Remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Annual Convention, in Dallas, Texas.

Commander in Chief Rainwater, Members of the Senate, Members of the House of Representatives, all of the distinguished guests on the platform, and all of the distinguished guests in the audience:

It is a very great honor for me to address this encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and to think back over the years that I have had the opportunity to appear before you on other occasions. I am most grateful for the reception you have given me, but particularly for the very warm introduction which I have received from my fellow Californian, your Commander in Chief.

I want to, in return, say a word to you about what your support has meant to me, not as an individual, but as President of the United States, and as one who has the responsibility of Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces.

Over the past 2 1/2 years there have been a number of very difficult problems for this Nation in the field of national security. I want to say, incidentally, that with regard to those problems, the Members of the United States Senate and the Members of the United States House who have addressed you and who are here on this platform have, in instance after instance, not thought of party, but thought of country when they have voted on the propositions that have involved the national security of this country.

But as I look back over that period of time, as I think of the various crises through which we have passed with regard to our Vietnamization program in Vietnam; the problems of Cambodia and then of Laos; the necessity to mobilize public opinion on behalf of our prisoners of war and others who are missing in action throughout Southeast Asia; the need to maintain a strong national defense; the need, for example, not to give away before negotiations a program for the defense of the United States, which we need if we are going to get any success in negotiations-when I think of all those issues and I think of the close votes we had, particularly in the United States Senate, when I think of the division in the country on those particular matters, I remember back on occasion after occasion the support that I have had from the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

I couldn't get it individually from the great numbers that are represented here, and from the millions across the country that are members of your posts, including my own in Whittier, California, but your Commanders, each one of them through the years, and this year Chief Rainwater, have come in to see me. Every time I have called upon the Commander in Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars he has been there, he has spoken out for the United States.

I simply want to say that as I stand here in this great coliseum in Dallas, a magnificent place for a meeting, as I look out across here and realize that 50 States are represented, I kind of get the feeling that this is like a convention. Then somebody is going to say "Which party?" Well, let me tell you what the answer is: I know from experience, as far as the Veterans of Foreign Wars are concerned, you have one party, the American party.

But you wonder, I am sure, that when you pass resolutions in your local posts or in your State organizations or in a great national encampment like this, whether it means anything. You wonder whether it means anything when the Commander [of the Veterans] of Foreign Wars comes into the office of the President of the United States and sits down and tells him, "Look, I am for you." Let me tell you, it means a very great deal. Also, it means something else.

I am sure that you can well understand that on many occasions I have distinguished visitors who come in and say, "Look, I am for you, Mr. President, but, you know, if you don't mind, I don't want to say anything publicly because I cannot be sure that my organization might not be divided on this issue."

One thing about Chief Rainwater: He not only tells me in the office, he tells it on television, too, and I like that. I know that your new Commander is going to do exactly the same thing.

Now, today I want to address my remarks to a subject that is usually not presented to an organization like a veterans organization. It is one, however, which is deeply related to our national defense, and as you can see, I shall relate it to the problems with which you have been concerned over this past week.

On Sunday evening, I outlined to the Nation a bold economic policy which was designed to build a new prosperity for America, a prosperity in which we are going to have full employment with freedom, with opportunity, without inflation, without war. That is a great goal. It is one that we can--it is one that we must-achieve.

It is most appropriate that, as I traveled across the country these past 3 days, that I should end my travels, as far as speaking is concerned, here in Dallas before this organization, because here in your hearts, in your minds, are the qualities that America needs in the stirring days ahead--the stirring days ahead in which we have to meet the challenges of peace-your patriotism, your self-sacrifice, your courage, your proven ability to deliver when the chips are down and serve this country superbly in war. Now we come to a time when we need the same patriotism, the same self-sacrifice, and the same courage as we meet the challenges of peace.

Now, how much does America need her veterans? General Patton had an answer for that. You may recall it. He said, "It takes very little yeast to leaven a lump of dough." And then he went on to say, "It takes a very few veterans to leaven a division of doughboys."

My answer is much the same. We need the very best of your soldiers spirit, your veterans spirit, to inspire the rest of the Nation in the great battle for a lasting peace and a new prosperity in America. That is what we need.

Now, it isn't going to be easy. As a matter of fact, nothing worthwhile in life is easy. War is not easy. Building a lasting peace is not easy. It won't be easy with the distractions and temptations of the coming years to make America remember this truth: The strength that commands respect is the only foundation on which peace among nations can ever be built.

I am glad that Secretary Laird and Senator Jackson and others who have addressed you have emphasized the need to maintain America's strength. I associate myself with their remarks here today.

The argument for weakness, weakness whether it is military or economic or in any other field, wears two masks. Let's look at them for a moment, look right through those masks.

