Remarks at the Social Security Administration Headquarters in Baltimore

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am delighted to be here in Baltimore and to see on the platform a good many of my old and trusted friends.

Congressman Long came over here ahead of us, I think, because he wanted me to introduce him instead of Secretary Gardner. Congressman, we are delighted to have you and appreciate your meeting us here.

I am almost as happy to be in the neighborhood of Baltimore as 54,000 Oriole fans were last Sunday.

But contrary to some rumors, I am not here to scout Dave McNally for the Washington Senators.

I came here this morning to discuss the very brilliant record of the social security system and to offer to the Nation and to the world information about important proposals that your President will make concerning its future.

I want to pay a special tribute to one of the greatest Cabinet officers of all time-even if he is a Republican--John Gardner, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

And Under Secretary Wilbur Cohen who has carried a very heavy load in this field through the years.

I want to pay a very special tribute to Commissioner Ball. When I commended him, I commended the thousands of dedicated, tireless social security employees who have served him diligently, capably, and well.

A few weeks ago, I heard a lot of dire predictions about how the system would fail when we inaugurated the new program. I have never seen such faultless administration. To each of you, whether you are at the bottom of the grade or at the top of the list, I want to say that your President appreciates the job that you have done and wants to publicly commend you for it.

Thirty years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the Congress and the country to support him in the first social security legislation that America had ever passed. At that time I was a young man working as a Congressman's secretary in Washington. I remember that that proposal set off what we call down in Texas a "battle royal." There were prominent Members of Congress who claimed that "social security meant socialism."

One of my most vivid memories is of the day--in 1935, when I had not yet become a Member of Congress, but was working there--when I stood in the Speaker's office urging the Congressman I worked for to say "yes" to the social security roll call when it was to be voted on a few minutes later in the House. He had reservations about the bill and its future, but he voted "aye." I have always been proud of that action.

But others did not vote "aye." Others voted to kill it through recommital and some voted against it even on the final roll call. That seems impossible to believe in this year 1966 but it was easy to believe in 1935 and 1936.

Led by seven minority members of the Ways and Means Committee, the minority on this social security issue branded this vital bill "a crushing burden on industry and labor." They claimed that it would "destroy old age retirement systems set up in private industry."

They voted to recommit the bill. Now that is the way those of us who are against something try to kill it--to recommit it. That is a fancy term that the average layman doesn't understand. That is a politician's parliamentary device to stick a dagger in its heart. I think you can understand that.

That vote in the House of Representatives that day was 253--to oppose recommitment from the floor and send it back--to 149. Then, they tried to hide their vote--the 149 that had voted to kill it--by helping to pass it. When they pulled back the curtain and let a little sunshine come in, and the vote was whether you are for or against social security, the vote on final passage was not 253 to 149 but it was 372 to 33.

When President Roosevelt signed that bill, he called it "the cornerstone in a structure which is by no means complete."

And how right he was--as he was on so many other matters, as we have seen.

In my 30 years, we have moved again and again to strengthen and to expand social security. We broadened the coverage. We extended the benefits to widows and orphans and the disabled. And finally, after a 20-year struggle, we established a new social security landmark. So today, Medicare offers 19 million--19 million older Americans freedom from the nagging fear that illness will bankrupt them or their children.

This time, I had the privilege of leading that fight. I found myself pleading, not with one man but with many, to say "yes" to Medicare.

We had talked about it in our speeches and our platforms for more than 20 years but we had never gotten it reported from a committee.

And somehow I had the strange feeling that it had all happened before.

The "nay-sayers" dusted off their old speeches of 30 years ago. They revised them and rewrote them. But they said about the same thing--fear.

Once again they talked about socialism; about the destruction of free enterprise.

One minority Member of Congress--the minority on the Medicare issue--said it was "a political hodgepodge."

That was not designed to help the bill.

And a tired old voice from the past branded Medicare "a cruel hoax."

Once again they dusted off the old recommit weapon--to kill the bill by returning it to the committee. And the vote in the House was 236 to 191. And Medicare passed, 353 to 115.

And if the good Lord lets me live, I am going to spread the word out and let the information leak out all over this country about this parliamentary device called recommit.

Today, social security and Medicare stand as two of the most historic programs ever enacted by any Congress. They stand as two of the most far-reaching programs ever carried out by any governmental agency.

Every one of you has joined in this great drama. You can feel pride over what you have done for your country.

You have done it without regard to party just as many members of both parties voted for the passage of the bill and members of both parties voted against it.

