Remarks in Salt Lake City, Utah, During the Pioneer Day Celebration

President Smith, President Lee, President Tanner:

I wish to express to all of you who have welcomed us so warmly today on Pioneer Day our gratitude, and I want you to know that we always have found our visits to Salt Lake City to be extremely heartwarming. But of all the times we have come here we have never seen a crowd so big and one so friendly. Thank you very much.

I also want to express appreciation to you, too, today for a great institution that has played a part in this administration.

I remember when we came here in the campaign, in the Tabernacle. We heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and when it played and sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" I turned to George Romney and said I had never heard it better.
So we had them at the Inauguration.

And since that time, too, I also want to express my appreciation to you for providing for the Cabinet two of the outstanding Americans of our time, two of the most selfless public servants I know--the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Kennedy, and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, George Romney.

I have a meeting with the officials of the Church for a few moments, but before going in I would like to say one word about the spirit that created this great city and this State.

Pioneer Day means something to the people of Utah but it also means something to the people of America, because the pioneers who came here taught other pioneers who went on through the balance of the West. And it is that kind of spirit, the kind of spirit that sees a great problem but the greater the problem puts in great effort, the kind of spirit that doesn't blame adversity on somebody else but tries to do something about it himself.

That is what built this State; that is what built America.

Just a year ago, on July the 24th, in the middle of the Pacific, on an American aircraft carrier, I welcomed back from the moon three men who had been pioneers in landing on the moon. And as I think today, I can only say that the spirit that took those three men to the moon, the spirit that came here 124 years ago, that kind of spirit has built the greatest country on the earth. And let me remind us all on this day, we in America know that we are not perfect. We in America know that we have problems.

But we also know that we are blessed with the greatest ability that the world has ever seen to solve those problems.

And all we need is the kind of spirit that built this State.

Thank you for giving America such a fine lesson. Thank you.