Remarks to the Student Body of Rio Grande High School, Rio Grande City, Texas

Principal Saenz, President Gebhart,¹ Senator Tower, Senator Bentsen, Congressman-and this is his birthday--shall we call him "Kika"? [Laughter]

I learned on the plane coming over that "Kika" [Congressman Eligio] de la Garza has his 45th birthday today, and as I came into the hall I asked anybody if there was a piano here, and they said, "No, there was a band." But somebody just handed me a note that there is a piano in the back of the room.

It seems to me that when you have a distinguished Congressman from your district, one who has proved that you can go clear to the top if you have the will--and he certainly has that--that the President of the United States ought to play "Happy Birthday" for him, and I am going to do it right now.

[At this point, the President went to the piano and accompanied the student body in singing "Happy Birthday."]

Now that we have the Congressman launched on his 46th year, I want to tell you what a very great privilege it is for me to keep that promise that I made in the Rose Garden just a little over a year ago on April 16, when this wonderful group of students from the Rio Grande High School came there and when I learned from Senator Tower and his office that they were there, and Congressman de la Garza, and I walked out into the Rose Garden and met them and talked to them.

I am very happy that some of those students who were there, most of whom have graduated now, unless some of them failed--I don't know--but I am sure that most of them graduated, and I understand Patsy Ramirez is actually going to school in Manhattanville in New York--and I am happy that they could be here, because while your principal has paid a tribute to them, I would like to say a word about them, and in talking about them to say a word about you, about what you mean to the President of the United States, but also about what you mean to this country-how much we count on you, how much what you do, in whatever occupation you go into, will mean to the future of America.

The principal pointed out that this was a rather unusual group. It is unusual. Let me say that there are not hundreds, but thousands of groups, high school groups, grammar school groups, who come to Washington in the spring of every year. And, of course, the President has many responsibilities, whoever he is he can't see them all. He can only see very few.

I was glad that on that beautiful spring day in April I could come out and meet this group, glad because they were so proud of what they had done, and rightfully so, glad because what they did told me that this was a strong, young generation, that we could have hope in the future of America because we can believe in the young people of America. That is what they told me when they came there.

Afterwards, when I was talking to one of the members of the White House Staff and told him how these young people had made their way to Washington by doing a lot of things--they had washed cars, they had done babysitting, they had done all sorts of chores. As a matter of fact, they got into some businesses. They, I remember, made some tamales and sold them at 50 cents apiece from door to door. Believe me, that is a real bargain, I can assure you,

But after doing all that, and then getting to Washington, they weren't able to take a plane. They came in a bus. And they probably didn't stay in the best hotel in town, although in an adequate one.

My friend on the staff said, "You know, wasn't it really a shame to think of many of those young people, and some of them not from very wealthy families, some from poor families, that they had to come that way? Wouldn't it have been possible to find some wealthy man in Texas or some foundation that would have put up the money so they wouldn't have had to work, so they could have come, for example, in a plane? Wouldn't it have been much better?"

And I said, "Not at all." Not at all, for a reason. Not because we don't want to help anybody who can't help himself, but because the great American tradition is--and that is what the students of this school proved---the American tradition is that we help ourselves when we can, and we only ask somebody else to help us when we can't help ourselves. That is what made this country great.

Now the visit of this school--or at least the representatives of this school--to Washington told me something else about America, something I have known all my life from the time I grew up in southern California, where we have a great many students and young people, Americans of Mexican background and other backgrounds as well, something about the strength of this country.

I knew from what I had heard about this group--they always give me a little sheet, the background of the group--that probably a majority of those who attend this school are proud of the fact that they are Americans of Mexican background.

When I met this group in the Rose Garden, I thought of all the groups that make up America. I thought of all the countries I have visited, and it is a very great privilege to have visited them all. My wife and I together have been to over 80 countries in this world--North America, South America, Africa, Asia, the first time to visit the People's Republic of China, Peking, and then, of course, to Moscow, as you know.

We met many wonderful people. We have been impressed by the countries that we have seen. But you know, when you come home to America, what you realize [is] that America is a very unique country, America is all the world in one nation. It is all here.

