Remarks to Delegates to the Conference of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO.

President Haggerty, President Meany, presidents of the internationals--I met so many presidents out here this morning:

When I awoke, I heard some sounds of hammering in my ears this morning. I turned over and said to Mrs. Johnson, "Is that another campaign headquarters going up across the street?"

She said, "No, dear, this is a good Monday. Your friends from the building trades have come to town?

It gives me a great deal of pleasure and pride to come here and stand with the builders of America.

We share the same pride in our country's past. We hold the same great faith in our Nation's future.

That future depends on the sons of labor-workingmen like you--who roll up their sleeves and do the job.

We are at work in this Nation--building a bigger, a better, and a more prosperous America.

If anyone doubts this, you--the warriors of progress--know the answer, because you have been there with me every step of the way.

Over the last several years:

--12 million Americans have risen from poverty--and that's progress.

--16 million schoolchildren face a better future because of educational breakthroughs-and that's progress.

--20 million older Americans--your mothers and your fathers--no longer fear the crushing burden of medical bills in their old age--and that's progress.

--41 million American workers are protected by a higher minimum wage-and that's progress.

--75 million Americans are today working in better jobs at better wages, at higher pay, than they have ever worked before in all American history--and that's progress.

These are the mighty foundations that we put in place. We are not going to sit by and let them be torn down in a partisan political election year.

We are going to build on them--we are going to help shape a better future for the working people of this country and for their families.

We are pledged to bring safety to the workbench and to bring safety to the jobsite to protect our fellow human beings.

It is a shocking and, I think, a shameful fact that:

--Every year, 15,000 American workers die in job accidents

--15,000 tragedies, 15,000 heartbreaks.

--Every year, 2 million workers are injured on the job. How can we ever replace a lost eye? How can we ever substitute for a severed hand?

--Every year, a billion dollars are lost in wages. More than 200 million man days are wasted because of accidents. This year, I asked the Congress for a worker's safety bill to protect you. And I ask you this morning to give me your help and join with me to help us make this the law of the land this year.

We are pledged to make your hard-earned dollar more secure when you buy an automobile or a refrigerator on credit.

We are going to do away with the hidden interest charges.

With your help, we will--at long last-pt truth into lending and pass the truth-in-lending bill this year to protect American workers.

We are pledged to make sure that every one of your sons and daughters who wants a college education has an opportunity to get one.

The day is passing in this America when only the children of the rich can go to college.

So I ask you to work with us as we strive to pass the Economic and Education Opportunity Act of this year and to pass it through the Congress before we go home for the election.

These are some of the measures that will benefit the working people of America. They not only benefit the working people, but their neighbors as well.

Our fight--yours and mine--is to make life better in this country not just for some, not just for most--but to make life better for all the people.

I see the great milestones of our progress only as a starting point.

Every day--in a hundred ways--we are reaching out to those Americans who are still lost in the dark corners of American society.

Let there be no cruel delusion that this job is an easy one. Let there be no false hope that the solutions are going to be quick. For we are cutting through a century of neglect.

But we are cutting through, we are moving on, and we are not going to be stopped.

And when you look back over the history of our glorious past and you see the record of achievement, instead of the record of promises, you men of the AFL-CIO and you men of the building trades are going to be proud to say to yourselves and say to your children that during the decade of the sixties--from 1964 to 1968--that we wrote upon the statute books of this Nation 24 far-reaching health bills to protect our minds and our bodies, that we wrote 18 education bills to protect our children--from Head Start at 4 years old until adult education at 72--that we did move forward, that we did make progress, and that we did adopt a program of social justice for all Americans that had never been written into law by any administration at any time in all the history of America.

So I came here to say thank you and I came here to tell you that you are the Nation's strong right arm as we tackle the work ahead.

We are going to break new ground in a massive housing program for the poor. We have submitted to the Congress blueprints for 6 million new homes over the next 10 years.

