Remarks Upon Accepting on Behalf of the Nation the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Fine Arts Collection.

Mr. Vice President, Justice Fortas, Secretary Udall, Mr. and Mrs. Hirshhorn, Mr. Ripley, Mr. Stevens, ladies and gentlemen:

This is a magnificent day for the Nation's Capital and for the millions of Americans who will visit our Capital in the years to come.

It is also a very inspiring climax to a career that has been devoted to art. From the days of his youth in Brooklyn when he first began collecting reproductions of art work, until this very hour, this distinguished American, Joseph Hirshhorn, has been driven by a passion for painting and sculpture. Throughout the world he has sought the great art of our time, those expressions of man's will to make sense of his experience on earth, to find order and meaning in the physical world about him, and to render what is familiar in a very new way.

I know that joseph Hirshhorn will go on seeking out the best in modern painting and sculpture for many years to come, but he will never have a finer hour than this, for today he offers the fruits of a lifetime in the full service of art to all the citizens of a grateful Nation. Few men have been privileged to make such a gift to their generation and to all of those that will come after them.

Several months ago Mrs. Johnson journeyed to Joseph Hirshhorn's home in Connecticut. I wasn't sure she would ever come back. But she is here today and she did come back filled with awe and admiration for the great works that were collected there. She came back, too, with a great sense of affection and respect for the owners of that work. She has told me many times since then of her hope that Mr. Hirshhorn would see his way clear to make his collection available to all the people of this country.

Many suggestions were made to Mr. Hirshhorn about the disposition of his collection, as well there might be, and I think every proffer that was made to him I heard about the next morning by rumor from people who were frightened by it. These offers came from among private collectors and they realized that his collection was virtually without parallel in its field. That he has now chosen the Nation's Capital is a cause for real celebration, great pride of all of us, and, Mr. Hirshhorn, the deepest gratitude of the American people.

Now we must go forward. We must begin to build a museum that is worthy of the collection, and worthy of our highest aspirations for this beautiful city, the Capital of our country. Washington is a city of powerful institutions, the seat of government for the strongest nation on earth, the place where democratic ideals are translated into reality, where we are not just concerned with appearance, but with achievement.

Washington also must be a place of beauty and a place of learning. Its buildings and its thoroughfares, its schools and its concert halls, its museums, should reflect a people whose commitment is to the best that is within them ever to dream.

So in the National Gallery collection, in the Freer and the Corcoran Galleries, in the museums of the Smithsonian, in the Kennedy Center that is to come, in the Pennsylvania Avenue plan--and now, in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden--we have the elements of a capital of beauty and a capital of learning that is no less impressive than its power.

So, Mr. Hirshhorn, here this morning, in the beautiful Rose Garden of the White House, on the steps of the White House itself, we accept on behalf of all of the American people your splendid gift to all of yore fellow citizens. We shall treasure it. We shall use it well in giving pleasure and enlightenment to men and women of every age, to men and women from every walk of life.

And now to the 10 million who visit this Capital each year we say to them that we have a very special inducement in store for you, one that we think that every visitor will want to partake of and participate in and enjoy as the result of the patriotism and the generosity of one of America's most distinguished philanthropists--Joseph Hirshhorn.