchases here by our allies, to

maximize foreign aid procurement from American firms, to urge increased

aid from other fortunate nations to the less fortunate, to seek tax laws

which do not favor investment in other industrialized nations or tax

havens, and to urge coordination of allied fiscal and monetary policies

so as to discourage large and disturbing capital movements.

TRADE

Above all, if we are to pay for our commitments abroad, we must expand

our exports. Our businessmen must be export conscious and export

competitive. Our tax policies must spur modernization of our plants--our

wage and price gains must be consistent with productivity to hold the

line on prices--our export credit and promotion campaigns for American

industries must continue to expand.

But the greatest challenge of all is posed by the growth of the European

Common Market. Assuming the accession of the United Kingdom, there will

arise across the Atlantic a trading partner behind a single external

tariff similar to ours with an economy which nearly equals our own. Will

we in this country adapt our thinking to these new prospects and

patterns--or will we wait until events have passed us by?

This is the year to decide. The Reciprocal Trade Act is expiring. We

need a new law--a wholly new approach--a bold new instrument of American

trade policy. Our decision could well affect the unity of the West, the

course of the Cold War, and the economic growth of our Nation for a

generation to come.

If we move decisively, our factories and farms can increase their sales

to their richest, fastest-growing market. Our exports will increase. Our

balance of payments position will improve. And we will have forged

across the Atlantic a trading partnership with vast resources for

freedom.

If, on the other hand, we hang back in deference to local economic

pressures, we will find ourselves cut off from our major allies.

Industries--and I believe this is most vital--industries will move their

plants and jobs and capital inside the walls of the Common Market, and

jobs, therefore, will be lost here in the United States if they cannot

otherwise compete for its consumers. Our farm surpluses--our balance of

trade, as you all know, to Europe, the Common Market, in farm products,

is nearly three or four to one in our favor, amounting to one of the

best earners of dollars in our balance of payments structure, and

without entrance to this Market, without the ability to enter it, our

farm surpluses will pile up in the Middle West, tobacco in the South,

and other commodities, which have gone through Western Europe for 15

years. Our balance of payments position will worsen. Our consumers will

lack a wider choice of goods at lower prices. And millions of American

workers--whose jobs depend on the sale or the transportation or the

distribution of exports or imports, or whose jobs will be endangered by

the movement of our capital to Europe, or whose jobs can be maintained

only in an expanding economy--these millions of workers in your home

States and mine will see their real interests sacrificed.

Members of the Congress: The United States did not rise to greatness by

waiting for others to lead. This Nation is the world’s foremost

manufacturer, farmer, banker, consumer, and exporter. The Common Market

is moving ahead at an economic growth rate twice ours. The Communist

economic offensive is under way. The opportunity is ours--the initiative

is up to us--and I believe that 1962 is the time.

To seize that initiative, I shall shortly send to the Congress a new

five-year Trade Expansion Action, far-reaching in scope but designed

with great care to make certain that its benefits to our people far

outweigh any risks. The bill will permit the gradual elimination of

tariffs here in the United States and in the Common Market on those

items in which we together supply 80 percent of the world’s

trade--mostly items in which our own ability to compete is demonstrated

by the fact that we sell abroad, in these items, substantially more than

we import. This step will make it possible for our major industries to

compete with their counterparts in Western Europe for access to European

consumers.

On other goods the bill will permit a gradual reduction of duties up to

50 percent--permitting bargaining by major categories--and provide for

appropriate and tested forms of assistance to firms and employees

adjusting to import competition. We are not neglecting the safeguards

provided by peril points, an escape clause, or the National Security

Amendment. Nor are we abandoning our non-European friends or our

traditional “most-favored nation” principle. On the contrary, the bill

will provide new encouragement for their sale of tropical agricultural

products, so important to our friends in Latin America, who have long

depended upon the European market, who now find themselves faced with

new challenges which we must join with them in overcoming.

Concessions, in this bargaining, must of course be reciprocal, not

unilateral. The Common Market will not fulfill its own high promise

unless its outside tariff walls are low. The dangers of restriction or

timidity in our own policy have counterparts for our friends in Europe.

For together we face a common challenge: to enlarge the prosperity of

free men everywhere--to build in partnership a new trading community in

which all free nations may gain from the productive energy of free

competitive effort.

These various elements in our foreign policy lead, as I have said, to a

single goal--the goal of a peaceful world of free and independent

states. This is our guide for the present and our vision for the

future--a free community of nations, independent but interdependent,

uniting north and south, east and west, in one great family of man,

outgrowing and transcending the hates and fears that rend our age.

We will not reach that goal today, or tomorrow. We may not reach it in

our own lifetime. But the quest is the greatest adventure of our

century. We sometimes chafe at the burden of our obligations, the

complexity of our decisions, the agony of our choices. But there is no

comfort or security for us in evasion, no solution in abdication, no

relief in irresponsibility.

A year ago, in assuming the tasks of the Presidency, I said that few

generations, in all history, had been granted the role of being the

great defender of freedom in its hour of maximum danger. This is our

good fortune; and I welcome it now as I did a year ago. For it is the

fate of this generation--of you in the Congress and of me as

President--to live with a struggle we did not start, in a world we did

not make. But the pressures of life are not always distributed by

choice. And while no nation has ever faced such a challenge, no nation

has ever been so ready to seize the burden and the glory of freedom.

And in this high endeavor, may God watch over the United States of

America.

***

State of the Union Address

John F. Kennedy

January 14, 1963

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the 88th Congress:

I congratulate you all--not merely on your electoral victory but on your

selected role in history. For you and I are privileged to serve the

great Republic in what could be the most decisive decade in its long

history. The choices we make, for good or ill, may well shape the state

of the Union for generations yet to come.

Little more than 100 weeks ago I assumed the office of President of the

United States. In seeking the help of the Congress and our countrymen, I

pledged no easy answers. I pledged--and asked--only toil and dedication.

These the Congress and the people have given in good measure. And today,

having witnessed in recent months a heightened respect for our national

purpose and power--having seen the courageous calm of a united people in

a perilous hour--and having observed a steady improvement in the

opportunities and well-being of our citizens--I can report to you that

the state of this old but youthful Union, in the 175th year of its life,

is good.

In the world beyond our borders, steady progress has been made in

building a world of order. The people of West Berlin remain both free

and secure. A settlement, though still precarious, has been reached in

Laos. The spearpoint of aggression has been blunted in Viet-Nam. The end

of agony may be in sight in the Congo. The doctrine of troika is dead.

And, while danger continues, a deadly threat has been removed in Cuba.

At home, the recession is behind us. Well over a million more men and

women are working today than were working 2 years ago. The average

factory work week is once again more than 40 hours; our industries are

turning out more goods than ever before; and more than half of the

manufacturing capacity that lay silent and wasted 100 weeks ago is

humming with activity.

In short, both at home and abroad, there may now be a temptation to

relax. For the road has been long, the burden heavy, and the pace

consistently urgent.

But we cannot be satisfied to rest here. This is the side of the hill,

not the top. The mere absence of war is not peace. The mere absence of

recession is not growth. We have made a beginning--but we have only

begun.

Now the time has come to make the most of our gains--to translate the

renewal of our national strength into the achievement of our national

purpose.

I.

America has enjoyed 22 months of uninterrupted economic recovery. But

recovery is not enough. If we are to prevail in the long run, we must

expand the long-run strength of our economy. We must move along the path

to a higher rate of growth and full employment.

For this would mean tens of billions of dollars more each year in

production, profits, wages, and public revenues. It would mean an end to

the persistent slack which has kept our unemployment at or above 5

percent for 61 out of the past 62 months--and an end to the growing

pressures for such restrictive measures as the 35-hour week, which alone

could increase hourly labor costs by as much as 14 percent, start a new

wage-price spiral of inflation, and undercut our efforts to compete with

other nations.

To achieve these greater gains, one step, above all, is essential--the

enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal

income taxes.