But those who brought social security into the legislative history of this ,country and those who added Medicare to it, they and their children's children can always be proud of that role of honor to which they affixed their names.

I am not going to call the names of those who voted against social security or voted against Medicare, because we don't want to bring up unpleasant memories or deal in personalities.

This is no time to spend our talents on past successes or failures. This is a day that we must look ahead--look ahead to the unfinished business of this country.

Far too many social security beneficiaries today--not only older citizens, but their widows and their orphans and the disabled-are trying to live off of too little income.

Far too many citizens on social security-more than one-third of the total-exist on incomes below the poverty line. Most of them have social security as a main source of income. For some, it happens to be their only source of income.

The business of insuring a decent and dignified life for all of our citizens should be the unfinished business of all of our people.

The need for revision of social security and other benefits for the aged people of America has been widely felt by members of both parties in this country.

Last July the 10th the Republican National Committee released a 10-point program entitled "A Republican Approach to the Needs of the Aging." Four points were directed to revisions in the social security system, aged assistance, and Medicare. On April 9th of last year, I directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Secretary Gardner, to immediately organize a task force within the Government to bring forth a proposal for increasing social security benefits and make desirable improvements.

So the program which I announce today results from an intensive study begun by the Secretary and our experts last April and in some instances revisions that were urged by Members of Congress of both parties 6 months or more ago.

I plan to send to Congress next January four basic proposals to keep social security abreast of our times and in keeping with the 20th century.

First, and foremost, and I think the most fundamental: I will recommend to the next Congress an average increase in social security benefits of at least 10 percent--to provide every beneficiary a higher standard of living.

I want to repeat for the benefit of the press--if you weren't listening yesterday or today I want you to listen now--at least 10 percent. That means an average of a minimum of 10 percent. It could be 12, it could be 14, it could be 15. If you are getting $44 now and you get $100, it will be considerably more than that. But not a specific, direct, irrevocable, precise 10 percent. At least 10 percent.

Now to further elaborate on that I will propose that those in the lowest brackets receive proportionately higher increases.

Second: I will propose that every worker who has been regularly employed under social security for 25 years or more shall be guaranteed a minimum monthly benefit of $100.

There are a good many of our senior citizens throughout the country. Some 22 million in social security will understand if we provide a minimum monthly benefit of $100, that it may exceed a good deal of the flat, specific 10 percent that some are writing about.

Third: I will recommend specific proposals that will materially increase the income of those under social security who continue to work after reaching retirement age.

They are allowed to make $1,500 per year now. We will have proposals that will not only help us alleviate the tight labor market in certain situations, but will permit people to materially increase their income, if they continue working after retirement age.

Fourth: We will recommend that hospital and medical care coverage be provided not only to the aged, but we will recommend that it cover more than one million disabled social security beneficiaries who may not now qualify under the age requirement.

We presently consider these four proposals the minimum toward a more modern and a more realistic social security system. Again, I emphasize the minimum. We will have other suggestions and proposals in the draft.

I will recommend ways to finance them so that the system will always remain actuarially sound.

In addition, I have requested the distinguished Secretary, Mr. Gardner, and the very able former Governor, Farris Bryant, who is on my White House staff, to head a special task force to develop a truly modern program, the latest in nursing home construction for every State in this Union.

I have asked them to call on the most modern and most imaginative architects in this land, and offer experts, to begin making plans for nursing homes that are especially designed for our older people so that they can live their lives in places of beauty and comfort.

The program will call for Federal, State, local, and private participation in this exciting new enterprise for the benefit of older Americans.

Today I call upon each Governor, each mayor, each preacher, and each teacher to go about him and look at the nursing homes where our eider citizens are now spending their last days. Some of them are a national, State, and local disgrace and ought to be closed.

But any kind of a roof is better than no roof at all. For that reason, we not only must clean up the firetraps and we must brush up the mousetraps, but we must set in motion in this country a truly national home construction program for our eider citizens.

The Bible tells us to "honor thy father and thy mother." It enjoins us to "honor the face of the old man." We have not always been true to that trust. Too often we have ignored our older Americans--too often we have condemned them to live out their lives in want.

One of the most effective speeches I ever heard in behalf of our elder citizens I heard as a youngster in the early days of radio when Senator Huey Long went on the radio one night and talked about the necessity of taking care of our older citizens.

And with the help of Congressman Mills, Senator Huey Long's young son, Russell Long, I predict, will lead this movement next year to give us the far-reaching, comprehensive social security legislation that this Nation ought to have.

I have visited the elderly citizens in various States in this Union. I have seen nursing homes so shabby and so badly run that they made me heartsick and stomach-sick, too.

