Remarks at the Presentation of Lifesaver Medals to 13 Members of School Safety Patrols

Members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls:

Here at the White House it is always a very proud and a very special occasion when we have the opportunity to welcome and to honor young people of our country. There is more than usual pride present here today because we are privileged to honor 13 young Americans who have demonstrated the very highest sense of personal responsibility and personal self-sacrifice; in the line of duty they have willingly and knowingly risked their own lives to save the lives of others as School Patrols.

We are proud of what your actions tell us of your generation. We are very proud of the fiber of which your generation is made. We are especially proud that your performance so nobly upholds the tradition of the School Safety Patrol in which 800,000 young people serve every day, and from which some 14 million have graduated through the years. But most of all we are proud and we are grateful for the honor that your deeds do to the heritage of your country.

You children have a great and a very strong Nation--a Nation which wants nothing from any other nation on earth, but which earnestly wants all mankind to enjoy the blessings of freedom, of peace, of justice, of good health, of good education, of good jobs, of greater happiness and hope.

We have dreams, we have great and good dreams, for you and for all the young people of all the world, but we know full well that these dreams cannot be made real, either for you or for any of this earth's children, unless we and all who share the same visions and the same hopes manifest that quality that you have shown--the quality of decision and the quality of courage.

The world will never be made a better place to live if we temporize or if we falter, if we quail or if we quake, before the challenges that each moment presents to us. Physical courage, of course, is always needed, much as we wish it were otherwise.

The world in which we live does not present only the reflective challenges of decision; it also presents us with the challenge of action. But this world also requires the courage of decision made out of conviction, and made out of the devotion to ideals that we all entertain.

A great President, Woodrow Wilson, once made the statement that most men are not untrue, but they are afraid. Most of the errors of public life come not because men are morally bad, but because they are afraid of somebody. In our times, and in our land, and in our world, this is the true challenge of good citizenship.

When we know what is right, when we know what is just, when we know what is true, then we just must stand up for it, whatever the consequences.

We must never fail to do so because we are afraid of somebody, or what they may think, or what some of them may even say.

You have shown this common courage. You have shown the good citizenship of which we are all very proud, and I am pleased to tell you that the whole Nation is proud of you. I want you to know this morning that all Americans are proud of you, too, for what you have done.

Thank you very much for coming here. You honor us with your presence.