Remarks to Employees at the Department of Transportation.

Mr. Secretary, ladies and gentlemen:

I first want to say that I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to the key members of this newest Department, and also to tell you, first, that I have great confidence in the new Secretary.

I know him better than most of you do. I know him as a man with great drive, great imagination, a man who will be looking for the new ideas that must come from this Department if it is to meet its mission.

I am sure that in terms of where that running head start is concerned, that as far as John Volpe, looking at his record is involved, you don't have to worry--he is always going to be running. You just have to run to keep up with him. That, of course, in the Department of Transportation is an essential.

In speaking to you I certainly would not want to impose on your time by trying to describe the mission of this Department adequately. I have had a chance to look at the organization charts in the office of the Secretary. I know the various interests that are represented here, the various departments that have been pulled together in this newest Department of the Government.

But I think speaking from my vantage point, the vantage point of one who sees the problems of the people as a whole, I can very properly bring home to you the immense interest that the people of this country generally have in what you are doing.

I think sometimes in Government we have a tendency to become involved in our problems. The work can get tiring and sometimes seem not too rewarding. We don't get the publicity in some departments that we think we should have and perhaps sometimes we feel that it might not be worth it.

I can assure you from my own experience, if there is one subject that people across this country--regardless of what station in life they come from--one subject they are interested in, it is transportation and all of its aspects.

I recall when that was brought home to me very forcibly very early in the primary campaigns in one of the States I visited last year. I had a question and answer session afterwards. It happened to be in a particular city where there had been some problems with regard to transportation, people not getting into town-the railway had not been running on time, and that sort of thing.

After I had made my opening remarks, I asked for questions and I expected the questions to be on such subjects as Vietnam, the gold flow, and all that sort of thing. The first question right out of the bag was, "What are you going to promise to those of us who don't get to work on time because of the transportation problem?"

In other words, across this country, whether it is the clogged up freeways that we have out in my home State of California, the Long Island Rail Road not running on time to get the commuters into New York City, whether it is the air traffic congestion which many of us experienced last summer during the slowdown, or whether it is the future in terms of what our failure to handle some of our transportation problems with more foresight will mean to us, the American people today are looking to this new Department for some new ideas and for some planning which will make our cities in which most of us will be living--even more of us will be living than at the present time--will make our cities more livable or livable when they may not be at this time or in the future.

So, as you address yourself to your problems--whatever the department may be--I cannot emphasize more the importance of what you do, whether it is in terms of the highway program and its future, whether it is in terms of the development of our railroads, modernizing them not only in terms of freight but also perhaps even passenger capacity, whether it is in terms of rapid transit that affects all of our great urban centers, or whether it is in terms of the exciting new dimensions of air in which over the last 5 years we have seen the number of passengers who fly in a year go from 70 million to 126 million. In the next 5 years it will go from 126 million to 270 million.

In the last 5 years air freight has doubled. In the next 5 years it may double or even triple again. This is only a small indication and always we have found that our estimates have been too low with regard to the breakthroughs in air transportation. That is a small indication of the problem of the future.

As you know, because I knew that he had broad shoulders and liked difficult problems, we have asked the Secretary and, through the Secretary, this Department to give us a recommendation on the SST. This is only one indication of the vital importance of the areas to which you are devoted.

Incidentally, I want to make it very clear that having referred to railroads and having referred to air transportation and having referred to automobiles, I don't overlook the fact that you have jurisdiction also over a considerable part of our ocean traffic, although the Department of Commerce would argue about some of that in the Maritime Administration.

But what we want from the Secretary and what the Secretary and his top advisers who sit down here in these front rows have indicated that they are going to provide is a new transportation policy which will look forward to what this country is going to be like 10 years from now and 20 years from now. And then rather than just letting it grow like Topsy and having our cities clogged and our air lanes so filled that it is no longer safe to travel by air, or if it is safe, we are delayed too much in getting there because of the traffic, whatever the problem may be, trying to find new answers, better answers for this vital area of transportation.

Because, as we look at the environment that Americans are going to be living in, I think transportation plays as vital a role as any other single entity can play. I am aware of this. I know that you are more aware of it than I am.

What I wanted to bring to this group of the top leaders in this Department is the sense of urgency that I feel and that I believe the American people feel with regard to what you are doing.

Now, one other point that I want to make is something that I tried to say at each one of the departments and that I want to emphasize it here, too. In this room are the leaders. As far as the leaders are concerned, only very few of them have been appointed by the new administration.

I realize that throughout this room the great majority are people who have given their lives to Government service. They are what are called the career civil servants of the Federal Government. I know that as far as the success of this Department is concerned, it is going to depend upon the kind of leadership that you get from the Secretary, from the Assistant Secretaries, and from the Under Secretaries that have been appointed by this administration.

But I know that no matter how imaginative they are, how creative they are, how bold they are in their thinking, however many new ideas they get, that they cannot succeed without the support, and the enthusiastic support, of the top career leaders who sit behind them in the rows all down here.

Having said that to you, I know that you cannot succeed in carrying out this mission unless you have the support and also the enthusiastic dedication of thousands and tens of thousands of career people that I saw in the halls, the secretaries, the people in the lower grade classifications who are trying to move up in Government and who have given their lives to Government, as you have given yours to Government.

I feel that we need throughout our Federal Government service a new sense of not only dedication to our jobs, but also I think from the very top, let's let every person working with us know that he matters and what he or she does is contributing to not only the better running of this Department, but also to a better Nation for all of us.

I think the best example that I have found and I have used it before, but I think it is worth repeating here because it is in one element of transportation in a sense--the whole area of space. It was when our astronauts came into my office recently and I was, of course, saying the usual things which we say to them for their amazing exploits.

The response was that they actually could not have done what they had done except for 400,000 people who worked in the Apollo program in one way or another, and also pointing out the fact that 2 million parts were in that Apollo spacecraft--2 million parts.

So what do we see? At the top we see three astronauts going on the exciting voyage around the moon. Then we see 400,000 people, people that most of them, none of them, will ever meet and none of us will have the chance to thank, working on this intricate little part or the other. But the success of the flight is going to depend upon every one of those parts.

I think if there is some way we could get across to all of the people in Government that however boring their job may seem to be, the writing of letters, for example, and getting out forms or running the mimeograph machine or I guess now you do it through a duplicating machine, or whatever the case might be, that all of this matters.

I think if we can have that sense of a new dedication and pride in being an employee of this great Government of ours--the Federal Government--I think if we can instill that, it is going to mean more efficiency, more productivity, and certainly it is going to mean--at the end of whatever our term of office may be-for you or for us, it is going to be a sense of realization that we otherwise would not have had.

I just want to say in conclusion that I spent, as most of you know, a great number of my adult years in the service of the Federal Government. When I was not in the service of the Federal Government it was usually not my own choice. But having been in the service of the Federal Government in the United States Navy for 3 1/2 years, for almost a year and a half in the Office of Price Administration before I went into the Navy, then for 4 years in the House, 2 years in the Senate, and 8 years as Vice President, I always had a sense of pride about it, a sense of pride that I had that opportunity.

I know you will feel that way and particularly those of you who have given your lives to Government service. That is why I am visiting every one of these departments, because I want the top leaders in the department to carry back to the people who work with you and for you and for us the message that everything they do does count, that in this administration we appreciate what they are doing. We are going to support them and we will appreciate their support as well. Thank you.