Remarks at the Governor's Mansion in Honolulu at a Reception for Members of the Mexico-United States Interparliamentary Conference

Governor Burns and distinguished members of the delegation from Mexico and the United States, my friends of Hawaii:

Thank you so much for thinking of me and asking me to come by and visit with you and enjoy some of this very colorful atmosphere and this exchange between friends.

Since the first meeting of this group in Mexico City, you have met alternately in Mexico and the United States. This parliamentary group, I am informed, does not make binding decisions or even pass resolutions. But you do promote understanding, communication, and friendship between the people of the United States and the people of our beloved sister republic, Mexico.

I have met five times since I have been President with your President of Mexico:

--first at my home in Texas,

--then at our Nation's home in Washington,

--at President Diaz Ordaz's home in Mexico,

--in the Chamizal and at Amistad, and

--with all of our colleagues in this hemisphere, at Punta del Este.

We have always talked about how we could build together, how we could help each other, how we could help other nations achieve the cooperation and the great mutual respect that we have known between ourselves, Mexico and the United States.

We have built much together. In the years ahead, there is even much more remaining to be done. We must work along our border to improve beautification on public works, on jobs, on schools, on health, on the way that we treat our neighbor--whether he lives on one side of the border or the other side.

We must strengthen our trade ties and try to remove the remaining frictions that exist between us. We must look increasingly at our national economic problems to see how we can reinforce and how we can help each other.

So, I think meetings like this are very good because we can resolve here to press forward to move ahead and to move ahead together.

We are fortunate to share a continent and a common boundary. We share a common hope for our people and a common future.

I want to meet with your President later this year. At that time, we will do more than exchange pleasantries; we will review the progress that we have made together. I hope that we can see together what is happening along our border; not just the monuments of steel and cement such as Falcon and Amistad Dams but the monuments of friendship in the hearts of both of our peoples.

There is a new dimension of friendship that is born of the common trial in the floods of the lower Rio Grande Valley, and of hope, as your President and I raised our flags at Chamizal last October.

I appreciate so much getting a wire from you yesterday asking me to come by briefly to say a word to you. I hope your meeting here is fruitful in this great State of Hawaii, because Hawaii has much to teach all of us-and all the world--about the different races living together and living together in prosperity and in harmony.

The one big problem that faces all humankind, all three billion of us, is how can we learn to live together in prosperity and in harmony, without friction and without war.

I say to my friends from across the border-and to my friends of Hawaii--we do so much appreciate all of you being here together and it has been a delightful chance for me to bring you my best wishes and to join with you in the prayer that is in the hearts of both of our countrymen, and for that matter, I think, people everywhere in the world.

Peace on earth, good will to men.