Right here in Texas, within 50 miles of where we are, there is a Polish community, there is a German community, there is a Czechoslovakian community, there are Mexican communities, there are other various religious groups. There is one that was founded by people of the Jewish faith, of course Catholics, Protestants, and the like.

In other words, you don't have to go out of America to see the world. It is here. That is why we are a rich country. We are rich because all the cultures of the world are here. We are proud of those of Mexican background who have added their wonderful warmth and all of their talent and all of their spirit and all of their hard work to make this a great country.

We are proud of those of Italian background, of Polish background, Irish, you name it, whatever it is. The important thing is this: I often hear people say, when they are speaking of this person or that person, he is an Italian or he is a German or he is a Mexican. What I say is, he is an American. That's what he is.

That brings me now to how very much you can contribute to your country, this country, our country--it belongs to all of us. What a wonderful time to be growing up in America. What a wonderful time to be in high school. To think that you are the first generation of young Americans to be able to vote at 18 years of age. You seniors, most of you, will be voting, if not this year, next year. To think that you are going to have a part in determining the future of your country.

I am not going to talk to you in terms of whether you should be Democrats or Republicans. The future of this country is much more important than what our party label is. I am simply talking about your responsibilities and your opportunities as American citizens with the right and the power to vote.

In that respect, I think the new generation of American voters is going to be good for this country. You are going to bring enthusiasm to our elective process, that is for sure. You are going to bring idealism to it. You are going to bring a lot of impatience, I am sure of that.

I remember when I was in high school and in college, too, I used to be so impatient with the way things were. I used to think, "Why can't we change things, why can't we make them better?" My mother and father would say, "You have to wait a little while. It will change. This country does progress."

But the wonderful thing about young people is that you are impatient with what is wrong. You want to change it. And it is good that you constantly infuse your communities, your State, your Nation with that spirit of progress, that spirit of making this country and this world a better place in which to live.

So, I urge all of you, as you are here in high school, let your minds become as open as they possibly can to the wonderful world around you. Learn about your country. Learn about this political process. Participate in it. Oh, I don't mean by that that all of you are going to run for office. After all, the Congressman doesn't have any opposition this year. He wouldn't want all of you running against him. [Laughter]

I am simply suggesting this though: Some of you will run for office, and some of you will win and some of you will lose.

I was saying to President Gebhart a few moments ago, I said, "Who ran against you?"

He said, "Nobody."

I have never been so lucky. [Laughter] Let me tell you an interesting thing. In all the biographies that have been written-you know, once they write biographies of people who become President, they forget all the times that they may have lost and they only write about the times they have won. You think, oh, it was easy sledding going to the top.

It is never that way. When I was in high school in my junior year, or early in the senior, I ran for student body president and I lost. So you see, you win some, you lose some. The important thing is to try. The important thing, of course, is not to run for every office, but the important thing is--whether you are going after a job or whether you are going after an office or whether you are trying to make some project in which you are interested succeed-when you do have a failure, when you do have a setback, don't give up, keep trying.

That is what has made America the great country it is. We are a people that is impatient wherever we find anything that is inequitable in our country, and we want to change it. We are also a people that is very ambitious. And that is a good thing. We are competitive. We want to win.

As I was coming in here, for example, I suppose somebody knows that I am from Washington, that I sort of pull for the Redskins. This fellow reached over and he grabbed me and he said, "The Cowboys are going to win it. The Cowboys are going to win it." [Laughter]

You know, I kind of liked that. I mean, I like his saying it. I have to be for my team. But the point that I make is: I urge you, be for your school, be for your team, be for your State, but above all, be for your country, for America. That is what we need, that kind of spirit.

Now, just a few words perhaps reminiscing into background. You know, when I remember when I was in high school and college, we would get these older people up and we would sit there and wonder, "When are they going to finish?" [Laughter] Because they try to give us advice and we wonder about it. And sometimes we got a little impatient with our parents--"Oh, ma, I know all about that. You haven't read the latest books," and all that and so on.

