Chapter 4

And we will continue to help the people of South Vietnam care for those that are ravaged by battle, create progress in the villages, and carry forward the healing hopes of peace as best they can amidst the uncertain terrors of war.

And let me be absolutely clear: The days may become months, and the months may become years, but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle.

There may be some who do not want peace, whose ambitions stretch so far that war in Vietnam is but a welcome and convenient episode in an immense design to subdue history to their will. But for others it must now be clear--the choice is not between peace and victory, it lies between peace and the ravages of a conflict from which they can only lose.

The people of Vietnam, North and South, seek the same things: the shared needs of man, the needs for food and shelter and education--the chance to build and work and till the soil, free from the arbitrary horrors of battle--the desire to walk in the dignity of those who master their own destiny. For many painful years, in war and revolution and infrequent peace, they have struggled to fulfill those needs.

It is a crime against mankind that so much courage, and so much will, and so many dreams, must be flung on the fires of war and death.

To all of those caught up in this conflict we therefore say again tonight: Let us choose peace, and with it the wondrous works of peace, and beyond that, the time when hope reaches toward consummation, and life is the servant of life.

In this work, we plan to discharge our duty to the people whom we serve. V.

This is the State of the Union.

But over it all--wealth, and promise, and expectation--lies our troubling awareness of American men at war tonight.

How many men who listen to me tonight have served their Nation in other wars? How very many are not here to listen?

The war in Vietnam is not like these other wars. Yet, finally, war is always the same. It is young men dying in the fullness of their promise. It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate.

Therefore, to know war is to know that there is still madness in this world.

Many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me. But there is a difference. For finally I must be the one to order our guns to fire, against all the most inward pulls of my desire. For we have children to teach, and we have sick to be cured, and we have men to be freed. There are poor to be lifted up, and there are cities to be built, and there is a world to be helped.

Yet we do what we must.

I am hopeful, and I will try as best I can, with everything I have got, to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires.

Yet as long as others will challenge America's security and test the clearness of our beliefs with fire and steel, then we must stand or see the promise of two centuries tremble. I believe tonight that you do not want me to try that risk. And from that belief your President summons his strength for the trials that lie ahead in the days to come.

The work must be our work now. Scarred by the weaknesses of man, with whatever guidance God may offer us, we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality, strive to ennoble the life of man on earth.

Thank you, and goodnight.

***

State of the Union Address Lyndon B. Johnson January 10, 1967

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, distinguished Members of the Congress:

I share with all of you the grief that you feel at the death today of one of the most beloved, respected, and effective Members of this body, the distinguished Representative from Rhode Island, Mr. Fogarty.

I have come here tonight to report to you that this is a time of testing for our Nation.

At home, the question is whether we will continue working for better opportunities for all Americans, when most Americans are already living better than any people in history.

Abroad, the question is whether we have the staying power to fight a very costly war, when the objective is limited and the danger to us is seemingly remote.

So our test is not whether we shrink from our country's cause when the dangers to us are obvious and dose at hand, but, rather, whether we carry on when they seem obscure and distant--and some think that it is safe to lay down our burdens.

I have come tonight to ask this Congress and this Nation to resolve that issue: to meet our commitments at home and abroad--to continue to build a better America--and to reaffirm this Nation's allegiance to freedom.

As President Abraham Lincoln said, "We must ask where we are, and whither we are tending." I.

The last 3 years bear witness to our determination to make this a better country.

We have struck down legal barriers to equality.

We have improved the education of 7 million deprived children and this year alone we have enabled almost 1 million students to go to college.

We have brought medical care to older people who were unable to afford it. Three and one-half million Americans have already received treatment under Medicare since July.

We have built a strong economy that has put almost 3 million more Americans on the payrolls in the last year alone.

We have included more than 9 million new workers under a higher minimum wage.

We have launched new training programs to provide job skills for almost 1 million Americans.

We have helped more than a thousand local communities to attack poverty in the neighborhoods of the poor. We have set out to rebuild our cities on a scale that has never been attempted before. We have begun to rescue our waters from the menace of pollution and to restore the beauty of our land and our countryside, our cities and our towns.

We have given 1 million young Americans a chance to earn through the Neighborhood Youth Corps--or through Head Start, a chance to learn.