For it is increasingly clear--to those in Government, business, and

labor who are responsible for our economy’s success--that our obsolete

tax system exerts too heavy a drag on private purchasing power, profits,

and employment. Designed to check inflation in earlier years, it now

checks growth instead. It discourages extra effort and risk. It distorts

the use of resources. It invites recurrent recessions, depresses our

Federal revenues, and causes chronic budget deficits.

Now, when the inflationary pressures of the war and the post-war years

no longer threaten, and the dollar commands new respect--now, when no

military crisis strains our resources--now is the time to act. We cannot

afford to be timid or slow. For this is the most urgent task confronting

the Congress in 1963.

In an early message, I shall propose a permanent reduction in tax rates

which will lower liabilities by $13.5 billion. Of this, $11 billion

results from reducing individual tax rates, which now range between 20

and 91 percent, to a more sensible range of 14 to 65 percent, with a

split in the present first bracket. Two and one-half billion dollars

results from reducing corporate tax rates, from 52 percent--which gives

the Government today a majority interest in profits--to the permanent

pre-Korean level of 47 percent. This is in addition to the more than $2

billion cut in corporate tax liabilities resulting from last year’s

investment credit and depreciation reform.

To achieve this reduction within the limits of a manageable budgetary

deficit, I urge: first, that these cuts be phased over 3 calendar years,

beginning in 1963 with a cut of some $6 billion at annual rates; second,

that these reductions be coupled with selected structural changes,

beginning in 1964, which will broaden the tax base, end unfair or

unnecessary preferences, remove or lighten certain hardships, and in the

net offset some $3.5 billion of the revenue loss; and third, that

budgetary receipts at the outset be increased by $1.5 billion a year,

without any change in tax liabilities, by gradually shifting the tax

payments of large corporations to a more current time schedule. This

combined program, by increasing the amount of our national income, will

in time result in still higher Federal revenues. It is a fiscally

responsible program--the surest and the soundest way of achieving in

time a balanced budget in a balanced full employment economy.

This net reduction in tax liabilities of $10 billion will increase the

purchasing power of American families and business enterprises in every

tax bracket, with greatest increase going to our low-income consumers.

It will, in addition, encourage the initiative and risk-taking on which

our free system depends--induce more investment, production, and

capacity use--help provide the 2 million new jobs we need every

year--and reinforce the American principle of additional reward for

additional effort.

I do not say that a measure for tax reduction and reform is the only way

to achieve these goals.

No doubt a massive increase in Federal spending could also create jobs

and growth, but in today’s setting, private consumers, employers, and

investors should be given a full opportunity first.

No doubt a temporary tax cut could provide a spur to our economy--but a

long-run problem compels a long-run solution.

No doubt a reduction in either individual or corporation taxes alone

would be of great help--but corporations need customers and job seekers

need jobs.

No doubt tax reduction without reform would sound simpler and more

attractive to many--but our growth is also hampered by a host of tax

inequities and special preferences which have distorted the flow of

investment.

And finally, there are no doubt some who would prefer to put off a tax

cut in the hope that ultimately an end to the cold war would make

possible an equivalent cut in expenditures--but that end is not in view

and to wait for it would be costly and self-defeating.

In submitting a tax program which will, of course, temporarily increase

the deficit but can ultimately end it--and in recognition of the need to

control expenditures--I will shortly submit a fiscal 1964 administrative

budget which, while allowing for needed rises in defense, space, and

fixed interest charges, holds total expenditures for all other purposes

below this year’s level.

This requires the reduction or postponement of many desirable programs,

the absorption of a large part of last year’s Federal pay raise through

personnel and other economies, the termination of certain installations

and projects, and the substitution in several programs of private for

public credit. But I am convinced that the enactment this year of tax

reduction and tax reform overshadows all other domestic problems in this

Congress. For we cannot for long lead the cause of peace and freedom, if

we ever cease to set the pace here at home.

II.

Tax reduction alone, however, is not enough to strengthen our society,

to provide opportunities for the four million Americans who are born

every year, to improve the lives of 32 million Americans who live on the

outskirts of poverty.

The quality of American life must keep pace with the quantity of

American goods.

This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.

Therefore, by holding down the budgetary cost of existing programs to

keep within the limitations I have set, it is both possible and

imperative to adopt other new measures that we cannot afford to

postpone.

These measures are based on a series of fundamental premises, grouped

under four related headings:

First, we need to strengthen our Nation by investing in our youth.

The future of any country which is dependent upon the will and wisdom of

its citizens is damaged, and irreparably damaged, whenever any of its

children is not educated to the full extent of his talent, from grade

school through graduate school. Today, an estimated 4 out of every 10

students in the 5th grade will not even finish high school--and that is

a waste we cannot afford.

In addition, there is no reason why one million young Americans, out of

school and out of work, should all remain unwanted and often untrained

on our city streets when their energies can be put to good use.

Finally, the overseas success of our Peace Corps volunteers, most of

them young men and women carrying skills and ideas to needy people,

suggests the merit of a similar corps serving our own community needs:

in mental hospitals, on Indian reservations, in centers for the aged or

for young delinquents, in schools for the illiterate or the handicapped.

As the idealism of our youth has served world peace, so can it serve the

domestic tranquility.

Second, we need to strengthen our Nation by safeguarding its health.

Our working men and women, instead of being forced to beg for help from

public charity once they are old and ill, should start contributing now

to their own retirement health program through the Social Security

System.

Moreover, all our miracles of medical research will count for little if

we cannot reverse the growing nationwide shortage of doctors, dentists,

and nurses, and the widespread shortages of nursing homes and modern

urban hospital facilities. Merely to keep the present ratio of doctors

and dentists from declining any further, we must over the next 10 years

increase the capacity of our medical schools by 50 percent and our

dental schools by 100 percent.

Finally, and of deep concern, I believe that the abandonment of the

mentally ill and the mentally retarded to the grim mercy of custodial

institutions too often inflicts on them and on their families a needless

cruelty which this Nation should not endure. The incidence of mental

retardation in this country is three times as high as that of Sweden,

for example--and that figure can and must be reduced.

Third, we need to strengthen our Nation by protecting the basic rights

of its citizens.

The right to competent counsel must be assured to every man accused of

crime in Federal court, regardless of his means.

And the most precious and powerful right in the world, the right to vote

in a free American election, must not be denied to any citizen on

grounds of his race or color. I wish that all qualified Americans

permitted to vote were willing to vote, but surely in this centennial

year of Emancipation all those who are willing to vote should always be

permitted.

Fourth, we need to strengthen our Nation by making the best and the most

economical use of its resources and facilities.

Our economic health depends on healthy transportation arteries; and I

believe the way to a more modern, economical choice of national

transportation service is through increased competition and decreased

regulation. Local mass transit, faring even worse, is as essential a

community service as hospitals and highways. Nearly three-fourths of our

citizens live in urban areas, which occupy only 2 percent of our

land--and if local transit is to survive and relieve the congestion of

these cities, it needs Federal stimulation and assistance.

Next, this Government is in the storage and stockpile business to the

melancholy tune of more than $16 billion. We must continue to support

farm income, but we should not pile more farm surpluses on top of the

$7.5 billion we already own. We must maintain a stockpile of strategic

materials, but the $8.5 billion we have acquired--for reasons both good

and bad--is much more than we need; and we should be empowered to

dispose of the excess in ways which will not cause market disruption.

Finally, our already overcrowded national parks and recreation areas

will have twice as many visitors 10 years from now as they do today. If

we do not plan today for the future growth of these and other great

natural assets--not only parks and forests but wildlife and wilderness

preserves, and water projects of all kinds--our children and their

children will be poorer in every sense of the word.

These are not domestic concerns alone. For upon our achievement of

greater vitality and strength here at home hang our fate and future in

the world: our ability to sustain and supply the security of free men

and nations, our ability to command their respect for our leadership,

our ability to expand our trade without threat to our balance of

payments, and our ability to adjust to the changing demands of cold war

competition and challenge.