I have seen the old people there waiting for death in such poverty that it brought tears to my eyes.

And I thought--all of this in the midst of a gross national product of almost $750 billion a year. I have pledged to myself--and I now pledge to all my fellow Americans-that so long as I am your President, I will never rest until our senior citizens receive the honor and the treatment they deserve.

You, here at the Social Security Administration, are very central to that mission.

You are handling your great trust with care and efficiency and without regard to political development.

But despite your immense growth, your administrative cost cutting and your cost consciousness have brought savings to this Government of $23 1/2 million this year. The cost of administering your programs--the social security programs--is only 2.2 percent out of each dollar of social security contributions. That is a record that all Americans can be proud of.

So I came here today not only to honor your award winners and to pay tribute to your merit service. I came here to salute every single employee of the Social Security Administration in the United States of America through paying my respect and my compliments to you.

A great lady and a great friend of mine, Katie Louchheim, has just launched a new career in our State Department--and at the same time she launched a book of poems.

One of her verses--about a bureaucrat-ends with these words:

"The bureaucrat is seldom seen
Without a pen-or with a dream."

Well, I believe that many of those who toil in Government bureaus are equipped not only with their pens and their red tape, but they are equipped with dreams in their heads and their hearts; not only with efficiency, but with ideas and with a passion for the public good.

And so today I ask each employee of the Social Security Administration of the United States to give us suggestions of new programs, new needs, new plans, and new forces that we should unleash and put into effect to make this a better America, a stronger America, a healthier America.

I should like for this period of the 20th century to be remembered as the period when we produced more food to feed more people--because food is the necessary sustaining ingredient for all the other things-the period when we spent more money and more effort on educating more people; the period when we spent more time and more dollars on providing health for our bodies; the time when we did more planning and added more acres for conservation, recreation and beautification.

Food, education, health, and conservation are the enemies of the real enemies of all people--these are diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, dirty air, dirty water, dirty parks, and dirty streets where the children cannot play.

Finally, I just want to observe this: That in the last 3 years we have produced and distributed more food through our Government programs in this country and the world than in any similar period in history. That means more people have eaten well.

This year we sent a billion dollars' worth of food to India. I am told it helped feed 90 million people and kept 35 million people from starving to death. The trucks run up and down the streets every morning in Bombay and other cities in India picking up the bodies of people who have died the night before because of malnutrition.

In all the history of this country, since 1789, we passed only six education bills in the Federal Government. The first one was President Lincoln; the second one was President Wilson. It was 50-odd years before they got the second. The third one was President Truman; and President Eisenhower passed three more, making a total of six.

Well, the last 3 years we passed 18 from Head Start to Ph.D. higher education. That is, there were three times as many bills passed in 3 years than were passed in 190 years of our history.

In all of these years since Abraham Lincoln passed the first bill to 1963, we spent $2 billion total on education. In the last 3 years we have spent $6 billion. Three times as much was spent in 3 years than in all of our history. And that is going to pay us very rich dividends down the road in an educated electorate in this country.

In your health programs, outside of the Hill-Burton hospital construction and a few minor health measures--we had no health program. But you inaugurated in July the most far-reaching, most comprehensive health program affecting nearly 20 million people now in Medicare and spending billions of dollars a year.

But that is just one of 24 health bills that we passed. Nurses training, modernization of hospitals, comprehensive health planning, heart, cancer, stroke--think of all the wonderful things. Twenty-four health bills in three years.

Conservation--well, when President Roosevelt launched the TVA the appropriation was $11 million and it excited the admiration of the entire world. Yet this year I sent a message to Congress on the TVA providing a bond issue of $750 million and it didn't even make the want-ad page of the paper.

So we are going places. We have a bright tomorrow. We have a great deal to be thankful for and a lot to look forward to, if we can just spend our time on constructive proposals instead of destructive proposals, if we can just spend our time in building instead of tearing down.

Mr. Rayburn served the Congress for 50 years. One of his favorite expressions was: "Judge a man not only by the company he keeps but by what he says. And always in judging him remember that any donkey can tear a barn down. It takes a good carpenter to build one."

There is a big donkey population in this country about this season of the year. There are a lot of them tearing barns down. But you men who are not seasoned in the political arena and don't have the obligations of putting your name on the ticket have a chance to build a barn--and you are building. You built with social security, you built with Medicare, you are building with the improvements we are suggesting today. Now give us the benefit of your ideas, of your dreams, of your recommendations and let's leave this a better world for our children than we found it for ourselves.