Remarks in Cleveland at the Convention of the Communications Workers of America.

Mr. Beirne, your very own able Secretary Celebrezze, and my good friend Senator Steve Young, Congressmen Charley Vanik and Mike Feighan, Mayor Locher, Bert Porter, Bill Coleman, my fellow Americans, members of the Communications Workers of America:

We have traveled a long road together, you and I.

In June 1938 your leaders met in Chicago to form this union, and then I was preparing to campaign for my first full term in Congress.

We started together, under the inspiration and ideals of that great President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

We have worked together through the darkness of depression, through the challenge of conflict, through the prosperity of an uneasy peace, to secure to every American the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership.

And I pledge you for the years to come we are going to build together the kind of nation that he hoped for, that Harry S. Truman worked for, and that our beloved John F. Kennedy died for. We are going to build a Great Society where no man or woman is the victim of fear or poverty or hatred; where every man and woman has a chance for fulfillment and prosperity and hope.

That is the direction in which America is now moving. That is the way that we are going to keep America moving. And I pledge you here today that no person, no group, no party is going to stand in the way of that forward march.

Your great president, Joe Beirne, asked me to come out here today, and I have come to ask your aid and to give you assurance that America is not going to return to economic stagnation or to national drift.

We will never go back to indifference toward the helpless and apathy toward the hopeless.

We are not going back to declining prestige abroad and declining strength at home.

We are a strong country but we will be stronger. We are a prosperous country, but we will be more prosperous. We are a compassionate country, but we will extend that compassion to all people who suffer from neglect and who suffer from fear. We are a great country, but the country and the land that our children live in will be an even greater country and an even better land.

In Franklin Roosevelt's time there was a sense of crisis, of desperate danger, of threatening disaster. The need for action was plain.

Today as we meet here in this beautiful city of Cleveland many of the problems of our society lie--like some giant iceberg-largely out of sight beneath a surface of abundance and might. One of the principal tasks of leadership is not only to solve problems but to alert the Nation to the need to solve problems.

Then, too, the clash of interest was clear. Then, too, the opponents were obvious. Today, more than at any time in our history, labor and business, city and farm, rich and poor share a common interest in the progress of all of our people.

The contest today is not so much between the aroused and the hostile as it is between the concerned and the indifferent. It is not so much between the oppressed and the privileged, as between the farsighted and those without any vision. It is not so much between those who have little and those who have much, as it is between those who know that their future is tied to the future of all and those who ignore this great lesson of history.

And when the roll is called, when the trumpet sounds, when the strong of heart and the stout of spirit stand up to be counted, I have not the slightest doubt where this union will be or where American labor in the United States will be. You will be where you have always been: you will be on the side of compassion. You will be on the side of progress. You will be on the side of human rights. You will be on the side of the future.

I now need your help to bring the fruits of progress to those bypassed and forgotten in our forward march. This is not just my program but yours. It is not the program of a single group or party; it is the program not of Democrats or Republicans--it is the program for all Americans.

We have a program to give every American citizen an equal chance to hold a job, to vote, to educate his children, to enjoy all the blessings of liberty whatever his color or his race.

Is this your program, too?

We have a program to attack the conditions which cripple man's capacity to meet the demands of a swiftly moving society, to eliminate and to drive underground hopeless poverty.

Is this your program, too?

We have a program to give medical care to older Americans so that the ravages of illness will not destroy the rewards of a lifetime of labor.

Is this your program, too?

We have a program to extend minimum wage and unemployment benefits.

Is this your program, too?

Well, if this is so, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work to pass this program before this Congress adjourns. For I warn you that poverty and injustice and disease will not wait.

And this same sense of urgency must guide us as we prepare for the vast and troubling changes of the rest of this decade.

The changes which confront the American economy are like three great rivers, springing from sources that are deep in our history, swelling as they rush through our postwar boom, surging toward a meeting place in this decade where we must choose to subdue their power for our progress, or find the hopes of millions submerged in the torrent.

They are, first, the replacement of man by machine; second, the decline of jobs for the unskilled; and, third, the growth in our labor force.

Thousands of jobs each week--more than million a year--are being taken over by machines and, if anything, this rate will increase as technology advances.

At the same time, in the 1960's, the labor force is increasing 50 percent faster than it increased in the 1950's. In 1965, 1 million more youths will be looking for jobs than in 1964. In this decade 26 million young people will seek their first job. Ten million of them will not even have a high school diploma.

These workers will enter a job market almost closed to the man without a skill. Over the next 15 years, the demand for professional and technical people will go up 65 percent; for clerical workers it will go up 45 percent, but the demand for unskilled workers will not go up at all.

So, the challenge to our leadership is clear. We must continue to expand our economy, creating new jobs.

We must provide our workers with education and training to meet the needs of a new dynamic industry.

Your Government is moving ahead with programs which, when passed by the Congress, will retrain more than half a million workers a year.

I have proposed a special commission on automation. But this is not a job for Government alone.

Industry has a demand for skills and industry has a duty towards men and women who are displaced. Labor needs training for its members and owes talents to new workers. America needs full employment to sustain prosperity, and America has an obligation to give every citizen a chance to work.

So, it is time for labor and management and Government to cooperate in establishing a national manpower policy for the United States--a policy which will assess our future needs, a policy which will help aim all our programs of training and education, Government and private alike--toward meeting our needs.

The labor-management committees now working will contribute to such a policy. But I have appointed a Cabinet committee to consider the broadest aspects of such a policy. I will take further steps, in cooperation with labor and business, to make sure that the dignity and the right to labor is not lost in the currents of change; that every American who wants to work can work; that industry will not falter because it lacks the men and the women that it needs.

Yes, we know how to conquer these challenges and all of the other challenges which face us today. The only real question is whether we have the will and the courage and the determination.

And, standing here this morning, I know the answer to that question. The answer is yes!

For many long years, for more than 50 years, I have seen labor fight the lonely battle for men's freedom to eat, and to work, and to provide for his family, and to pursue his happiness.

You are no longer alone. Most of the American people have joined you and most of your old adversaries are with you. And the President of the United States is with you.

And if there are any here today content with old conquests, I say to you: Do not forget the past from which we came. Do not forget the pains of hunger or the pangs of idleness. Do not forget the taste of hatred or the tears of hopelessness. Do not forget the emptiness on the faces of ragged children or the anguish on the faces of helpless fathers and mothers.

For they still threaten far too many of our people.

We have come a long way since we began.

But the battle for the America that we believe in, the battle for the America that we have fought and died for will never be won until these blemishes have been stricken from the pages of American life.

Our course is set. We are moving forward. And nothing will stop us until we arrive at our distant destiny, a destiny filled with the promise of a civilization as enriching as man can hope to build on this earth.

You are the privileged members of a proud, progressive union. You have the opportunity to provide and to follow leadership in which every member of the Communications Workers of America can take great pride. No other leader in this country has stood up more forcefully or more successfully for his people than your own president, Joe Beirne.

So, as we go down the long, winding, uphill trail of a greater society, a better America, a place where every family has a roof over its head, where every child has an opportunity for an education, where there is a rug on the floor and a picture on the wall and a little music in the house--let's stand up behind that leadership of your country which says: Tomorrow will be better than yesterday!

[ Remarks after the presentation to the President of two Princess telephones for his daughters.]

Mr. Beirne, I appreciate very much these beautiful phones for my daughters. I am glad that they will have title to them as a result of the generosity of the Communications Workers.

I hardly expected this great honor of membership in the Communications Workers of America, but I understand that it was voted unanimously based on my great experience on the telephone.

Thank you very much.