So together we have tried to meet the needs of our people. And, we have succeeded in creating a better life for the many as well as the few. Now we must answer whether our gains shall be the foundations of further progress, or whether they shall be only monuments to what might have been--abandoned now by a people who lacked the will to see their great work through.

I believe that our people do not want to quit--though the task is great, the work hard, often frustrating, and success is a matter not of days or months, but of years--and sometimes it may be even decades. II.

I have come here tonight to discuss with you five ways of carrying forward the progress of these last 3 years. These five ways concern programs, partnerships, priorities, prosperity, and peace.

First, programs. We must see to it, I think, that these new programs that we have passed work effectively and are administered in the best possible way.

Three years ago we set out to create these new instruments of social progress. This required trial and error--and it has produced both. But as we learn, through success and failure, we are changing our strategy and we are trying to improve our tactics. In the long run, these starts--some rewarding, others inadequate and disappointing--are crucial to SUCCESS.

One example is the struggle to make life better for the less fortunate among us.

On a similar occasion, at this rostrum in 1949, I heard a great American President, Harry S. Truman, declare this: "The American people have decided that poverty is just as wasteful and just as unnecessary as preventable disease."

Many listened to President Truman that day here in this Chamber, but few understood what was required and did anything about it. The executive branch and the Congress waited 15 long years before ever taking any action on that challenge, as it did on many other challenges that great President presented. And when, 3 years ago, you here in the Congress joined with me in a declaration of war on poverty, then I warned, "It will not be a short or easy struggle--no single weapon... will suffice--but we shall not rest until that war is won."

And I have come here to renew that pledge tonight.

I recommend that we intensify our efforts to give the poor a chance to enjoy and to join in this Nation's progress.

I shall propose certain administrative changes suggested by the Congress--as well as some that we have learned from our own trial and error.

I shall urge special methods and special funds to reach the hundreds of thousands of Americans that are now trapped in the ghettos of our big cities and, through Head Start, to try to reach out to our very young, little children. The chance to learn is their brightest hope and must command our full determination. For learning brings skills; and skills bring jobs; and jobs bring responsibility and dignity, as well as taxes.

This war--like the war in Vietnam--is not a simple one. There is no single battle-line which you can plot each day on a chart. The enemy is not easy to perceive, or to isolate, or to destroy. There are mistakes and there are setbacks. But we are moving, and our direction is forward.

This is true with other programs that are making and breaking new ground. Some do not yet have the capacity to absorb well or wisely all the money that could be put into them. Administrative skills and trained manpower are just as vital to their success as dollars. And I believe those skills will come. But it will take time and patience and hard work. Success cannot be forced at a single stroke. So we must continue to strengthen the administration of every program if that success is to come--as we know it must.

We have done much in the space of 2 short years, working together.

I have recommended, and you, the Congress, have approved, 10 different reorganization plans, combining and consolidating many bureaus of this Government, and creating two entirely new Cabinet departments.

I have come tonight to propose that we establish a new department--a Department of Business and Labor.

By combining the Department of Commerce with the Department of Labor and other related agencies, I think we can create a more economical, efficient, and streamlined instrument that will better serve a growing nation.

This is our goal throughout the entire Federal Government. Every program will be thoroughly evaluated. Grant-in-aid programs will be improved and simplified as desired by many of our local administrators and our Governors.

Where there have been mistakes, we will try very hard to correct them.

Where there has been progress, we will try to build upon it.

Our second objective is partnership--to create an effective partnership at all levels of government. And I should treasure nothing more than to have that partnership begin between the executive and the Congress.

The 88th and the 89th Congresses passed more social and economic legislation than any two single Congresses in American history. Most of you who were Members of those Congresses voted to pass most of those measures. But your efforts will come to nothing unless it reaches the people.

Federal energy is essential. But it is not enough. Only a total working partnership among Federal, State, and local governments can succeed. The test of that partnership will be the concern of each public organization, each private institution, and each responsible citizen.

Each State, county, and city needs to examine its capacity for government in today's world, as we are examining ours in the executive department, and as I see you are examining yours. Some will need to reorganize and reshape their methods of administration--as we are doing. Others will need to revise their constitutions and their laws to bring them up to date--as we are doing. Above all, I think we must work together and find ways in which the multitudes of small jurisdictions can be brought together more efficiently.

