Remarks at the Headquarters of the Republican National Committee

When Len told me that this afternoon many of you would be winding up your work and starting back to other pursuits and other activities, I asked him if I might come over to say a word or two. First of all, I think I should put it in terms of admiration because I believe that everybody who does a little more than his principal duties in turning out the great function of citizenship does deserve the admiration of all other Americans.

I think that this priceless privilege of just voting, for which so many people are now dying, is something that is brought home to all in its true value the more we do to preserve it and the more we work along that line in order to make certain that America shall live and free government shall live. I of course am highly gratified and in fact tremendously pleased and proud that so many people should gather together to work for the Administration of which I am the head and for its continuance in office. It is a vote of confidence that means much to anyone who is daily wrestling with the problem under the somber clouds of unrest and threat that now seem to hover over the world.

In any event, no matter what happens, I think we should not think of it too much as the time for rejoicing. Friends of ours, people in Eastern Europe, are enslaved and suffering, and there are still threats to the peace existing in Egypt. So we have not only to work for elections, to see that each citizen, so far as he can, does his duty on that day, but to study what it is that is going on in the world and how we may best help and make certain our own nation shall always preserve the path of honor.

So, because you people are trying to do your best in this whole complex problem of being an American citizen as well as enjoying inestimable rights and privileges that go with that citizenship, I thank you very, very sincerely. I've got just one more word to say.

The Republican National Headquarters goes on from year to year and month to month. The Citizens groups, so called, have been in the past sort of a temporary organization and I realize that you can't forever keep them organized in terms of a particular name because people pass. But I wish it were possible to keep the Citizens groups alive under the name of Citizens for Good Government, or whatever you want to call it. That would be a development to be highly commended because you would always have the backbone of an organization--the focus of your interests represented in each city, each county, each village of America. If that could be done, I think it would mark the real turning point in American politics.