We shall be judged more by what we do at home than by what we preach

abroad. Nothing we could do to help the developing countries would help

them half as much as a booming U.S. economy. And nothing our opponents

could do to encourage their own ambitions would encourage them half as

much as a chronic, lagging U.S. economy. These domestic tasks do not

divert energy from our security--they provide the very foundation for

freedom’s survival and success.

III.

Turning to the world outside, it was only a few years ago--in Southeast

Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, even outer space--that

communism sought to convey the image of a unified, confident, and

expanding empire, closing in on a sluggish America and a free world in

disarray. But few people would hold to that picture today.

In these past months we have reaffirmed the scientific and military

superiority of freedom. We have doubled our efforts in space, to assure

us of being first in the future. We have undertaken the most

far-reaching defense improvements in the peacetime history of this

country. And we have maintained the frontiers of freedom from Viet-Nam

to West Berlin.

But complacency or self-congratulation can imperil our security as much

as the weapons of tyranny. A moment of pause is not a promise of peace.

Dangerous problems remain from Cuba to the South China Sea. The world’s

prognosis prescribes, in short, not a year’s vacation for us, but a year

of obligation and opportunity.

Four special avenues of opportunity stand out: the Atlantic Alliance,

the developing nations, the new Sino-Soviet difficulties, and the search

for worldwide peace.

IV.

First, how fares the grand alliance? Free Europe is entering into a new

phase of its long and brilliant history. The era of colonial expansion

has passed; the era of national rivalries is fading; and a new era of

interdependence and unity is taking shape. Defying the old prophecies of

Marx, consenting to what no conqueror could ever compel, the free

nations of Europe are moving toward a unity of purpose and power and

policy in every sphere of activity.

For 17 years this movement has had our consistent support, both

political and economic. Far from resenting the new Europe, we regard her

as a welcome partner, not a rival. For the road to world peace and

freedom is still long, and there are burdens which only full partners

can share--in supporting the common defense, in expanding world trade,

in aligning our balance of payments, in aiding the emergent nations, in

concerting political and economic policies, and in welcoming to our

common effort other industrialized nations, notably Japan, whose

remarkable economic and political development of the 1950’s permits it

now to play on the world scene a major constructive role.

No doubt differences of opinion will continue to get more attention than

agreements on action, as Europe moves from independence to more formal

interdependence. But these are honest differences among honorable

associates--more real and frequent, in fact, among our Western European

allies than between them and the United States. For the unity of freedom

has never relied on uniformity of opinion. But the basic agreement of

this alliance on fundamental issues continues.

The first task of the alliance remains the common defense. Last month

Prime Minister Macmillan and I laid plans for a new stage in our long

cooperative effort, one which aims to assist in the wider task of

framing a common nuclear defense for the whole alliance.

The Nassau agreement recognizes that the security of the West is

indivisible, and so must be our defense. But it also recognizes that

this is an alliance of proud and sovereign nations, and works best when

we do not forget it. It recognizes further that the nuclear defense of

the West is not a matter for the present nuclear powers alone--that

France will be such a power in the future--and that ways must be found

without increasing the hazards of nuclear diffusion, to increase the

role of our other partners in planning, manning, and directing a truly

multilateral nuclear force within an increasingly intimate NATO

alliance. Finally, the Nassau agreement recognizes that nuclear defense

is not enough, that the agreed NATO levels of conventional strength must

be met, and that the alliance cannot afford to be in a position of

having to answer every threat with nuclear weapons or nothing.

We remain too near the Nassau decisions, and too far from their full

realization, to know their place in history. But I believe that, for the

first time, the door is open for the nuclear defense of the alliance to

become a source of confidence, instead of a cause of contention.

The next most pressing concern of the alliance is our common economic

goals of trade and growth. This Nation continues to be concerned about

its balance-of-payments deficit, which, despite its decline, remains a

stubborn and troublesome problem. We believe, moreover, that closer

economic ties among all free nations are essential to prosperity and

peace. And neither we nor the members of the European Common Market are

so affluent that we can long afford to shelter high cost farms or

factories from the winds of foreign competition, or to restrict the

channels of trade with other nations of the free world. If the Common

Market should move toward protectionism and restrictionism, it would

undermine its own basic principles. This Government means to use the

authority conferred on it last year by the Congress to encourage trade

expansion on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world.

V.

Second, what of the developing and non-aligned nations? They were

shocked by the Soviets’ sudden and secret attempt to transform Cuba into

a nuclear striking base--and by Communist China’s arrogant invasion of

India. They have been reassured by our prompt assistance to India, by

our support through the United Nations of the Congo’s unification, by

our patient search for disarmament, and by the improvement in our

treatment of citizens and visitors whose skins do not happen to be

white. And as the older colonialism recedes, and the neo-colonialism of

the Communist powers stands out more starkly than ever, they realize

more clearly that the issue in the world struggle is not communism

versus capitalism, but coercion versus free choice.

They are beginning to realize that the longing for independence is the

same the world over, whether it is the independence of West Berlin or

Viet-Nam. They are beginning to realize that such independence runs

athwart all Communist ambitions but is in keeping with our own--and that

our approach to their diverse needs is resilient and resourceful, while

the Communists are still relying on ancient doctrines and dogmas.

Nevertheless it is hard for any nation to focus on an external or

subversive threat to its independence when its energies are drained in

daily combat with the forces of poverty and despair. It makes little

sense for us to assail, in speeches and resolutions, the horrors of

communism, to spend $50 billion a year to prevent its military

advance--and then to begrudge spending, largely on American products,

less than one-tenth of that amount to help other nations strengthen

their independence and cure the social chaos in which communism has

always thrived.

I am proud--and I think most Americans are proud--of a mutual defense

and assistance program, evolved with bipartisan support in three

administrations, which has, with all its recognized problems,

contributed to the fact that not a single one of the nearly fifty U.N.

members to gain independence since the Second World War has succumbed to

Communist control.

I am proud of a program that has helped to arm and feed and clothe

millions of people who live on the front lines of freedom.

I am especially proud that this country has put forward for the 60’s a

vast cooperative effort to achieve economic growth and social progress

throughout the Americas--the Alliance for Progress.

I do not underestimate the difficulties that we face in this mutual

effort among our close neighbors, but the free states of this

hemisphere, working in close collaboration, have begun to make this

alliance a living reality. Today it is feeding one out of every four

school age children in Latin America an extra food ration from our farm

surplus. It has distributed 1.5 million school books and is building

17,000 classrooms. It has helped resettle tens of thousands of farm

families on land they can call their own. It is stimulating our good

neighbors to more self-help and self-reform--fiscal, social,

institutional, and land reforms. It is bringing new housing and hope,

new health and dignity, to millions who were forgotten. The men and

women of this hemisphere know that the alliance cannot succeed if it is

only another name for United States handouts--that it can succeed only

as the Latin American nations themselves devote their best effort to

fulfilling its goals.

This story is the same in Africa, in the Middle East, and in Asia.

Wherever nations are willing to help themselves, we stand ready to help

them build new bulwarks of freedom. We are not purchasing votes for the

cold war; we have gone to the aid of imperiled nations, neutrals and

allies alike. What we do ask--and all that we ask--is that our help be

used to best advantage, and that their own efforts not be diverted by

needless quarrels with other independent nations.

Despite all its past achievements, the continued progress of the Mutual

Assistance Program requires a persistent discontent with present

performance. We have been reorganizing this program to make it a more

effective, efficient instrument--and that process will continue this

year.

But free world development will still be an uphill struggle. Government

aid can only supplement the role of private investment, trade expansion,

commodity stabilization, and, above all, internal self-improvement. The

processes of growth are gradual--bearing fruit in a decade, not a day.

Our successes will be neither quick nor dramatic. But if these programs

were ever to be ended, our failures in a dozen countries would be sudden

and certain.

Neither money nor technical assistance, however, can be our only weapon

against poverty. In the end, the crucial effort is one of purpose,

requiring the fuel of finance but also a torch of idealism. And nothing

carries the spirit of this American idealism more effectively to the far

corners of the earth than the American Peace Corps.

A year ago, less than 900 Peace Corps volunteers were on the job. A year

from now they will number more than 9,000--men and women, aged 18 to 79,

willing to give 2 years of their lives to helping people in other lands.

