Remarks on the City Hall Steps, Dayton, Ohio

Judge Love, Senator Young, Chairman Bill Coleman, Chairman Horstman, my fellow Americans:

I almost feel like saying my fellow Ohioans. I always feel at home in your great State.

I especially like it here in this fine city of Dayton. I don't know why Orville and Wilbur Wright wanted to fly when they could have kept their feet on the ground in a hometown like this!

Dayton is the birthplace of the air age, but Dayton's best years, and Ohio's best years, are still ahead. Thirty years from now, Ohio will have a population of 20 million people. There will be as many people living in your cities alone as live now in your entire State.

You have work to do for the future, as all America does, and you need forward-looking men in the Ohio tradition to serve you, and none have more vision and none have more confidence, and none is a better friend of mine or a more trusted friend of mine than your own good Senator Steve Young.

I brought Senator Young out here this afternoon on Air Force One, and I am counting on you to send him back to Washington with a prepaid ticket on November 3d. When Steve Young flies back there as the winner, I want him to arrive with some new Congressmen at his side--Judge Rodney Love, Robert Mihlbaugh, and Jerry Graham. This is going to be a Democratic year, and I suspect that it is going to be the biggest and the best Democratic year of all here in Ohio.

I want to thank you for these wonderful signs. I want to express my appreciation for your warm welcome. I want to tell you how good it makes me feel to see your happy, smiling faces. I am proud to be here in this city, so close to the Democratic Party, through James M. Cox, the father who ran for President with FDR at his side, and the son whose fine newspapers stand with the Democrats in this great campaign.

There is a special reason why I feel so much at home here in Ohio. You may not want to take the blame for it, but if it hadn't been for the people of Ohio, there wouldn't have been a Texas today.

One hundred and twenty years ago, Texans declared their independence. Their ranks were thin. Their arms were few. But they believed their cause was right, so they took their stand and they made their fight. At the hour when all was blackest, help arrived. The army of the Republic of Texas received their first and their only artillery as a gift from the people of Ohio.

If you have forgotten this history, no Texan ever forgets, because every schoolboy in my State learns that Ohio made our independence possible. And you are going to make our election possible.

We had a very exacting and exciting day in Washington. I came in late last night after having visited the great State of New York. This morning at 6:30 I was up reading reports from the Congo, Viet-Nam, Cyprus, and places all over the world where there are problems that we are concerned with.

Then I went down and planted two trees. It is traditional with Presidents to plant trees on the White House grounds. We planted two oaks, oaks that stand tall and oaks that give a good shade, and oaks that stand straight.

Then I went in and met with the National Security Council, Secretary of State Rusk, Under Secretary Ball, Secretary of Defense McNamara, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. John McCone, and we reviewed all of the intelligence from all over the world. We talked about the change in government in the largest Communist country in the world, the things that are taking place that replaced Mr. Khrushchev last night, and how it would affect their foreign policy and how it would affect our foreign policy, and how it would affect the world in which we live.

Then we talked about the elections yesterday in Great Britain, and the selection of a new Prime Minister in Great Britain. Then we decided that we would meet a little later and review some more problems and have another meeting of the Security Council tomorrow.

I then received the Russian Ambassador, Mr. Dobrynin. He came in and for almost an hour he gave me a message from the new rulers in the Kremlin. He told me that it was the hope of the people in the Soviet Union that they could continue their search for peace with us, that somehow, some way, we must find a way to live in the world together, without wiping each other out with nuclear bombs.

I told him that our policy would not change, that we were the strongest and the mightiest nation in the world, but that strength would be used for deterrents, that we did not rattle our rockets and we did not bluff with our bombs; that our guard was always up, but our hand was always out. I told him we preferred to judge men by their acts instead of their words.

But as your President, the only President that you have, as the trustee for the American people--as Theodore Roosevelt once said the President is really the guardian, the President has a very special obligation as the steward of all the people--I said I will go anywhere, I will talk to anybody, I will go to any lengths that an honorable man can go to try to seek peace in the world.

More than 20 years ago I was in the war, and for more than 20 years I have been in the cold war. I saw Harry Truman, with the help of Republican Arthur Vandenberg, meet the Communist guerrillas in Greece and Turkey and win. I saw Dwight David Eisenhower, with the help of Lyndon Johnson as the Democratic leader, meet them in the Formosa Strait and win. I saw Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader, give us support. And I saw John Fitzgerald Kennedy win in the Cuban missile crisis.

We seek no wider war, but we are prepared and we intend to preserve and to protect and to defend the United States of America.

On this trip around the country in the last few days I have seen more than 2 million people. I believe at least 2 million and r have grabbed my sore hand. But the trip has been a great thing for your President.

