Remarks to the Recipients of the 1966 National Civil Service Awards

Chairman Macy, Secretary Sisco, distinguished Federal civil servants:

I had thought that I would just receive you privately in the office and have a little personal visit with you, but when I reviewed your record, I came to the conclusion that I would much prefer that the country know about you than for me just to have that information confined to my own room.

In my special message to Congress last month on Federal pay, I had this to say: "Among the many blessings which Americans can count is a corps of Federal civil servants that is unequaled anywhere in the world." I am pleased this morning to welcome you to the White House and to express my appreciation for the 10 men and women who have accepted this invitation, who have proved themselves to be unexcelled even among the civil servants.

These are the 1966 winners of the National Civil Service League Awards. This award is given for efficiency, quality, and economy in Government management. I hope that as they added women this year to the recipients that they will add imagination to the criteria next year. Because in the 35 years that I have spent in the Government, I haven't seen many people, if any, that I did not believe were people that wanted economy, people that tried to be efficient, folks that were generally loyal to our system of government, and most of the time were people of quality.

I am afraid that after we stay here and get adjusted to our environment and our travels are limited and our associations become set, that we may not always wake up in the middle of the night with a bright new idea and submit it the next morning. So I hope that we will stress imagination and creativeness, initiative, new ideas, how we can do something quicker, how we can do it better, why we ought to do something we are not doing, why we ought to discard the status quo, and proceed to things we know not of, sometimes, in the hope that out of that will come something revolutionary and something worthwhile.

So Mr. Macy--if you are listening and can "read me"--I hope that when we get ready to have this meeting next year that we will put into the things that we want to see in our Federal civil servants efficiency, quality, economy, dedication, and imagination.

There is no question in my mind that every person in this room today could be earning a great deal more money in private enterprise.

Your achievements have singled you out as being men and women of excellence, and excellence is not easy to come by, either in or out of the Government. Because we are not all excellent, I would say that perhaps 50 percent of the staff of the White House spends 50 percent of their time trying to explain, deny, correct, justify, or make clearer someone's action that may not have been efficient, or may not have been accurate, or may not have been excellent.

I often think of the great waste that one little inefficient statement or inefficient step, or one action that was misunderstood or misinterpreted, just how much it may cost the Government and cost our whole enterprise system. So I do want to bear down pretty heavy on excellence.

Yet for all the monetary awards that you have sacrificed, I believe that you have gained something more precious. You have gained the opportunity to work for human welfare, to work for progress, to work for efficiency, and in many cases to work for peace.

I think probably the most satisfying thing that came to me last year was the statement, and I believe the fact, but certainly the statement that this Government had saved the lives of 250,000 children in one of the small countries of the world. That gave me a reward and a satisfaction that I didn't get out of that paycheck that I endorsed this morning and sent on down to the bank, because I don't know whatever happens to it after it gets there. It is just routine.

But if you can feel that that came from some little part of your effort, it is worth a lot more than these fancy titles, these big salaries, and these fancy country clubs that you can belong to, if you are getting all the monetary reward that the traffic will bear. The fact that you may contribute just one little bit to peace in the world could give you more satisfaction than being the recipient of a great estate as a result of someone's will.

You have assisted me in the development of my budget, you have organized and directed new programs, you have led the way in new discoveries for the welfare and security of the people, you have contributed new ideas which have led to economy and improvement in Government. Because you have done these things, I want to especially commend you, thank you, and say to you that I don't believe there is a higher calling than Government service.

I don't think I have to sell you on that or you wouldn't be here, if you thought there was a higher one. But I do want you to know that your achievements should serve as a shining example to all the young people throughout our land that are trying to decide today what they ought to do.

I am glad that I don't hear the complaining today about the Government worker that I heard as a young man. I think we have matured some. When I first came into public life, I heard a lot of people talking about professional politicians and they had a kind of a stigma attached to a person in public life. Then I heard a lot of professional politicians talk about bureaucrats and they didn't always pronounce it right. Those things distressed me through the years I have served. And I am glad I don't hear them now.

We always have our complainers and we have people who like to point up what is wrong, but by and large I think the Government servant today is more respected, better recognized, and probably more rewarded than he has been before. One of the reasons for that is that you have observed some of the mistakes that your predecessors have made and you have improved.

Also I think another reason is Mr. Macy, and the leadership that he has given as Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, the leadership he has given the President and the leadership he has given the country in trying to develop a body of meritorious civil servants from the Cabinet level on down. He has had something to do with selecting every person that I have selected in the Government. The only person that he didn't really have much to do with selecting is talking to you and maybe he is glad of that.