Remarks at Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Ladies and gentlemen:

From time to time the President of the United States has the privilege of appearing before a body of Americans assembled here in Washington to extend to them greetings on behalf of the administration and of the Federal Government here located.

And certainly, more often than not, he also has the privilege of extending felicitations and well wishes in the prosecution of their work.

It is the last part of this statement that I want to refer to for a moment. My welcome to you is warm and sincere, but I should like also to take your time to talk about the good wishes that I extend for the prosecution of your work.

I believe most sincerely in the statement of Lincoln that this nation was dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. I believe with the writers of the Declaration of Independence that men are endowed by their Creator with certain rights. And furthermore, I believe that the vast majority, the great mass of Americans want to make those concepts a living reality in their lives.

I was talking only a few minutes ago with some of your leaders in the anteroom just off this hall. I had a chance to express my belief that all of us can take inspiration from this one thought: the great faith of the American people taken in the mass.

There are vociferous minorities. There are people who, for selfish or for fearful reasons, do not fully live up to the concepts held and so eloquently stated by our Founding Fathers--or by Lincoln. But, by and large, the mass of America wants to be decent, and good, and just.

Our people do not want to make differentiations among people based upon inconsequential matters of nature involving color and race.

Admitting quickly--even if sadly--that the ideals of those people have not been reached, let us still remember this: this same thing is true of everything we do in life. Ideals are really never reached by imperfect humans. But the striving for them makes better both the great body we are trying to affect and ourselves.

And so--and I hope, my dear friends, that doesn't sound like a sermon--I am merely trying to state my beliefs as fully and as frankly as I know how to do. But I believe that this struggle, this one that in your case now has gone on for, lo, these many decades, is producing results on the part of the administration.

I stated my own personal views many times before the election. I have tried to state them since. Wherever Federal authority clearly extends, I will do the utmost that lies within my power to bring into living reality this expression of equality among all men.

By no means do I come here to make a political statement or to outline for you what has been done. But I do submit that in the two areas that I spoke about in the campaign, definite progress has been made. It is in the areas of all the armed services and where their territories and functions and activities extend, and right here in the District of Columbia. With respect to these, I expressed certain convictions and determinations. Not in all cases have the full results been achieved. But we are still trying. I know of no other slogan that is so good for all of us as once we have determined upon and visualized a worthy ideal, to keep on trying with all that is in us.

I wish for each of you an enjoyable time in this Capital. I hope that you, aside from the fruitfulness of your work, have the satisfaction of seeing something around this town that you will carry back with really fond memories. I hope that you will find something just outside of the beauty of the buildings and the niceness of nature.

For all of you--good luck and goodbye.