Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States

Members of the Chamber of Commerce, and your guests:

Things have changed in Washington, but let the record show that you still have a President from Texas. [Laughter]

President Shivers tells me that there is a new one coming in tonight, from Oklahoma.

It is a very great privilege for me to speak to you, even though briefly, today, and to reminisce a bit about the other appearances I have made before this organization over the years.

I suppose except for President Johnson, I am the only other individual who has spoken to the national meetings of the Chamber of Commerce as a Congressman, as a Senator, as Vice President, and, finally, as President.

I am here a little later than I expected in the last capacity.

I remember through the years those meetings, some of them at dinners and some of them at occasions like this. I cherish the friendships that I have had throughout the country with your local organizations and with your national officers.

I have noted with great interest and appreciation that you have scheduled several representatives from the new administration to address you. I notice, for example, one of the panels is going to be on budget and taxes. If you find any answers, please let me know.

Certainly on that score, I will not say what our Budget Director and members of the Council of Economic Advisers will say much better when they appear later.

I know, too, from having talked to your president and those who have planned your program, that you have considered a number of other subjects during the course of this meeting.

Consequently, I have decided to speak briefly on a subject of very great concern to all of you, of very great concern to me and, I will say, to all Americans at this time. I refer to the problems of education in the very broadest sense in the United States.

I am not going to cover that subject in all of its ramifications. That is something that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and Dr. Allen could do much more ably than I. But there are phases of it that I think do require, at this time, a statement by the President of the United States, amplifying a statement I made earlier on a problem that deeply concerns us all.

That is the problem of what I would call the new revolutionary spirit and new revolutionary actions that are taking place on the campuses of many of our colleges and universities and also that may begin to take place, and also are taking place, I understand, in some of the high schools of this country.

Now I am not going to speak to that problem in the way that you might usually expect. It is easy to be against some of the actions that have occurred. All of us are concerned by those actions. We are against them. The question is to refine our discussions to some simple issues and some simple principles. I am going to state some opinions now that are my own.

Some will not agree with them. But I think they are opinions that are in accord with the great traditions of free education in America. I think they need to be stated by the President of the United States and if you share them, I hope that when you go back to your communities you will state them and I would hope also, to the extent that you have opportunities in official or other capacities, school boards, or as trustees, or faculty members, if you are that, you will be able, perhaps, to implement them.

First, with regard to that great problem of dissent on the college and university campuses, let us recognize that this is a very healthy force when we consider it at its best. We do not want, in America, an educational system which becomes ingrown, stultified, loses the ability to develop the new ideas to keep pace with the change in our very fast-changing society.

Consequently, we can be thankful today that we do have a younger generation which is, as I have often said, with all of the faults that we may see in it, the best educated younger generation that we have ever had, more deeply motivated than any that we have ever had, one that deeply cares about America, about our system, and about our educational system. We may not agree with them, but they do care.

Now having said that, I now indicate what I think are some principles in which dissent must properly be expressed. One is this: As far as our colleges and universities are concerned, I think that young people, students, are correct in asking that they have a voice, a voice in determining what the courses should be, a voice in determining what the rules should be. But then I say that while they should have a voice, under no circumstances should they be given control of the colleges and the universities. That is something else again.

I suppose some could quarrel with that qualification. But I would suggest that we can always learn from history, not only the history of our own country, but the history of countries throughout the world who have gone through similar revolutions. The philosopher Santayana once wrote that, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Look to the countries to the south of us, our closest neighbors, our closest friends-very proud countries, many great and old universities. Those universities, most of them, went through a revolution similar to ours 100 years ago.

The students won. They won not only a voice but they won control in many of those universities, the right to hire and fire the professors and to determine the courses. And the result is that the educational system as far as higher education is concerned, in Latin America generally, is one of the most inferior in the world. I say let us not let it happen here in the United States of America.

So our answer here is not to deny the voice. We must listen, and certainly where that voice expresses views that ought to be implemented, we should implement them. But on the other hand, remember that it is the responsibility of faculties and boards of trustees to provide the leadership for educational institutions.

Then we come to the second point: that is the method of dissent. Here again, we have some fine lines that need to be drawn and some principles that we must have in mind.

There are those who believe that any means are justified if the end is worthwhile. And all of us, again, if we remember the past, will, of course, agree that we can never adopt that principle, because when we adopt that principle of any means to the end, the end eventually becomes the means.

So we look at our college campuses and our university campuses today and we see some things which concern us. We see, first, the dissent. That we accept, we welcome, and we encourage, provided it is the peaceful kind of dissent within the rules of an institution and of our society.