I don't believe that any candidates in the history of the United States have ever been received by so many people and given such a warm welcome as Hubert Humphrey and I have been given by the American people.

I am not sure that the people realize that this is going to be their only chance in 4 years for the real decision-makers in this country to make the most important decisions that they will ever be called upon to make.

And I am not going to insult your intelligence with trivia. I am going to talk about the issues, and the only issue is responsibility versus irresponsibility. Peace or war, prosperity or recession? You hold that decision in your own hands.

One important question, and there has been a good deal of attention to this one, is whose hand and whose thumb is going to be trusted by the American people with control of the most awesome power, the mightiest power, the world has ever known? When you get ready to push that button, whose thumb do you want on that button?

But even more important right now is whose hands are going to mark the ballots and 'pull the levers in America's voting booths on November 3d? I hope they are Democratic hands. I think, very frankly, that too many people in this country are taking too much for granted in this campaign. I think that every person here better decide for himself or herself in the next 3 weeks what they are going to do for their country. And then November 3d they better go vote for what is best for America.

The polls show, and some people think, that the country will not take seriously the opposition candidates who are disavowed by their own party, who propose to undo everything that we have done in 30 years, who propose to sell the TVA and make social security voluntary, and wipe out our farm programs, and undermine collective bargaining, and get out of the United Nations, and break the nuclear test ban treaty, and play with atomic bombs when the stakes of life are high.

I don't believe it either, but I am not going to gamble with it.

I haven't come out here to indulge in any smears or muckraking or mudslinging. They are always the weapons of desperation and fearful, frightened men. You can usually judge them by their words, if not their signs.

I propose to use this campaign for the broad purposes that a campaign is meant for: a campaign to educate, educate the American people and the candidates themselves.

A campaign can tear open old wounds and it can pour salt on fresh wounds. It can divide America instead of uniting it. You do not serve the best interests of your country when you divide your country. You must unite your country if you want to have an effective America. A small faction can seek to rally votes by raising the specter of fear. A faction can appeal to what is worst in a few Americans instead of appealing to what is best in most Americans. We must all learn together.

If this generation is blinded by hate and fear, America will perish. If this generation allows prejudice to blot out justice, America will perish. What about this generation?

I remind you of matters that we often forget. From 1790 until 1900, 21 million people settled west of the Mississippi. That was the greatest frontier. We think of it as one of history's most massive and significant migrations. This generation has lived through a change more massive and more significant.

From 1930 to 1963 the population of our urban centers increased by 56 million people. The migration to the cities in the past 30 years was 2 1/2 times as great as the westward migration that lasted over 100 years.

Today, 70 percent of us live in metropolitan areas. The percentage is surprisingly consistent everywhere. My own State of Texas likes to say, "Don't fence me in."

But 75 percent of our people are urban. One American in five moves each year. Today, young people are most likely to get hurt by pressure of a changing society.

Each year, between 1 1/2 million and 2 million children get in trouble with the law. More than a million are arrested. More than half a million end up in court. Ninety-five percent of the 17-year-old delinquents are school dropouts. Eighty-five percent of the 16-year-old delinquents are school dropouts. Children without roots, children without education, children who face discrimination--they all tend to become delinquent children.

The war on poverty, which I started by swearing Sargent Shriver in today at the White House, is a war against crime and a war against disorder. The continuing effort to increase educational opportunity is part of stamping out juvenile delinquency.

There is something mighty wrong when a candidate for the highest public office bemoans violence in the streets but votes against the war on poverty, votes against the Civil Rights Act, and votes against major educational bills that have come before him as a legislator. The thing to do is not to talk about crime; the thing to do is to fight and work and vote against crime. You can't deal with the crime problem and you cannot solve the crime problem in this country by making a political speech on a Fourth of July every fourth year about crime.

You must educate your children. You must take care of the delinquent. You must get out and work and vote and fight and give and do something about it.

So what do I say? What do the Democrats say? What does our platform say? We say that every American child has the right to an education and we are going to see that that right is honored.

We have made great progress, but I see ahead today, closer than ever before, the kind of a nation that I want to see, the kind of a country that I will take pride in, the kind of people I love.

I see a day ahead with a united nation, divided neither by class nor by section nor by color, knowing no South or North, no East or West, but just one great America, free of malice and free of hate, and loving thy neighbor as thyself.

I see America as a family. It may have its arguments as families do, but it respects each member's dignity and freedom and his right to be different from the others; and it takes care of all of its members in time of adversity.

I see America as a land where the poorest among us will have as fair a chance to fulfill himself in life as the richest among us.

