Democratic National Committee Remarks at a Reception ]or the Platform Committee.

First of all, I thought I would recapitulate our own proposals on the platform since maybe you didn't— [laughter] —completely assimilate them today.

I've gotten very good results from the reports that have come concerning your work today. I understand that you've had a long, hard day, but very fruitful; that the sessions have been remarkably harmonious, almost as much as the campaigns during the primaries— [laughter] —and that there were some genuine and very fruitful and constructive exchanges between the presentations made by Senator Kennedy and his supporters and me and my supporters, and I know that you've had a long series of discussions around the nation.

Since you have had so many presentations and talks today, I'm going to be very brief, because I would like to shake hands and thank every one of you for the good work you've done.

We've got a major responsibility shared among those in this room. I'm extremely eager to see the rifts that are in our party, which are inevitable in a democratic society—particularly in a democratic party—healed but, at the same time, honoring the diversity that must exist among us that gives us a major part of our party's strength.

To me, there's a parallelism between our own party and its pride in individuality and the right of each person to speak forcefully for diverging views on the one hand, and our Nation, which is so strong because of its diversity on the other.

As I've said many times, ours is a nation of immigrants, a nation of refugees. We've come here—our families have—from almost every nation on Earth. We've preserved our heritage, our pride, our customs, our religion, quite often even our language, as a source of strength for us. But we've been able in this society, with a free enterprise system, with the nature of our government, with open and free discussions, to meld into a very strong, pliable, forceful, flexible nation, able to deal with constant change without fear and without failure.

Our country has faced the most difficult possible challenges. Because of the initiative of our people, we've always been on the cutting edge of change. When worldwide customs and circumstances had to be modified, we have not broken. Quite often we have found a way to accommodate those kinds of changes in our own lives that cause us so much consternation and sometimes trepidation and fear, and we've capitalized on them to move forward to an ever better quality of life.

In my judgment, this time of testing, this time of even international danger gives us another opportunity for that. The Nation is looking to the Democratic Party to find a way for our country, and other nations are looking to us as a country to find a way for them.

I'll be leaving next week, going to meet with the leaders of Japan and Italy, of Canada, England, and of France, Germany. I'll go then to Yugoslavia, then back to Portugal and Spain, and then return to our country. And I'm sure that in all those sessions, they will be extremely eager to learn what our Nation has done in the past, what we are doing now, what we will do in the future.

You're the ones who have listened to Americans all over this Nation. You've observed with particular sensitivity the debates that have taken place in the primaries and caucuses in all the States and territories. And now you have a major job of finding the common ground on which we agree, to narrow the differences as much as possible, and to sharpen those differences so that they can be clearly understood to point out to the Nation in a forceful, succinct, and accurate fashion what the Democratic Congress and the Democratic administration has done and, perhaps more importantly of all, to prescribe for us an agenda for the future.

I don't have any idea that all your discussions will be harmonious or that you will even get a clear, acceptable majority opinion that can be adopted by the minority members of the committee. If not, then of course, the debate will be shifted to the Democratic Convention floor. That need not cause us any fear or consternation, and the judgment of the delegates assembled in New York will be final as far as the platform of our party is concerned.

Members of Congress, Governors, other State officials, as well as the Democratic ticket running for President and Vice President will, of course, be guided by what you do. And I hope that all your deliberations will be open and that you will also let everyone express themselves thoroughly and that your decisions will be courageous. Courage requires not only an adherence to past statements but courage perhaps even to a higher degree requires some modification of past commitments and past statements when you are convinced that there is a better way. And when a group of people like you come together, there is obviously a need for compromise without the compromise of principle.

I'm eager to help you. Stu Eizenstat has presented our basic platform proposals. We will listen with great care to other proposals made both by Senator Kennedy and by the Members of Congress, Governors, and others, and we'll be eager to improve upon our own if we see an opportunity for it. David Rubenstein will represent me, with you, on a constant basis. And of course, if you have a question about foreign policy, Senator Muskie, now Secretary Muskie, is here with us, and Dr. Brzezinski and my entire staff will be available. We have Pat Harris and we have Secretary Bergland here; Secretary Duncan is here. I don't know what other Cabinet officers are present, but my entire Cabinet will be available to answer specific questions not only by the chairman of the committee but also by any of you who don't quite understand a proposal, or would like to have some facts about what our administration has done, or about the factors that must go into a decision. We are eager to have a very constructive and exciting result of your deliberations, and I have no doubt that that will provide a basis for a tremendous Democratic victory in November.

I am determined that the Democrats will win, and we have harnessed our efforts, along with those of candidates for Congress in 1978, in a remarkable and also successful fashion. During the '78 convention when I was not running for reelection, we made more than 1,100 trips to States and to congressional districts-that was my own personal staff, the members of my Cabinet, and the members of the families of myself and Fritz Mondale. And I think it paid rich dividends for us because we learned our Nation well, and it also, of course, helped many Democrats be elected.

We're in it together. We're a team. We belong to the same party, and together we'll make a great nation even greater in the future. I'm deeply grateful to all of you and now, if you would permit me, I'd like to meet you just outside the door to shake hands with each person and thank you from the bottom of my heart for the constructive effort that you've made already and for the even greater contribution that I feel sure you're going to make in the next few days.

Thank you very much.