There are, in fact, nearly a million Americans serving their country and

the cause of freedom in overseas posts, a record no other people can

match. Surely those of us who stay at home should be glad to help

indirectly; by supporting our aid programs; .by opening our doors to

foreign visitors and diplomats and students; and by proving, day by day,

by deed as well as word, that we are a just and generous people.

VI.

Third, what comfort can we take from the increasing strains and tensions

within the Communist bloc? Here hope must be tempered with caution. For

the Soviet-Chinese disagreement is over means, not ends. A dispute over

how best to bury the free world is no grounds for Western rejoicing.

Nevertheless, while a strain is not a fracture, it is clear that the

forces of diversity are at work inside the Communist camp, despite all

the iron disciplines of regimentation and all the iron dogmatisms of

ideology. Marx is proven wrong once again: for it is the closed

Communist societies, not the free and open societies which carry within

themselves the seeds of internal disintegration.

The disarray of the Communist empire has been heightened by two other

formidable forces. One is the historical force of nationalism--and the

yearning of all men to be free. The other is the gross inefficiency of

their economies. For a closed society is not open to ideas of

progress--and a police state finds that it cannot command the grain to

grow.

New nations asked to choose between two competing systems need only

compare conditions in East and West Germany, Eastern and Western Europe,

North and South Viet-Nam. They need only compare the disillusionment of

Communist Cuba with the promise of the Alliance for Progress. And all

the world knows that no successful system builds a wall to keep its

people in and freedom out--and the wall of shame dividing Berlin is a

symbol of Communist failure.

VII.

Finally, what can we do to move from the present pause toward enduring

peace? Again I would counsel caution. I foresee no spectacular reversal

in Communist methods or goals. But if all these trends and developments

can persuade the Soviet Union to walk the path of peace, then let her

know that all free nations will journey with her. But until that choice

is made, and until the world can develop a reliable system of

international security, the free peoples have no choice but to keep

their arms nearby.

This country, therefore, continues to require the best defense in the

world--a defense which is suited to the sixties. This means,

unfortunately, a rising defense budget--for there is no substitute for

adequate defense, and no “bargain basement” way of achieving it. It

means the expenditure of more than $15 billion this year on nuclear

weapons systems alone, a sum which is about equal to the combined

defense budgets of our European Allies.

But it also means improved air and missile defenses, improved civil

defense, a strengthened anti-guerrilla capacity and, of prime

importance, more powerful and flexible non-nuclear forces. For threats

of massive retaliation may not deter piecemeal aggression--and a line of

destroyers in a quarantine, or a division of well-equipped men on a

border, may be more useful to our real security than the multiplication

of awesome weapons beyond all rational need.

But our commitment to national safety is not a commitment to expand our

military establishment indefinitely. We do not dismiss disarmament as

merely an idle dream. For we believe that, in the end, it is the only

way to assure the security of all without impairing the interests of

any. Nor do we mistake honorable negotiation for appeasement. While we

shall never weary in the defense of freedom, neither shall we ever

abandon the pursuit of peace.

In this quest, the United Nations requires our full and continued

support. Its value in serving the cause of peace has been shown anew in

its role in the West New Guinea settlement, in its use as a forum for

the Cuban crisis, and in its task of unification in the Congo. Today the

United Nations is primarily the protector of the small and the weak, and

a safety valve for the strong. Tomorrow it can form the framework for a

world of law--a world in which no nation dictates the destiny of

another, and in which the vast resources now devoted to destructive

means will serve constructive ends.

In short, let our adversaries choose. If they choose peaceful

competition, they shall have it. If they come to realize that their

ambitions cannot succeed--if they see their “wars of liberation” and

subversion will ultimately fail--if they recognize that there is more

security in accepting inspection than in permitting new nations to

master the black arts of nuclear war--and if they are willing to turn

their energies, as we are, to the great unfinished tasks of our own

peoples--then, surely, the areas of agreement can be very wide indeed: a

clear understanding about Berlin, stability in Southeast Asia, an end to

nuclear testing, new checks on surprise or accidental attack, and,

ultimately, general and complete disarmament.

VIII.

For we seek not the worldwide victory of one nation or system but a

worldwide victory of man. The modern globe is too small, its weapons are

too destructive, and its disorders are too contagious to permit any

other kind of victory.

To achieve this end, the United States will continue to spend a greater

portion of its national production than any other people in the free

world. For 15 years no other free nation has demanded so much of itself.

Through hot wars and cold, through recession and prosperity, through the

ages of the atom and outer space, the American people have never

faltered and their faith has never flagged. If at times our actions seem

to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made

life difficult for us all.

But difficult days need not be dark. I think these are proud and

memorable days in the cause of peace and freedom. We are proud, for

example, of Major Rudolf Anderson who gave his life over the island of

Cuba. We salute Specialist James Allen Johnson who died on the border of

South Korea. We pay honor to Sergeant Gerald Pendell who was killed in

Viet-Nam. They are among the many who in this century, far from home,

have died for our country. Our task now, and the task of all Americans

is to live up to their commitment.

My friends: I close on a note of hope. We are not lulled by the

momentary calm of the sea or the somewhat clearer skies above. We know

the turbulence that lies below, and the storms that are beyond the

horizon this year. But now the winds of change appear to be blowing more

strongly than ever, in the world of communism as well as our own. For

175 years we have sailed with those winds at our back, and with the

tides of human freedom in our favor. We steer our ship with hope, as

Thomas Jefferson said, “leaving Fear astern.”

Today we still welcome those winds of change--and we have every reason

to believe that our tide is running strong. With thanks to Almighty God

for seeing us through a perilous passage, we ask His help anew in

guiding the “Good Ship Union.”

***

State of the Union Address

Lyndon B. Johnson

January 8, 1964

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the House and Senate, my fellow

Americans:

I will be brief, for our time is necessarily short and our agenda is

already long.

Last year’s congressional session was the longest in peacetime history.

With that foundation, let us work together to make this year’s session

the best in the Nation’s history.

Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for

civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session

which enacted the most far-reaching tax cut of our time; as the session

which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these

United States; as the session which finally recognized the health needs

of all our older citizens; as the session which reformed our tangled

transportation and transit policies; as the session which achieved the

most effective, efficient foreign aid program ever; and as the session

which helped to build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more

hospitals than any single session of Congress in the history of our

Republic.

All this and more can and must be done. It can be done by this summer,

and it can be done without any increase in spending. In fact, under the

budget that I shall shortly submit, it can be done with an actual

reduction in Federal expenditures and Federal employment.

We have in 1964 a unique opportunity and obligation--to prove the

success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and

abroad who question our purpose and our competence.

If we fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless,

senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the

House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the

Congress and the administration, then history will rightfully judge us

harshly. But if we succeed, if we can achieve these goals by forging in

this country a greater sense of union, then, and only then, can we take

full satisfaction in the State of the Union. II.

Here in the Congress you can demonstrate effective legislative

leadership by discharging the public business with clarity and dispatch,

voting each important proposal up, or voting it down, but at least

bringing it to a fair and a final vote.

Let us carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald

Kennedy--not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are

right.

In his memory today, I especially ask all members of my own political

faith, in this election year, to put your country ahead of your party,

and to always debate principles; never debate personalities.

For my part, I pledge a progressive administration which is efficient,

and honest and frugal. The budget to be submitted to the Congress

shortly is in full accord with this pledge.

It will cut our deficit in half--from $10 billion to $4,900 million. It

will be, in proportion to our national output, the smallest budget since

1951.

It will call for a substantial reduction in Federal employment, a feat

accomplished only once before in the last 10 years. While maintaining

the full strength of our combat defenses, it will call for the lowest

number of civilian personnel in the Department of Defense since 1950.

It will call for total expenditures of $97,900 million--compared to

$98,400 million for the current year, a reduction of more than $500

million. It will call for new obligational authority of $103,800

million--a reduction of more than $4 billion below last year’s request

of $107,900 million.