I see our Nation as a free and gracious land with its people bound together by common ties of confidence and affection, and common aspirations toward purpose and duty.

I see our Nation as a magnanimous land, strong and compassionate and just and fair, and ready to help other peoples throughout the world to save their freedom and to help their children not to starve.

I see America as a democratic republic which has woven the strands of diversity into an enduring fabric of opportunity and liberty of faith and hope.

So in this spirit, let us work together to construct an even more spacious future for all of our people, and, more important, for all the people of the world.

I feel a great obligation to you men and women, to you boys and girls. Almost 11 months ago, after that tragic day in Dallas, on a moment's notice I had to assume the awesome responsibilities of the Presidency.

I said to you that night that I had no time to confer and make plans; I couldn't even go to a library to read up. I had to effect the transition. I had to show the world that America could stand and that we were a government of laws that could carry on even if we had lost our great leader.

I said to you that with God's help, with your hands and your heart and your prayers, that I would do my best for this country. I have done that. I have kept that pledge.

And I pledge to you that if God is willing, and you vote right on November the 3d, I will lead this country to a greater society where every man and woman who wants a job can work and find a job, where every child that wants an education will have a right to an education, where our collective bargaining will be protected and our minimum wage and maximum hours will be improved, where our social security system will not be thrown down the drain by making it voluntary, but we will strengthen it by giving medical care to the aged.

A great American President led this Union in a war against slavery 100 years ago. Lincoln abolished slavery in the United States. Today we are starting another war to abolish poverty in the United States among our people.

So you have a duty and you have an obligation to yourself and to your children. You have an obligation to your country. You have the precious, the priceless right of suffrage, the right that no one can take away from you.

So on November 3d, you must go down to that ballot box and you must cast your vote, and who should you vote for?

[Audience response: "LBJ."]

I would hope that that would be your ultimate decision. But I would hope that you would engage in a little introspection, and ask yourself whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or Independent; say to yourself that the spotlight of the world is on America, the people are watching what you do and what we do. They want to follow us, they want to emulate our example.

I would say this: that you ought to ask yourself, "What is best for my country?" And then you ought to vote for what you think is best for America, the judgment that is best for America, the experience that is best for America, the character that is best for America, the platform that is best for America.

If you believe in a bipartisan foreign policy, if you believe in a United Nations, then I want to lead you. If you want to chart a new course and throw away the program we have followed for 20 years successfully, then you want another leader.

If you believe in social security, if you believe in medical care, if you believe in collective bargaining, if you believe in equal opportunity for all Americans, if you believe in prudence and economy and progressiveness, then I want your vote. If you don't believe in it, you ought to go you know where.

We have so much to be thankful for. We must recognize it before it is too late. We have so much to preserve and so much to protect.

I believe, like you, that we want to see a land that is better for our children and one for ourselves. We want to see a beautiful countryside where they can spend some of their recreational hours. We want to work less hours per day and less days per week. We want to see a laborer worthy of his hire. We want to see the businessman successful, too, because the more both of them make, the better off the whole country is.

We are proud that 72 million Americans are working today at the highest wages in their history. We are proud that 5 million more people are working today than there were 4 years ago. We are proud that John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, "We are going to get America moving," and she is on her way.

In the quietness of our polling booth, let's say to these apostles of fear and these apostles of smear and these apostles of doubt that "there may be a time for you, but it is not in Ohio, and it is not in the 20th century."

Now I must go back to the White House. I must spend my day tomorrow with our Security Council, trying to work on the plans that we have for the new governments and the new problems that confront us. I am going to leave here with the great inspiration that comes from looking at this mass of faces. I know the people are good people. I know they want to do what is right. I have not the slightest doubt what you are going to do.

A great friend of mine told me before I left Washington, from Ohio, this afternoon, "You don't need to go to Ohio, because we are going to carry Ohio for prudent, progressive, forward-looking, peaceful government by 300,000." I said, "Well, wouldn't it look better if I went ahead and kept those engagements that I have in Corington, Ky, Cincinnati, and Dayton?"

Luci told me, "There is no use of your going out there, I have already been to Dayton." But I said, "Wouldn't it really be better for us, wouldn't it be better for the Soviet Union, wouldn't it be better for Great Britain, wouldn't it be better for Germany, wouldn't it be better for all the people of the world who are looking to us for leadership if we carried Ohio by 400,000 instead of 300,000?"

You folks get out here and make it as big as you can. You go and go to work, and you talk to your uncles and your cousins and aunts. You are going to run into a few people that won't agree with you, but go and see at the hardware store if you can't get them a coal oil lantern and let them play fireman for a while.

Goodby and good luck.