Remarks at the Opening of the 1960 AFL-CIO Union-Industries Show.

Mr. Meany, Mr. Lewis, and ladies and gentlemen:

It is with a distinct sense of honor--personal honor--that I have accepted this invitation to be with you on the opening of this great union-industrial exhibition. And I have been highly privileged by the opportunity to go with Mr. Meany and others in wandering for some three quarters of an hour around this armory so that I could see something of the exhibits that you all will see.

The reaction that I had is that of realizing anew what can be achieved by true cooperation. We have the scientist who conceives of some new idea applicable to industry, who proves its validity. We find the financier or a group of investors who are ready to put up the money to make the venture go. We find the management who organizes the whole into a productive enterprise, and we have those people who with their hands and their minds finally produce the wealth of the United States. And by this method, voluntarily arrived at by each of these groups, we will see some of the results in this exhibition.

Some of them are marvels of ingenuity and modern practice. Mr. Meany, who has often told me he was very expert in the plumber's trade, acknowledged himself today being bewildered and amazed by the things he has found in the plumbing facilities that he finds in here.

Now all of these things, these material advantages that each of us has in better living conditions, better clothes, better food better processed-all of these things that come to us, sometimes we probably don't look quite as far across the horizon as we should. And so I was particularly impressed by the fact in the AFL-CIO booth there is a little exhortation to each of us, to look to the less developed nations, to help them, so that we ourselves may do better.

We exhibit that kind of concern for our brother, under God, that we are exhorted to in the Bible or in any other religious doctrine, but at the same time, as we help our brother--as we help those people--we make this a more peaceful, a more prosperous, all in all a better world in which to live, with easier minds and with the certainty that spiritually, intellectually, and materially we all profit by this cooperation that I spoke of between the scientist and the financier and management and labor. But more than that, by cooperation among nations.

And because union labor, by the statement in its own booth, has' brought our attention to this matter, I hope that each of you going through this wonderful exhibit will pause long enough to read that little sign.

And as I express this hope, as I told you before, it is an honor to have been invited to cut the ribbon which will open this show--which I will now do. Thank you.