There are those who attack the necessity of strength with the claim that armaments cause conflict; the very fact that a nation is armed, that causes war. Well, the reverse is true. It is conflicts of vital interest which cause nations to build armaments.

Nothing but patient, firm, hardheaded negotiations such as we are now conducting on several very important areas in the world can adjust those fundamental differences, and so pave the way for a safe reduction of armaments.

To those who attack the morality of strength with claims that our defense establishment is militarist and evil, we must reply, "It is war that is evil, and the vigilance and the strength which prevents war is honorable and good." Let's say that and let's stand for it.

Let's understand some propositions: We should devote as large a proportion of our natural resources as we can to the works of peace. All of us want to do that. We shall take vigorous steps to correct the occasional abuses which are bound to occur in the military, as in any other human organization, and we are doing that.

But on one point let no American, and particularly let no member of the VFW, ever yield an inch, and that point is our deep pride in the Armed Forces of the United States and our enduring tribute of gratitude to the men who comprise them, professionals and citizen-soldiers alike.

It won't be easy to follow through on the measures that I announced Sunday night, and in what seems to be unrelated but is closely related to the field that I have just talked about, to generate 20 million new jobs over the next 10 years-that is how many we are going to need for the younger generation coming along; to stop the rise in the cost of living; to protect our dollar against attacks of international speculation.

This hits very close to home. I know what it means for some of you to forgo a pay raise that you deserve, for a time, for others to wait a little longer for dividends that your invested dollar has earned. Yet the willingness to make short term sacrifices in the drive toward a long term goal is the very essence of a disciplined fighting force and is second nature to veterans like yourselves.

In other words, if delaying a pay raise, if not getting a rise in dividends which you expected for some of the people is going to result in stopping the rise in the cost of living for all the people, then that is good. Let's do it. Let's make that kind of sacrifice. Consequently, I ask for your support, above party, crossing all economic lines, for this program of revitalizing America's economy, rekindling her competitive spirit.

It is essential that these two goals be mentioned together, for they are inseparable. The new prosperity we seek is in no sense a cushion of a self-indulgent old age in this Republic; rather, it will serve as a launching pad for new greatness in America's third century which will be arriving in 5 years.

The steps we have taken with regard to import charges and protection of the dollar do not amount to the building of a permanent protective wall around this country in which we can relax and afford to be inefficient and noncompetitive. They are aimed at simply preparing us to participate and compete more vigorously than ever in world affairs and with any other economy on the globe. It was our competitive spirit that made us a great nation, a strong nation, a rich nation in the first place. We need a rebirth of that spirit today.

This is the challenge of peace. Nearly 70 years ago when the organization that later became the VFW was a brand new group of young Spanish-American War veterans, an American philosopher wrestled with the meaning of war and the problems of peace. The great need, William James wrote, was to find what he called "the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war (is) incompatible."

Four times since he wrote those words Americans have gone to war, but to our great credit, never for conquest, never to gain territory, but because other leaders in the world were attempting to gain territory, were embarked on conquest. It is to the credit of the United States of America that we do maintain strength, the greatest strength in the world, but that that strength will never be used to break the peace, only to keep it; never used to destroy freedom, only to defend it. This, we can be proud of as a nation.

And now at last we find grounds to hope that the potential aggressors of this world will turn away from war, which costs so much and buys so little. We are realistic. We are pragmatic. We take nothing for granted. We maintain our strength until we can negotiate the reductions which will be mutual in their character.

Yet peace itself, as William James discovered, brings new challenges of its own. If we simply think of peace as the absence of war, and that everything is just fine, that is not true. It poses the deep question of whether a nation, without some external threat to unite and motivate it, can find a higher inspiration to lift us all above the mire of softness and stagnation and division and decay. When people don't have a challenge, they do not become a great people.

Throughout the turmoil of the sixties, America struggled for the answer to that question. Now, in the seventies an answer begins to come closer.

James' heroic and universal ideal does exist in a form both rich with age and new with promise. It goes by many names--the "American Dream" some call it, the "Spirit of '76." But essentially it is a unique mixture: liberty and order, we stand for that; justice and opportunity, that is an American ideal; competition and teamwork; knowledge and faith, which our forefathers envisioned two centuries ago and which, though not perfectly realized even today in America, has ennobled millions of Americans who have striven for it down the years.

The great challenge of peace is for each of us individually and for all of us as "one nation under God," to rededicate ourselves to this magnificent American dream. With this as our moral equivalent of war we can move into a generation of peace. We can blaze a trail toward a new prosperity, with freedom, with justice, with opportunity--without war.

With this new "Spirit of '76" in our hearts we can make the third American century the greatest century of all.