But it is not a standstill budget, for America cannot afford to stand

still. Our population is growing. Our economy is more complex. Our

people’s needs are expanding.

But by closing down obsolete installations, by curtailing less urgent

programs, by cutting back where cutting back seems to be wise, by

insisting on a dollar’s worth for a dollar spent, I am able to recommend

in this reduced budget the most Federal support in history for

education, for health, for retraining the unemployed, and for helping

the economically and the physically handicapped.

This budget, and this year’s legislative program, are designed to help

each and every American citizen fulfill his basic hopes--his hopes for a

fair chance to make good; his hopes for fair play from the law; his

hopes for a full-time job on full-time pay; his hopes for a decent home

for his family in a decent community; his hopes for a good school for

his children with good teachers; and his hopes for security when faced

with sickness or unemployment or old age. III.

Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope--some

because of their poverty, and some because of theft color, and all too

many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with

opportunity.

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on

poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with

me in that effort.

It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy

will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest

Nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it. One

thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth today can

return $40,000 or more in his lifetime.

Poverty is a national problem, requiring improved national organization

and support. But this attack, to be effective, must also be organized at

the State and the local level and must be supported and directed by

State and local efforts.

For the war against poverty will not be won here in Washington. It must

be won in the field, in every private home, in every public office, from

the courthouse to the White House.

The program I shall propose will emphasize this cooperative approach to

help that one-fifth of all American families with incomes too small to

even meet their basic needs.

Our chief weapons in a more pinpointed attack will be better schools,

and better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job

opportunities to help more Americans, especially young Americans, escape

from squalor and misery and unemployment rolls where other citizens help

to carry them.

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the

symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow

citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of

education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack

of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

But whatever the cause, our joint Federal-local effort must pursue

poverty, pursue it wherever it exists--in city slums and small towns, in

sharecropper shacks or in migrant worker camps, on Indian Reservations,

among whites as well as Negroes, among the young as well as the aged, in

the boom towns and in the depressed areas.

Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it

and, above all, to prevent it. No single piece of legislation, however,

is going to suffice.

We will launch a special effort in the chronically distressed areas of

Appalachia.

We must expand our small but our successful area redevelopment program.

We must enact youth employment legislation to put jobless, aimless,

hopeless youngsters to work on useful projects.

We must distribute more food to the needy through a broader food stamp

program.

We must create a National Service Corps to help the economically

handicapped of our own country as the Peace Corps now helps those

abroad.

We must modernize our unemployment insurance and establish a high-level

commission on automation. If we have the brain power to invent these

machines, we have the brain power to make certain that they are a boon

and not a bane to humanity.

We must extend the coverage of our minimum wage laws to more than 2

million workers now lacking this basic protection of purchasing power.

We must, by including special school aid funds as part of our education

program, improve the quality of teaching, training, and counseling in

our hardest hit areas.

We must build more libraries in every area and more hospitals and

nursing homes under the Hill-Burton Act, and train more nurses to staff

them.

We must provide hospital insurance for our older citizens financed by

every worker and his employer under Social Security, contributing no

more than $1 a month during the employee’s working career to protect him

in his old age in a dignified manner without cost to the Treasury,

against the devastating hardship of prolonged or repeated illness.

We must, as a part of a revised housing and urban renewal program, give

more help to those displaced by slum clearance, provide more housing for

our poor and our elderly, and seek as our ultimate goal in our free

enterprise system a decent home for every American family.

We must help obtain more modern mass transit within our communities as

well as low-cost transportation between them.

Above all, we must release $11 billion of tax reduction into the private

spending stream to create new jobs and new markets in every area of this

land. IV.

These programs are obviously not for the poor or the underprivileged

alone. Every American will benefit by the extension of social security

to cover the hospital costs of their aged parents. Every American

community will benefit from the construction or modernization of

schools, libraries, hospitals, and nursing homes, from the training of

more nurses and from the improvement of urban renewal in public transit.

And every individual American taxpayer and every corporate taxpayer will

benefit from the earliest possible passage of the pending tax bill from

both the new investment it will bring and the new jobs that it will

create.

That tax bill has been thoroughly discussed for a year. Now we need

action. The new budget clearly allows it. Our taxpayers surely deserve

it. Our economy strongly demands it. And every month of delay dilutes

its benefits in 1964 for consumption, for investment, and for

employment.

For until the bill is signed, its investment incentives cannot be deemed

certain, and the withholding rate cannot be reduced--and the most

damaging and devastating thing you can do to any businessman in America

is to keep him in doubt and to keep him guessing on what our tax policy

is. And I say that we should now reduce to 14 percent instead of 15

percent our withholding rate.

I therefore urge the Congress to take final action on this bill by the

first of February, if at all possible. For however proud we may be of

the unprecedented progress of our free enterprise economy over the last

3 years, we should not and we cannot permit it to pause.

In 1963, for the first time in history, we crossed the 70 million job

mark, but we will soon need more than 75 million jobs. In 1963 our gross

national product reached the $600 billion level--$100 billion higher

than when we took office. But it easily could and it should be still $30

billion higher today than it is.

Wages and profits and family income are also at their highest levels in

history--but I would remind you that 4 million workers and 13 percent of

our industrial capacity are still idle today.

We need a tax cut now to keep this country moving. V.

For our goal is not merely to spread the work. Our goal is to create

more jobs. I believe the enactment of a 35-hour week would sharply

increase costs, would invite inflation, would impair our ability to

compete, and merely share instead of creating employment. But I am

equally opposed to the 45- or 50-hour week in those industries where

consistently excessive use of overtime causes increased unemployment.

So, therefore, I recommend legislation authorizing the creation of a

tripartite industry committee to determine on an industry-by-industry

basis as to where a higher penalty rate for overtime would increase job

openings without unduly increasing costs, and authorizing the

establishment of such higher rates. VI.

Let me make one principle of this administration abundantly clear: All

of these increased opportunities--in employment, in education, in

housing, and in every field--must be open to Americans of every color.

As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolish not some,

but all racial discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue,

or a social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue, and

it must be met by the passage this session of the bill now pending in

the House.

All members of the public should have equal access to facilities open to

the public. All members of the public should be equally eligible for

Federal benefits that are financed by the public. All members of the

public should have an equal chance to vote for public officials and to

send their children to good public schools and to contribute their

talents to the public good.

Today, Americans of all races stand side by side in Berlin and in Viet

Nam. They died side by side in Korea. Surely they can work and eat and

travel side by side in their own country. VII.

We must also lift by legislation the bars of discrimination against

those who seek entry into our country, particularly those who have much

needed skills and those joining their families.

In establishing preferences, a nation that was built by the immigrants

of all lands can ask those who now seek admission: “What can you do for

our country?” But we should not be asking: “In what country were you

born?” VIII.

For our ultimate goal is a world without war, a world made safe for

diversity, in which all men, goods, and ideas can freely move across

every border and every boundary.

We must advance toward this goal in 1964 in at least 10 different ways,

not as partisans, but as patriots.

First, we must maintain--and our reduced defense budget will

maintain--that margin of military safety and superiority obtained

through 3 years of steadily increasing both the quality and the quantity

of our strategic, our conventional, and our antiguerilla forces. In 1964

we will be better prepared than ever before to defend the cause of

freedom, whether it is threatened by outright aggression or by the

infiltration practiced by those in Hanoi and Havana, who ship arms and

men across international borders to foment insurrection. And we must

continue to use that strength as John Kennedy used it in the Cuban

crisis and for the test ban treaty--to demonstrate both the futility of

nuclear war and the possibilities of lasting peace.

Second, we must take new steps--and we shall make new proposals at

Geneva--toward the control and the eventual abolition of arms. Even in

the absence of agreement, we must not stockpile arms beyond our needs or

seek an excess of military power that could be provocative as well as

wasteful.

It is in this spirit that in this fiscal year we are cutting back our

production of enriched uranium by 25 percent. We are shutting down four

plutonium piles. We are closing many nonessential military

installations. And it is in this spirit that we today call on our

adversaries to do the same.

