Remarks at an Award Ceremony in Connection With the Federal Employee Savings Bond Program

General O'Brien, members of the Cabinet, ladies and gentlemen:

We appreciate so much your coming here today to participate in this ceremony. We are indeed privileged to share it with you. This is a very proud moment for all of us.

The Cabinet and I have been meeting. We have been delayed, because we had several Cabinet members and the President giving reports. We just couldn't finish any earlier.

We had not budgeted our time properly, but we hope that you will be understanding.

This 1967 campaign set a 21-year record for savings bond sales.

--Almost 80 percent of all the people employed by the Federal Government bought bonds.

--34 agencies reached the campaign goal of 80 percent participation. This is a better record than at any time since World War II.

--15 agencies have come here today so that we could honor them. They, achieved at least 90 percent participation.

I am very pleased to note that every employee who works here in this house was willing to cooperate with his President and with his country and signed up to buy bonds.

I also welcome the National Aeronautics and Space Council, headed by the Vice President, who are added to the 100 percent ranks.

This is very strong evidence of our determination to meet our responsibilities here at home and to deliver on our commitments in other places in the world. It also demonstrates our wholehearted support of those Americans who are out there at this moment fighting and dying for us. Sometimes we don't take enough time to be aware of the sacrifices they are making, in order that we might enjoy the liberty and freedom that we talk so much about here at home.

The men and women in our armed services are not only out there protecting our liberties, but they set a very fine example for the rest of us. The 1967 slogan says, "Buy bonds where you work. They do."

In the first quarter of this year, our fighting men bought $90 million worth of bonds.

A few days ago, I saw a short film that had been made where a helicopter pilot in Vietnam was asked the question: "Why do you buy bonds?"

He said, "I am doing a favor for my country." At the same time, he said, "The way I got it figured out, my country is doing a favor for me, too."

I think that should be the spirit of our savings bond program.

That should be the spirit that is spread across our country. That should be the spirit that reaches into every corner of the globe where we have Federal installations, where we have Federal offices.

I particularly congratulate the agencies that we are honoring here today.

I am still old-fashioned enough to feel a little better, smile a little broader, when I see people who work for their Government want to help their Government, who revere their flag, who try to support the financial demands and who try to be equal to their obligation--whatever it is, wherever it is.

I remember as a child participating in the thrift stamps of World War I and working with groups in every training camp over the country, when we honored our men, urging that you go out and buy bonds in all of our installations.

I remember I spent a week with Jack Dempsey. I remember going from one camp to the other in World War II.

Just because we don't call this World War I or World War II, we still have responsibilities, we still have obligations, we still have great needs. We are calling upon our people and the Federal employees ought to set the example for the rest of the country.

There will be some who for some reason or other can't participate. We won't criticize them. We won't quarrel with them. We just feel sorry for them, because we hope that tomorrow their situation can improve where they can help their country as much as they have to help themselves and their families today.

Actually, I never have understood a person who couldn't find it within him to want to be a part of the thrift stamp or the bond program, or any other need that his country had of him at that time.

To those of you who have shown that you not only have the ability but you have the determination to stand high on that roster, I salute you. To those who may not have come up to it yet, we express the hope that you will get better with age.