THANK YOU--thank you very much. I hope I will always deserve it. I was in dead earnest in the effort to implement the report of the Commission on Civil Rights. I shall continue to work for it as long as I live, for it is part and parcel of the principles for which I have always stood, and for which I will always stand as long as I live.
I appreciate it most highly, and I sincerely hope that I will deserve it. What you said has been most kind--and I appreciate that, too, I want to tell you, and I would like to have a copy of that statement for my scrapbook.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 12:55 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House.
The group presented the President with a plaque bearing the following inscription:
"To Harry S. Truman, 32nd President of The United States who has awakened the conscience of America and given new strength to our democracy by his courageous efforts on behalf of freedom and equality for all citizens.
"National Newspaper Publishers Association, 1952."
Harry S Truman, Remarks to the Directors of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/231102