Third, we must make increased use of our food as an instrument of

peace--making it available by sale or trade or loan or donation--to

hungry people in all nations which tell us of their needs and accept

proper conditions of distribution.

Fourth, we must assure our pre-eminence in the peaceful exploration of

outer space, focusing on an expedition to the moon in this decade--in

cooperation with other powers if possible, alone if necessary.

Fifth, we must expand world trade. Having recognized in the Act of 1962

that we must buy as well as sell, we now expect our trading partners to

recognize that we must sell as well as buy. We are willing to give them

competitive access to our market, asking only that they do the same for

us.

Sixth, we must continue, through such measures as the interest

equalization tax, as well as the cooperation of other nations, our

recent progress toward balancing our international accounts.

This administration must and will preserve the present gold value of the

dollar.

Seventh, we must become better neighbors with the free states of the

Americas, working with the councils of the OAS, with a stronger Alliance

for Progress, and with all the men and women of this hemisphere who

really believe in liberty and justice for all.

Eighth, we must strengthen the ability of free nations everywhere to

develop their independence and raise their standard of living, and

thereby frustrate those who prey on poverty and chaos. To do this, the

rich must help the poor--and we must do our part. We must achieve a more

rigorous administration of our development assistance, with larger roles

for private investors, for other industrialized nations, and for

international agencies and for the recipient nations themselves.

Ninth, we must strengthen our Atlantic and Pacific partnerships,

maintain our alliances and make the United Nations a more effective

instrument for national independence and international order.

Tenth, and finally, we must develop with our allies new means of

bridging the gap between the East and the West, facing danger boldly

wherever danger exists, but being equally bold in our search for new

agreements which can enlarge the hopes of all, while violating the

interests of none.

In short, I would say to the Congress that we must be constantly

prepared for the worst, and constantly acting for the best. We must be

strong enough to win any war, and we must be wise enough to prevent one.

We shall neither act as aggressors nor tolerate acts of aggression. We

intend to bury no one, and we do not intend to be buried.

We can fight, if we must, as we have fought before, but we pray that we

will never have to fight again. IX.

My good friends and my fellow Americans: In these last 7 sorrowful

weeks, we have learned anew that nothing is so enduring as faith, and

nothing is so degrading as hate.

John Kennedy was a victim of hate, but he was also a great builder of

faith--faith in our fellow Americans, whatever their creed or their

color or their station in life; faith in the future of man, whatever his

divisions and differences.

This faith was echoed in all parts of the world. On every continent and

in every land to which Mrs. Johnson and I traveled, we found faith and

hope and love toward this land of America and toward our people.

So I ask you now in the Congress and in the country to join with me in

expressing and fulfilling that faith in working for a nation, a nation

that is free from want and a world that is free from hate--a world of

peace and justice, and freedom and abundance, for our time and for all

time to come.

***

State of the Union Address

Lyndon B. Johnson

January 4, 1965

On this Hill which was my home, I am stirred by old friendships.

Though total agreement between the Executive and the Congress is

impossible, total respect is important.

I am proud to be among my colleagues of the Congress whose legacy to

their trust is their loyalty to their Nation.

I am not unaware of the inner emotions of the new Members of this body

tonight.

Twenty-eight years ago, I felt as you do now. You will soon learn that

you are among men whose first love is their country, men who try each

day to do as best they can what they believe is right.

We are entering the third century of the pursuit of American union.

Two hundred years ago, in 1765, nine assembled colonies first joined

together to demand freedom from arbitrary power.

For the first century we struggled to hold together the first

continental union of democracy in the history of man. One hundred years

ago, in 1865, following a terrible test of blood and fire, the compact

of union was finally sealed.

For a second century we labored to establish a unity of purpose and

interest among the many groups which make up the American community.

That struggle has often brought pain and violence. It is not yet over.

But we have achieved a unity of interest among our people that is

unmatched in the history of freedom.

And so tonight, now, in 1965, we begin a new quest for union. We seek

the unity of man with the world that he has built--with the knowledge

that can save or destroy him--with the cities which can stimulate or

stifle him--with the wealth and the machines which can enrich or menace

his spirit.

We seek to establish a harmony between man and society which will allow

each of us to enlarge the meaning of his life and all of us to elevate

the quality of our civilization. This is the search that we begin

tonight.

STATE OF THE WORLD

But the unity we seek cannot realize its full promise in isolation. For

today the state of the Union depends, in large measure, upon the state

of the world.

Our concern and interest, compassion and vigilance, extend to every

corner of a dwindling planet.

Yet, it is not merely our concern but the concern of all free men. We

will not, and we should not, assume that it is the task of Americans

alone to settle all the conflicts of a torn and troubled world.

Let the foes of freedom take no comfort from this. For in concert with

other nations, we shall help men defend their freedom.

Our first aim remains the safety and the well-being of our own country.

We are prepared to live as good neighbors with all, but we cannot be

indifferent to acts designed to injure our interests, or our citizens,

or our establishments abroad. The community of nations requires mutual

respect. We shall extend it--and we shall expect it.

In our relations with the world we shall follow the example of Andrew

Jackson who said: “I intend to ask for nothing that is not clearly right

and to submit to nothing that is wrong.” And he promised, that “the

honor of my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the

statement of truth or for the performance of duty.” That was this

Nation’s policy in the 1830’s and that is this Nation’s policy in the

1960’s.

Our own freedom and growth have never been the final goal of the

American dream.

We were never meant to be an oasis of liberty and abundance in a

worldwide desert of disappointed dreams. Our Nation was created to help

strike away the chains of ignorance and misery and tyranny wherever they

keep man less than God means him to be.

We are moving toward that destiny, never more rapidly than we have moved

in the last 4 years.

In this period we have built a military power strong enough to meet any

threat and destroy any adversary. And that superiority will continue to

grow so long as this office is mine--and you sit on Capitol Hill.

In this period no new nation has become Communist, and the unity of the

Communist empire has begun to crumble.

In this period we have resolved in friendship our disputes with our

neighbors of the hemisphere, and joined in an Alliance for Progress

toward economic growth and political democracy.

In this period we have taken more steps toward peace--including the test

ban treaty--than at any time since the cold war began.

In this period we have relentlessly pursued our advances toward the

conquest of space.

Most important of all, in this period, the United States has reemerged

into the fullness of its self-confidence and purpose. No longer are we

called upon to get America moving. We are moving. No longer do we doubt

our strength or resolution. We are strong and we have proven our

resolve.

No longer can anyone wonder whether we are in the grip of historical

decay. We know that history is ours to make. And if there is great

danger, there is now also the excitement of great expectations.

AMERICA AND THE COMMUNIST NATIONS

Yet we still live in a troubled and perilous world. There is no longer a

single threat. There are many. They differ in intensity and in danger.

They require different attitudes and different answers.

With the Soviet Union we seek peaceful understandings that can lessen

the danger to freedom.

Last fall I asked the American people to choose that course. I will

carry forward their command.

If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other

better.

I am sure that the American people would welcome a chance to listen to

the Soviet leaders on our television--as I would like the Soviet people

to hear our leaders on theirs.

I hope the new Soviet leaders can visit America so they can learn about

our country at firsthand.

In Eastern Europe restless nations are slowly beginning to assert their

identity. Your Government, assisted by the leaders in American labor and

business, is now exploring ways to increase peaceful trade with these

countries and with the Soviet Union. I will report our conclusions to

the Congress.

In Asia, communism wears a more aggressive face. We see that in

Viet-Nam. Why are we there?

We are there, first, because a friendly nation has asked us for help

against the Communist aggression. Ten years ago our President pledged

our help. Three Presidents have supported that pledge. We will not break

it now.

Second, our own security is tied to the peace of Asia. Twice in one

generation we have had to fight against aggression in the Far East. To

ignore aggression now would only increase the danger of a much larger

war.

Our goal is peace in southeast Asia. That will come only when aggressors

leave their neighbors in peace.

What is at stake is the cause of freedom and in that cause America will

never be found wanting.