Well, it is a pretty good thing that you haven't. [Laughter] But whatever the case may be, could I just, without being perhaps a bit presumptuous, leave you with some thoughts that made a very great impression upon me when I was your age.

First, respect your teachers. I met so many of them as I came in.

Incidentally, there are thousands of people outside and there is one thing this school needs, it needs a great big new building that will take care of all the people-and they are going to get it, I hear.

People often ask me to measure what is success and what is failure. On the 25th anniversary of my graduation from college, I was Vice President of the United States. That was 1959. I remember a member of my class. He had not become Vice President of the United States. He was a teacher, a teacher in a little school down in southern California in the Imperial Valley. But he was such a good teacher and he was so loved by his students and their parents--he was a teacher in high school--that in that 25th year after our graduation, they took up a collection in that town and sent him and his wife to Washington, D.C., so that they could see the Capital.

And as he came there--my friend, Byron Netzley--and I talked to him and his wife, I thought, who is to judge who contributes the most to his country. When I thought of all the lives he had changed, how much he had meant to the students that he had taught, I thought that was a worthwhile life.

Just down on the border a few moments ago, I met a lot of border guards. It is a tough job, boring many times, going through all that luggage and people saying, "Oh, gee, please leave me alone." You know it is pretty hard.

I met one man very proud. He stood there. His name was [Willie] Pefia. For 30 years he has been a border guard. For 30 years he has had a magnificent record. As a result of what he has done, there are probably hundreds of boys and girls in this country who didn't become addicted to heroin because of what he did. He isn't a man that is going to be known as a hero when his life is ended, but he is one who, in his way, has rendered a service that is invaluable to his country and to his fellow man.

I think of others in my high school class--some of them became workers, some became wealthy, some did not. The important thing is that in this country, remember, as your principal has just said, have respect for the dignity of hard work, have respect for any person, whatever work he undertakes. Remember, he is contributing to the greatness of America. Some will be workers, some will be laborers, some will be teachers, some will be government employees, some will be like some of the servicemen I saw at the base at Laredo, serving their country in the peacetime forces so that America can live at peace with the world and so that freedom will be able to survive in the world--and each one of these occupations is important and worthwhile.

One final thought I would leave with you, something I said to another high school group when I spoke in Michigan a few weeks ago. A few of your parents are here. Always respect them. Always remember what they did. I mentioned the tamales a moment ago. I didn't realize at the time, but when I was in high school and in college, I had an older brother who was sick with tuberculosis, and consequently it took a lot of money from our little grocery store that we had.

Nevertheless, we did well, at least we thought we did all right. But I knew that in 5 years--I learned later, one of my mother's sisters, one of my aunts, told me--in 5 years she never had a new dress, and we never knew it. She always looked nice. And the reason was she had to be sure my brother was taken care of and that she was taking care of the other boys in the family, and see that they got an education.

I remember her getting up at 4:00 in the morning, baking pies to sell in that store.

I remember my father. He wasn't very well educated, because he came from a very poor family, quit school in the fifth grade, but he worked hard. And he earned the respect of his sons and he saw to it that every one of his sons had a chance to have what he did not have, to go to college and get an education.

I simply want to say to everyone here in this class, it is wonderful to be alive in America and to be 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. You are going to see your country live at peace with all the nations of the world in the years ahead. There are more jobs, more opportunity, more freedom in America than in any country in the world.

You will travel abroad, I hope, and every time you come back you are going to say how fortunate we are to live in America. But as you do that, as you come home to America, remember, if you will, what I have told you. Remember that your teachers, your fathers, your mothers, your minister, your priest, all of them have made a contribution to your life which you can never repay. Respect them. Respect them and love your country, and you, this wonderful young, new generation, will make America the greatest country in the world, which it is now, but the best country, a good country, respected in the world--respected because the people of the world will know that here in this country that any boy or girl, whatever his background, has a chance to go to the top in whatever occupation he chooses.

That isn't true in most of the world. It is true here. And as I look back to that day in the Rose Garden in 1971, as I see the faces of the boys and girls of the class of 1971, I again say what I said then: I have never been so proud of America and proud of our young people as I was on that day and as I am today as I see you here.

Thank you.