During the past 3 years we have returned to State and local governments about $40 billion in grants-in-aid. This year alone, 70 percent of our Federal expenditures for domestic programs will be distributed through the State and local governments. With Federal assistance, State and local governments by 1970 will be spending close to $110 billion annually. These enormous sums must be used wisely, honestly, and effectively. We intend to work closely with the States and the localities to do exactly that.

Our third objective is priorities, to move ahead on the priorities that we have established within the resources that are available.

I wish, of course, that we could do all that should be done--and that we could do it now. But the Nation has many commitments and responsibilities which make heavy demands upon our total resources. No administration would more eagerly utilize for these programs all the resources they require than the administration that started them.

So let us resolve, now, to do all that we can, with what we have--knowing that it is far, far more than we have ever done before, and far, far less than our problems will ultimately require.

Let us create new opportunities for our children and our young Americans who need special help.

We should strengthen the Head Start program, begin it for children 3 years old, and maintain its educational momentum by following through in the early years.

We should try new methods of child development and care from the earliest years, before it is too late to correct.

And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.

Let us insure that older Americans, and neglected Americans, share in their Nation's progress.

We should raise social security payments by an overall average of 20 percent. That will add $4 billion 100 million to social security payments in the first year. I will recommend that each of the 23 million Americans now receiving payments get an increase of at least 15 percent.

I will ask that you raise the minimum payments by 59 percent--from $44 to $70 a month, and to guarantee a minimum benefit of $100 a month for those with a total of 25 years of coverage. We must raise the limits that retired workers can earn without losing social security income.

We must eliminate by law unjust discrimination in employment because of age.

We should embark upon a major effort to provide self-help assistance to the forgotten in our midst--the American Indians and the migratory farm workers. And we should reach with the hand of understanding to help those who live in rural poverty.

And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.

So let us keep on improving the quality of life and enlarging the meaning of justice for all of our fellow Americans.

We should transform our decaying slums into places of decency through the landmark Model Cities program. I intend to seek for this effort, this year, the full amount that you in Congress authorized last year.

We should call upon the genius of private industry and the most advanced technology to help rebuild our great cities.

We should vastly expand the fight for dean air with a total attack on pollution at its sources, and--because air, like water, does not respect manmade boundaries--we should set up "regional airsheds" throughout this great land.

We should continue to carry to every corner of the Nation our campaign for a beautiful America--to dean up our towns, to make them more beautiful, our cities, our countryside, by creating more parks, and more seashores, and more open spaces for our children to play in, and for the generations that come after us to enjoy.

We should continue to seek equality and justice for each citizen--before a jury, in seeking a job, in exercising his civil rights. We should find a solution to fair housing, so that every American, regardless of color, has a decent home of his choice.

We should modernize our Selective Service System. The National Commission on Selective Service will shortly submit its report. I will send you new recommendations to meet our military manpower needs. But let us resolve that this is to be the Congress that made our draft laws as fair and as effective as possible.

We should protect what Justice Brandeis called the "right most valued by civilized men"--the right to privacy. We should outlaw all wiretapping--public and private--wherever and whenever it occurs, except when the security of this Nation itself is at stake--and only then with the strictest governmental safeguards. And we should exercise the full reach of our constitutional powers to outlaw electronic "bugging" and "snooping."

I hope this Congress will try to help me do more for the consumer. We should demand that the cost of credit be clearly and honestly expressed where average citizens can understand it. We should immediately take steps to prevent massive power failures, to safeguard the home against hazardous household products, and to assure safety in the pipelines that carry natural gas across our Nation.

We should extend Medicare benefits that are now denied to 1,300,000 permanently and totally disabled Americans under 65 years of age.

We should improve the process of democracy by passing our election reform and financing proposals, by tightening our laws regulating lobbying, and by restoring a reasonable franchise to Americans who move their residences.

We should develop educational television into a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families, and to provide assistance in our classrooms. We should insist that the public interest be fully served through the public's airwaves.

And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.

Now we come to a question that weighs very heavily on all our minds--on yours and mine. This Nation must make an all-out effort to combat crime.

The 89th Congress gave us a new start in the attack on crime by passing the Law Enforcement Assistance Act that I recommended. We appointed the National Crime Commission to study crime in America and to recommend the best ways to carry that attack forward.