This will wipe away--we hope once and forever--the shameful backlog of crumbling tenements and the shacks where families now live. Next year we have a goal of starting 300,000 new homes. That is a pretty big order for this first year. In all the last 10 years put together, we have only built 500,000 new homes.

And you are the men who must lead the way, not only to pass this legislation, but to build these houses.

We are setting out now to try to find work for hundreds of thousands of men and women who have never before in their lives earned a steady paycheck.

You know--better than anyone else--the dignity of a decent job.

And I know what you are doing to help open new opportunities within your own ranks.

I thank you. And I tell you that I will appreciate your doing everything you can to help us meet this vital problem that not only confronts me as your agent, as your President, and as a manager of this great Nation, but that confronts all the people of this Nation--because smallpox down the street works its way up to your block, too, and poverty, homelessness, hunger, disease, and crime cannot be quarantined. It will get to your block, too.

So the hour is here. Now is the time. You are the people to help us get this job done.

We have a program to build that better America in a climate of law and order. And we are going to build it even as we meet our commitments in a world where freedom is under attack.

This is not any new experience for us. We have had our will tested before. We had it tested across the waters in World War I-and many of you wear the badges of honor, of service of that day.

We had it tested in World War II when we had enemies in both oceans that were trying to bring democracy, freedom, and liberty to its knees. We saw it tested when the Greek guerrillas were 7 miles out of Athens and President Truman brought into force the Truman Doctrine.

We saw it tested in Korea when we were there on that little Pusan Peninsula and most of the folks were talking about "What did Korea and all of those mountains mean to us?"

We have seen it tested over the skies of Berlin when the people of that desolate city were hungry and we had to feed them with our courage, with our planes, and with our cargoes landing, many times, in zero-zero weather.

But every time we were tested, we were not found wanting--and we are not going to be found wanting now.

Now, the America that we are building would be a threatened nation, if we let freedom and liberty die in Vietnam. We will do what must be done--we will do it both at home and we will do it wherever our brave men are called upon to stand.

This is the America that we have faith in--this is a nation that is building. This is a wonderful country that is growing. I hope you men are determined to help us meet these problems. I hope you men are determined to see us help get justice, not just for ourselves, but for all the people of this Nation and for all the people of the world.

I sometimes wonder why we Americans enjoy punishing ourselves so much with our own criticism.

This is a pretty good land. I am not saying you never had it so good. But that is a fact, isn't it?

So I say that the average American does not ask for much. He is entitled to equal opportunity and equal justice. His ancestors have come here from all the lands of the world seeking liberty and freedom. They are not only here to protect it, but they are here to preserve it.

The average fellow, about all that he insists on having--and he must have a lot of drive and desire to get that--is a roof over his head; he would like to have title to it. He wants clothes to cover his naked body and the bodies of his family, food to give him strength and sustain him as he produces a better country, a decent school for his children to attend so they can prepare themselves to be good citizens, a church to worship in where he can go and worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, and maybe a little recreation now and then-maybe taking Molly and the babies in the car for a ride on Sunday afternoon, or to a movie once in a while, or to watch a television program if the politicians are not monopolizing it.

That is about all he asks--not much, a roof over his head, clothes on his body, food in his stomach--and that is what you builders are helping us get.

I want to say that there has never been a period in American history when the statehouse and the White House, when the Congress and the Capital, had more and better and more cooperative support from the workingmen of America than they have had the last 4 years.

We wouldn't have had the Education Act. We wouldn't have had the College Higher Education Act. We wouldn't have had Medicare where your fathers and your mothers no longer have to worry about what their sons-in-law and their daughters are going to do-they can go and show their card and be taken care of.

We have all of these things because George Meany, President Haggerty, Andy Biemiller, Lane Kirkland, and you men back home supported us in those efforts.

They laughed at you when you said "All the way," but we have gone all the way and we are still going.

Thank you very much.