State of the Union AddressesJohnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines)
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State of the Union Addresses
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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