And while we do not have all the answers, on the basis of its preliminary recommendations we are ready to move.

This is not a war that Washington alone can win. The idea of a national police force is repugnant to the American people. Crime must be rooted out in local communities by local authorities. Our policemen must be better trained, must be better paid, and must be better supported by the local citizens that they try to serve and to protect.

The National Government can and expects to help.

And so I will recommend to the 90th Congress the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act of 1967. It will enable us to assist those States and cities that try to make their streets and homes safer, their police forces better, their corrections systems more effective, and their courts more efficient.

When the Congress approves, the Federal Government will be able to provide a substantial percentage of the cost:

--90 percent of the cost of developing the State and local plans, master plans, to combat crime in their area;

--60 percent of the cost of training new tactical units, developing instant communications and special alarm systems, and introducing the latest equipment and techniques so that they can become weapons in the war on crime;

--50 percent of the cost of building crime laboratories and police academy-type centers so that our citizens can be protected by the best trained and served by the best equipped police to be found anywhere. We will also recommend new methods to prevent juvenile delinquents from becoming adult delinquents. We will seek new partnerships with States and cities in order to deal with this hideous narcotics problem. And we will recommend strict controls on the sale of firearms.

At the heart of this attack on crime must be the conviction that a free America--as Abraham Lincoln once said--must "let reverence for the laws . . . become the political religion of the Nation."

Our country's laws must be respected. Order must be maintained. And I will support--with all the constitutional powers the President possesses--our Nation's law enforcement officials in their attempt to control the crime and the violence that tear the fabric of our communities.

Many of these priority proposals will be built on foundations that have already been laid. Some will necessarily be small at first, but "every beginning is a consequence." If we postpone this urgent work now, it will simply have to be done later, and later we will pay a much higher price.

Our fourth objective is prosperity, to keep our economy moving ahead, moving ahead steadily and safely.

We have now enjoyed 6 years of unprecedented and rewarding prosperity. Last year, in 1966:

--Wages were the highest in history--and the unemployment rate, announced yesterday, reached the lowest point in 13 years;

--Total after-tax income of American families rose nearly 5 percent;

--Corporate profits after taxes rose a little more than 5 percent;

--Our gross national product advanced 5.5 percent, to about $740 billion;

--Income per farm went up 6 percent.

Now we have been greatly concerned because consumer prices rose 4.5 percent over the 18 months since we decided to send troops to Vietnam. This was more than we had expected--and the Government tried to do everything that we knew how to do to hold it down. Yet we were not as successful as we wished to be. In the 18 months after we entered World War II, prices rose not 4.5 percent, but 13.5 percent. In the first 18 months after Korea, after the conflict broke out there, prices rose not 4.5 percent, but 11 percent. During those two periods we had OPA price control that the Congress gave us and War Labor Board wage controls.

Since Vietnam we have not asked for those controls and we have tried to avoid imposing them. We believe that we have done better, but we make no pretense of having been successful or doing as well as we wished.

Our greatest disappointment in the economy during 1966 was the excessive rise in interest rates and the tightening of credit. They imposed very severe and very unfair burdens on our home buyers and on our home builders, and all those associated with the home industry.

Last January, and again last September, I recommended fiscal and moderate tax measures to try to restrain the unbalanced pace of economic expansion. Legislatively and administratively we took several billions out of the economy. With these measures, in both instances, the Congress approved most of the recommendations rather promptly.

As 1966 ended, price stability was seemingly being restored. Wholesale prices are lower tonight than they were in August. So are retail food prices. Monetary conditions are also easing. Most interest rates have retreated from their earlier peaks. More money now seems to be available.

Given the cooperation of the Federal Reserve System, which I so earnestly seek, I am confident that this movement can continue. I pledge the American people that I will do everything in a President's power to lower interest rates and to ease money in this country. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board tomorrow morning will announce that it will make immediately available to savings and loan associations an additional $1 billion, and will lower from 6 percent to 5 3/4 percent the interest rate charged on those loans.

We shall continue on a sensible course of fiscal and budgetary policy that we believe will keep our economy growing without new inflationary spirals; that will finance responsibly the needs of our men in Vietnam and the progress of our people at home; that will support a significant improvement in our export surplus, and will press forward toward easier credit and toward lower interest rates.