Over the past 3 days I have had a very great privilege, both as the President of this country and just as an American citizen, to see great parts of America very quickly and to see hundreds of thousands of American people in various States.

I was in New York Tuesday night. The next day I flew to Illinois, to the Illinois State Fair where there were 125,000 Americans joined there in the great tradition of State fairs that we have all over the country.

The next day, on to Idaho to Idaho Falls, where tens of thousands of people were out there at an airport. And then to Wyoming to the Grand Tetons, where there were people from all over the United States having a holiday there at one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Finally, today, down to Dallas, seeing that magnificent skyline which seems to grow every day--the progress here is fantastic--and finally before you. All of America I see out here. I feel all of America among you.

Let me tell you how someone feels who holds the office I do, after he travels over America, as I have, and sees thousands of Americans in the space of 3 days. First, this is a beautiful country. It is a beautiful country. Don't let anybody tell you anything else.

Second, it took a great people to make this country. When you think of those 13 States, with 3 million people on the Atlantic seaboard, when you think of what they did across those prairies and then across those huge mountains into Idaho and then on to California, down into Texas and the rest, what kind of people did this?

They were strong. They were competitive. They had a sense of purpose. They were a great people. Let's be worthy of the great pioneers of the past in America today.

Also at a time like this I think of the problems America faces: the problems of ending a war and ending it in an honorable way, winning a peace, which we are doing; the problems of building a new peace and a new prosperity; the problems of inspiring a people. And that is the problem that all of us have, and the responsibility that all of us have, whether we are Republicans or Democrats, or whatever we may be: to go back into our communities and see that young America understands what a beautiful country this is, what a great history we have, and what a great future we have, provided they have a sense of mission, a sense of destiny, and a sense of purpose.

What is it? What should it be? What can we settle for? There is an insidious line of propaganda, insidious in my view--some believe it is not--that runs through some public commentaries today. And that is this: It doesn't matter whether America is number one. We are number one in terms of our military strength today; we are number one in terms of our productivity economically today. We are rather proud of that, not in a jingoistic sense, because of what it has meant to us and what it has meant to the world.

Let me tell you something: It matters very much for America to continue to be the leader of the world and to be number one. First, in the field of foreign policy, look at the free world. There is no other nation in the world that has the strength, potentially, to defend freedom around the world and negotiate for peace, so the United States must maintain that strength if we want a generation of peace, and we shall.

Our purpose in being number one is not simply to have somebody else feel that he is inferior. It goes much deeper than that, and that brings me to the other side of the coin.

Why should America care whether we are the most productive nation in the world? Not simply because we want the highest standard of living, which we have, but for something far more important: Because once any people resign themselves to being second or third or fourth best, they will cease to be a great people.

My comrades of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the history of civilization is strewn with the wreckage of nations that were rich and that fell before people that were less rich and considered to be inferior to them intellectually and in every other way, because the rich nations, in their maturity, lost their drive, lost their desire, lost their dynamism, lost their vitality.

In the world today, let's face something: Other nations--some built up, and it was right to do so, as the result of our assistance after World War II--are now our strong competitors economically. Others are competing in other ways. We should not complain about that, because competition is what we believe in. Competition is what has made this country.

But let it not be said of this generation of Americans that we were the ones that, when America was the strongest nation in the world, when America was the most productive nation in the world, and the richest nation in the world--that we were the ones that said it really didn't matter, and we became inefficient, we lost our willingness to sacrifice, to drive, to work hard, to continue to maintain that position of leadership in the world.

That is what is on the line today, and that is what America needs to hear from those who are its veterans, who have risked their lives to see that America lived, and who now must live their lives in such a way that we can set an example. You can set an example for other Americans, so that this Nation will have a new birth, as I am sure it can and will have, a new birth of vitality, a new birth of faith in itself, a new desire to be just as good, to be just as efficient, to be just as strong as we need to be and as we can be.

President de Gaulle once said, toward the end of his life, that France was "her true self only when she was engaged in a great enterprise." That is true of America. Americans are engaged in a great enterprise, to build--and without us it cannot be done--but to build a generation of peace, something that Americans have not enjoyed in this century. That is a great goal and a. great enterprise.

In order to build that, it means that Americans must continue to be competitive in the world and to have the strong economy without which we cannot have the strong national defense which is essential if we are to build that peace.

And so, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars I leave this challenge today: Here we are, 25 years after World War II--we have been through Korea; we are finishing Vietnam; we are looking toward the time when we will have peace.

The question for America is far more serious than the challenge that we confronted even in the dark days of Pearl Harbor. The question is our spirit. Do we have the spirit? Do we still have the drive? Do we still have the competitive urge to try to make this the best country in the world, to keep it the best country in the world?

I think we have, and I think you are going out and tell the world that.

Thank you.