THE NON-COMMUNIST WORLD

But communism is not the only source of trouble and unrest. There are

older and deeper sources--in the misery of nations and in man’s

irrepressible ambition for liberty and a better life.

With the free Republics of Latin America I have always felt--and my

country has always felt--very special ties of interest and affection. It

will be the purpose of my administration to strengthen these ties.

Together we share and shape the destiny of the new world. In the coming

year I hope to pay a visit to Latin America. And I will steadily enlarge

our commitment to the Alliance for Progress as the instrument of our war

against poverty and injustice in this hemisphere.

In the Atlantic community we continue to pursue our goal of 20 years--a

Europe that is growing in strength, unity, and cooperation with America.

A great unfinished task is the reunification of Germany through

self-determination.

This European policy is not based on any abstract design. It is based on

the realities of common interests and common values, common dangers and

common expectations. These realities will continue to have their

way--especially, I think, in our expanding trade and especially in our

common defense.

Free Americans have shaped the policies of the United States. And

because we know these realities, those policies have been, and will be,

in the interest of Europe.

Free Europeans must shape the course of Europe. And, for the same

reasons, that course has been, and will be, in our interest and in the

interest of freedom.

I found this truth confirmed in my talks with European leaders in the

last year. I hope to repay these visits to some of our friends in Europe

this year.

In Africa and Asia we are witnessing the turbulent unfolding of new

nations and continents.

We welcome them to the society of nations.

We are committed to help those seeking to strengthen their own

independence, and to work most closely with those governments dedicated

to the welfare of all of their people.

We seek not fidelity to an iron faith, but a diversity of belief as

varied as man himself. We seek not to extend the power of America but

the progress of humanity. We seek not to dominate others but to

strengthen the freedom of all people.

I will seek new ways to use our knowledge to help deal with the

explosion in world population and the growing scarcity in world

resources.

Finally, we renew our commitment to the continued growth and the

effectiveness of the United Nations. The frustrations of the United

Nations are a product of the world that we live in, and not of the

institution which gives them voice. It is far better to throw these

differences open to the assembly of nations than to permit them to

fester in silent danger.

These are some of the goals of the American Nation in the world in which

we live.

For ourselves we seek neither praise nor blame, neither gratitude nor

obedience.

We seek peace.

We seek freedom.

We seek to enrich the life of man.

For that is the world in which we will flourish and that is the world

that we mean for all men to ultimately have.

TOWARD THE GREAT SOCIETY

World affairs will continue to call upon our energy and our courage.

But today we can turn increased attention to the character of American

life.

We are in the midst of the greatest upward surge of economic well-being

in the history of any nation.

Our flourishing progress has been marked by price stability that is

unequalled in the world. Our balance of payments deficit has declined

and the soundness of our dollar is unquestioned. I pledge to keep it

that way and I urge business and labor to cooperate to that end.

We worked for two centuries to climb this peak of prosperity. But we are

only at the beginning of the road to the Great Society. Ahead now is a

summit where freedom from the wants of the body can help fulfill the

needs of the spirit.

We built this Nation to serve its people.

We want to grow and build and create, but we want progress to be the

servant and not the master of man.

We do not intend to live in the midst of abundance, isolated from

neighbors and nature, confined by blighted cities and bleak suburbs,

stunted by a poverty of learning and an emptiness of leisure.

The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to

create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but

where we are headed.

It proposes as the first test for a nation: the quality of its people.

This kind of society will not flower spontaneously from swelling riches

and surging power.

It will not be the gift of government or the creation of presidents. It

will require of every American, for many generations, both faith in the

destination and the fortitude to make the journey.

And like freedom itself, it will always be challenge and not

fulfillment. And tonight we accept that challenge.

A NATIONAL AGENDA

I propose that we begin a program in education to ensure every American

child the fullest development of his mind and skills.

I propose that we begin a massive attack on crippling and killing

diseases.

I propose that we launch a national effort to make the American city a

better and a more stimulating place to live.

I propose that we increase the beauty of America and end the poisoning

of our rivers and the air that we breathe.

I propose that we carry out a new program to develop regions of our

country that are now suffering from distress and depression.

I propose that we make new efforts to control and prevent crime and

delinquency.

I propose that we eliminate every remaining obstacle to the right and

the opportunity to vote.

I propose that we honor and support the achievements of thought and the

creations of art.

I propose that we make an all-out campaign against waste and

inefficiency.

THE TASK

Our basic task is threefold:

First, to keep our economy growing;

--to open for all Americans the opportunity that is now enjoyed by most

Americans;

--and to improve the quality of life for all.

In the next 6 weeks I will submit special messages with detailed

proposals for national action in each of these areas.

Tonight I would like just briefly to explain some of my major

recommendations in the three main areas of national need.

1. A GROWING ECONOMY

BASIC POLICIES

First, we must keep our Nation prosperous. We seek full employment

opportunity for every American citizen. I will present a budget designed

to move the economy forward. More money will be left in the hands of the

consumer by a substantial cut in excise taxes. We will continue along

the path toward a balanced budget in a balanced economy.

I confidently predict--what every economic sign tells us tonight--the

continued flourishing of the American economy.

But we must remember that fear of a recession can contribute to the fact

of a recession. The knowledge that our Government will, and can, move

swiftly will strengthen the confidence of investors and business.

Congress can reinforce this confidence by insuring that its procedures

permit rapid action on temporary income tax cuts. And special funds for

job-creating public programs should be made available for immediate use

if recession threatens.

Our continued prosperity demands continued price stability. Business,

labor, and the consumer all have a high stake in keeping wages and

prices within the framework of the guideposts that have already served

the Nation so well.

Finding new markets abroad for our goods depends on the initiative of

American business. But we stand ready--with credit and other help--to

assist the flow of trade which will benefit the entire Nation.

ON THE FARMS

Our economy owes much to the efficiency of our farmers. We must continue

to assure them the opportunity to earn a fair reward. I have instructed

the Secretary of Agriculture to lead a major effort to find new

approaches to reduce the heavy cost of our farm programs and to direct

more of our effort to the small farmer who needs the help the most.

INCREASED PROSPERITY

We can help insure continued prosperity through:

--a regional recovery program to assist the development of stricken

areas left behind by our national progress;

--further efforts to provide our workers with the skills demanded by

modern technology, for the laboring-man is an indispensable force in the

American system;

--the extension of the minimum wage to more than 2 million unprotected

workers;

--the improvement and the modernization of the unemployment compensation

system.

And as pledged in our 1960 and 1964 Democratic platforms, I will propose

to Congress changes in the Taft-Hartley Act including section 14(b). I

will do so hoping to reduce the conflicts that for several years have

divided Americans in various States of our Union.

In a country that spans a continent modern transportation is vital to

continued growth.

TRANSPORTATION FOR GROWTH

I will recommend heavier reliance on competition in transportation and a

new policy for our merchant marine.

I will ask for funds to study high-speed rail transportation between

urban centers. We will begin with test projects between Washington and

Boston. On high-speed trains, passengers could travel this distance in

less than 4 hours.

II. OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL

Second, we must open opportunity to all our people.

Most Americans enjoy a good life. But far too many are still trapped in

poverty and idleness and fear.

Let a just nation throw open to them the city of promise:

--to the elderly, by providing hospital care under social security and

by raising benefit payments to those struggling to maintain the dignity

of their later years;

--to the poor and the unfortunate, through doubling the war against

poverty this year;

--to Negro Americans, through enforcement of the civil rights law and

elimination of barriers to the right to vote;

--to those in other lands that are seeking the promise of America,

through an immigration law based on the work a man can do and not where

he was born or how he spells his name.

III. TO ENRICH THE LIFE OF ALL

Our third goal is to improve the quality of American life.

THROUGH EDUCATION

We begin with learning.

Every child must have the best education that this Nation can provide.

Thomas Jefferson said that no nation can be both ignorant and free.

Today no nation can be both ignorant and great.

In addition to our existing programs, I will recommend a new program for

schools and students with a first year authorization of $1,500 million.

It will help at every stage along the road to learning.