And, second, we also--and I presently today proclaim, as I have previously, the principle that we do not want to have the Federal Government of this country running our institutions. We do not want them interfering with our colleges and our universities. It is their responsibility to provide education in an independent, free way in the American tradition.

But, third, we have another factor that we must face. That is this: When we find situations in numbers of colleges and universities which reach the point where students, in the name of dissent and in the name of change, terrorize other students and faculty members, when they rifle files, when they engage in violence, when they carry guns and knives into classrooms, then I say it is time for faculties, boards of trustees, and school administrators to have the backbone to stand up against that kind of lawlessness in our society.

What I am simply suggesting here is this: We do not want government control of our great educational institutions. We want to have that freedom which comes from the independence of a great university and college community. But as we look at the situation today, I think all of those who have a responsibility for providing educational leadership must recognize that there can be no compromise with lawlessness and no surrender to force if free education is to survive in the United States of America.

Now, on the positive side, may I make another suggestion? Yesterday, I had a very pleasant duty, and that was to participate in making an award to the Teacher of the Year, selected by Look magazine in an annual event that has been going on for the past 15 years--a very attractive teacher in high school from Lakeland, Florida.

After that award ceremony, I was discussing its meaning with Dr. Allen, the new head of the Office of Education. He knew that I was going to speak to this organization today. And he made a suggestion that I think has a great deal of merit, which we are going to consider implementing at the national level next fall, but which I would urge that all of you in your community programs might consider discussing and possibly implementing during the next year.

And it is this: We hear so much these days of what is wrong with education and all of our problems. And we tend too often, I am sure, to blame teachers, or students for that matter, but when we find a good teacher--and there are thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them around this country--when we find them doing a dedicated job, isn't it really time that we provide for them the backing? Isn't it time for us to provide the honor and the respect which the best salary in the world cannot certainly compensate for?

What I am saying is this: We are doing a better job than we were doing 20 years ago, when I first appeared before the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., as a Congressman, in paying our teachers. But when it comes to respect for a job well done, honoring this great and honored profession, perhaps, particularly where our public schools are concerned and our private schools as well, we have not shown the respect which we might.

That can come from the community. It can come from a Chamber of Commerce or a service club. And that is why I .think we might consider the Teacher of the Year Award in every community of this Nation, so that we can get the positive side of education on the platter as well as the negative.

Then, finally, while I am speaking of a positive note, may I leave this thought with you: I can imagine that you came to Washington even in perhaps the most beautiful spring that Washington has had in many years and you are here just at the right time, when the Chamber of Commerce has put on the best flower display we have ever had. And I suppose that when you come here and hear all of the weighty subjects of government discussed, when you consider our problems abroad, a war which is still not concluded in Vietnam, when you consider our problems at home--the educational problem that I mentioned is only one the problem of our cities with which you are so deeply concerned is another, and the problem of hunger in America is another one, as you know. It has been in our headlines.

All of these must sometimes lead some to the conclusion that this .is a rather difficult time to be in a position of responsibility, whether in your city or whether in government at the State or national level.

I just want 'to give you my own philosophy in a word, as I conclude. We do have tremendously difficult problems in this country. But what really, it seems, should give us inspiration today, as you bring your convention to a conclusion, is this: We can do something about our problems.

To the extent that we have hunger in America, we have the food to deal with and to stop that particular problem. To the extent that our cities need to be rebuilt, we can rebuild them. To the extent that we have any problem any place in this Nation, America is so strong and so rich that we have what it takes to deal with the problem.

What we need is what you are providing and what we trust government can help to provide with you.

That is the effort not only of a government, but the effort of a community, of all the people of this Nation, working together.

I simply want you to know that as I look at America today and its place in the world, I do not have that lack of faith that some seem to have. If I were to pick a time and a place in which to live, I would pick the United States of America right today, 1969.

You could call that Chamber of Commerce talk. But I can assure you that the very fact that this country is rich enough to solve its problems and that the decisions that are made in the United States, of all the nations of the free world, will determine whether peace or freedom survives in this world in this last third of the century-this means that no people in the history of the world have had a greater challenge and no people in the history of the world have had more resources to meet that challenge.

That is why this is an exciting time to be alive. That is why it is a very great inspiration for me to speak to you, recognizing that your program of Forward America means that we have throughout this Nation hundreds of thousands, yes, millions of Americans, who in their private capacities are going to work with government for the solution of our problems.

I say to you, my friends, when you leave Washington, go with the renewed sense of faith in this country and faith in its future. It will be a good future because we are going to help make it so.

Thank you.