For the preschool years we will help needy children become aware of the

excitement of learning.

For the primary and secondary school years we will aid public schools

serving low-income families and assist students in both public and

private schools.

For the college years we will provide scholarships to high school

students of the greatest promise and the greatest need and we will

guarantee low-interest loans to students continuing their college

studies.

New laboratories and centers will help our schools--help them lift their

standards of excellence and explore new methods of teaching. These

centers will provide special training for those who need and those who

deserve special treatment.

THROUGH BETTER HEALTH

Greatness requires not only an educated people but a healthy people.

Our goal is to match the achievements of our medicine to the afflictions

of our people.

We already carry on a large program in this country for research and

health.

In addition, regional medical centers can provide the most advanced

diagnosis and treatment for heart disease and cancer and stroke and

other major diseases.

New support for medical and dental education will provide the trained

people to apply our knowledge.

Community centers can help the mentally ill and improve health care for

school-age children from poor families, including services for the

mentally retarded.

THROUGH IMPROVING THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

The City

An educated and healthy people require surroundings in harmony with

their hopes. In our urban areas the central problem today is to protect

and restore man’s satisfaction in belonging to a community where he can

find security and significance.

The first step is to break old patterns--to begin to think and work and

plan for the development of the entire metropolitan areas. We will take

this step with new programs of help for the basic community facilities

and for neighborhood centers of health and recreation.

New and existing programs will be open to those cities which work

together to develop unified long-range policies for metropolitan areas.

We must also make some very important changes in our housing programs if

we are to pursue these same basic goals.

So a Department of Housing and Urban Development will be needed to

spearhead this effort in our cities.

Every citizen has the right to feel secure in his home and on the

streets of his community.

To help control crime, we will recommend programs:

--to train local law enforcement officers;

--to put the best techniques of modern science at their disposal;

--to discover the causes of crime and better ways to prevent it.

I will soon assemble a panel of outstanding experts of this Nation to

search out answers to the national problem of crime and delinquency, and

I welcome the recommendations and the constructive efforts of the

Congress. The Beauty of America

For over three centuries the beauty of America has sustained our spirit

and has enlarged our vision. We must act now to protect this heritage.

In a fruitful new partnership with the States and the cities the next

decade should be a conservation milestone. We must make a massive effort

to save the countryside and to establish--as a green legacy for

tomorrow--more large and small parks, more seashores and open spaces

than have been created during any other period in our national history.

A new and substantial effort must be made to landscape highways to

provide places of relaxation and recreation wherever our roads run,

Within our cities imaginative programs are needed to landscape streets

and to transform open areas into places of beauty and recreation.

We will seek legal power to prevent pollution of our air and water

before it happens. We will step up our effort to control harmful wastes,

giving first priority to the cleanup of our most contaminated rivers. We

will increase research to learn much more about the control of

pollution.

We hope to make the Potomac a model of beauty here in the Capital, and

preserve unspoiled stretches of some of our waterways with a Wild Rivers

bill.

More ideas for a beautiful America will emerge from a White House

Conference on Natural Beauty which I will soon call.

Art and Science

We must also recognize and encourage those who can be pathfinders for

the Nation’s imagination and understanding.

To help promote and honor creative achievements, I will propose a

National Foundation on the Arts.

To develop knowledge which will enrich our lives and ensure our

progress, I will recommend programs to encourage basic science,

particularly in the universities--and to bring closer the day when the

oceans will supply our growing need for fresh water.

For government to serve these goals it must be modern in structure,

efficient in action, and ready for any emergency.

I am busy, currently, reviewing the structure of the entire executive

branch of this Government. I hope to reshape it and to reorganize it to

meet more effectively the tasks of the 20th century.

Wherever waste is found, I will eliminate it.

Last year we saved almost $3,500 million by eliminating waste in the

National Government.

And I intend to do better this year.

And very soon I will report to you on our progress and on new economies

that your Government plans to make.

Even the best of government is subject to the worst of hazards.

I will propose laws to insure the necessary continuity of leadership

should the President become disabled or die.

In addition, I will propose reforms in the electoral college--leaving

undisturbed the vote by States--but making sure that no elector can

substitute his will for that of the people.

Last year, in a sad moment, I came here and I spoke to you after 33

years of public service, practically all of them here on this Hill.

This year I speak after 1 year as President of the United States.

Many of you in this Chamber are among my oldest friends. We have shared

many happy moments and many hours of work, and we have watched many

Presidents together. Yet, only in the White House can you finally know

the full weight of this Office.

The greatest burden is not running the huge operations of government--or

meeting daily troubles, large and small--or even working with the

Congress.

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what

is right.

Yet the Presidency brings no special gift of prophecy or foresight. You

take an oath, you step into an office, and you must then help guide a

great democracy.

The answer was waiting for me in the land where I was born.

It was once barren land. The angular hills were covered with scrub cedar

and a few large live oaks. Little would grow in that harsh caliche soil

of my country. And each spring the Pedernales River would flood our

valley.

But men came and they worked and they endured and they built.

And tonight that country is abundant; abundant with fruit and cattle and

goats and sheep, and there are pleasant homes and lakes and the floods

are gone.

Why did men come to that once forbidding land?

Well, they were restless, of course, and they had to be moving on. But

there was more than that. There was a dream--a dream of a place where a

free man could build for himself, and raise his children to a better

life--a dream of a continent to be conquered, a world to be won, a

nation to be made.

Remembering this, I knew the answer.

A President does not shape a new and personal vision of America.

He collects it from the scattered hopes of the American past.

It existed when the first settlers saw the coast of a new world, and

when the first pioneers moved westward.

It has guided us every step of the way.

It sustains every President. But it is also your inheritance and it

belongs equally to all the people that we all serve.

It must be interpreted anew by each generation for its own needs; as I

have tried, in part, to do tonight.

It shall lead us as we enter the third century of the search for a more

perfect union?

This, then, is the state of the Union: Free and restless, growing and

full of hope.

So it was in the beginning.

So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to

keep the faith.

***

State of the Union Address

Lyndon B. Johnson

January 12, 1966

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the House and the Senate, my

fellow Americans:

I come before you tonight to report on the State of the Union for the

third time.

I come here to thank you and to add my tribute, once more, to the

Nation’s gratitude for this, the 89th Congress. This Congress has

already reserved for itself an honored chapter in the history of

America.

Our Nation tonight is engaged in a brutal and bitter conflict in

Vietnam. Later on I want to discuss that struggle in some detail with

you. It just must be the center of our concerns.

But we will not permit those who fire upon us in Vietnam to win a

victory over the desires and the intentions of all the American people.

This Nation is mighty enough, its society is healthy enough, its people

are strong enough, to pursue our goals in the rest of the world while

still building a Great Society here at home.

And that is what I have come here to ask of you tonight.

I recommend that you provide the resources to carry forward, with full

vigor, the great health and education programs that you enacted into law

last year.

I recommend that we prosecute with vigor and determination our war on

poverty.

I recommend that you give a new and daring direction to our foreign aid

program, designed to make a maximum attack on hunger and disease and

ignorance in those countries that are determined to help themselves, and

to help those nations that are trying to control population growth.

I recommend that you make it possible to expand trade between the United

States and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

I recommend to you a program to rebuild completely, on a scale never

before attempted, entire central and slum areas of several of our cities

in America.

I recommend that you attack the wasteful and degrading poisoning of our

rivers, and, as the cornerstone of this effort, clean completely entire

large river basins.

I recommend that you meet the growing menace of crime in the streets by

building up law enforcement and by revitalizing the entire Federal

system from prevention to probation.

I recommend that you take additional steps to insure equal justice to

all of our people by effectively enforcing nondiscrimination in Federal

and State jury selection, by making it a serious Federal crime to

obstruct public and private efforts to secure civil rights, and by

outlawing discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.

I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the Federal

Government by creating a new Cabinet level Department of Transportation

and reorganizing several existing agencies. In turn, I will restructure

our civil service in the top grades so that men and women can easily be

assigned to jobs where they are most needed, and ability will be both

required as well as rewarded.