Remarks at the War Memorial Building in Nashville

Governor Clement:

I hardly know how to tell you people of Tennessee how good you make me feel by the warmth of your welcome, and the wonderful Southern hospitality that you have extended to me and my party ever since we came into your State.

I think that Governor Clement, who is known far and wide in this country as one of the most eloquent speakers that we have ever produced, really outdid himself in his introduction. I honestly believe that is the second best introduction I ever had in my life. The best one was when the Governor was supposed to introduce me one time at Memphis and his legislature was in session and he didn't get to come, and I had to introduce myself.

The Governor told you that there wouldn't have been a Texas if there hadn't been a Tennessee. I agree to that, and I am proud of that. It just goes to show how much vision and foresight the people of Tennessee have always had, because Texas is back here today to tell you that we are not going to sell Tennessee, not for a dollar, not for a dime, not for anything. And if there are any would-be purchasers lurking around the corners over there four or five blocks away, I want them to know that the Johnson administration is not going to sell any other rivers in this country.

I want to thank my old friends Governor Cooper, Governor Browning, and Governor McCord for honoring us with their presence. They have all had distinguished careers in this State. They have come over here to appear at this meeting today. I was thrilled beyond compare when I spoke in Louisville and five former Governors of the great State of Kentucky united and came there and held up my hand. The reason there were more in Kentucky than there are in Tennessee is that Kentucky changes her Governors oftener. But I am grateful to these men for coming here to help me today.

I want to salute my old friend, one of the most courageous and one of the ablest Members of the United States Senate, Albert Gore. His voice is heard from one end of this Nation to the other, with respect, and with influence, and the only one that I know that fights harder and may have better judgment than Albert is his gracious wife Pauline.

I want to thank the people of Tennessee in advance for producing that fighting young man that you are going to send to the United States Senate, Congressman Ross Bass. Senator Herb Waiters has filled that seat with distinction, and he has always had a warm place in my heart and always will.

I want to thank my friend Joe Evins for coming here and leading me through these crowds today and pointing the way. I want to reiterate what my daughter Luci says, that there is no Congressman in the country that can make a better speech than Dick Fulton, and I am happy that he is here. Luci said, "Daddy, if you would just keep this fellow Fulton in some other States like you did in Minnesota and Michigan, I think we would carry all of them." And we are giving consideration to asking him to go into all of them.

I want to thank "Fats" Everett for coming here and helping me. I know that his district is going to give us a great majority, and I appreciate his service and help in Washington, as well as my old friend, Congressman Cliff Davis.

A group of outstanding young men who proudly represent Tennessee in the Congress I have referred to, but there are some more that we need to join them in January because we are going to need a good, solid, working majority in the next Congress, and we are going into 30 or 40 States this year and asking the people to give us support and give us a hand, and give us a mandate so that we can keep this Government for the people and continue to develop the program that John Fitzgerald Kennedy began.

So we hope that you will do your bit and put in a good word and help George Grider, Capt. William Anderson, Willard Yarbrough, Robert Summitt, and Arthur Bright. If you do that, and they can all come in, my, what a wonderful day that would be for the Nation!

I want to thank State Chairman Jim Peeler and National Committeewoman Mrs. Ruth Russell, and all the good Democrats that helped make this meeting possible. I don't think I have ever attended a better Democratic meeting in all my political life. This is not my first trip to Nashville, and I promise you now it is not going to be my last.

The ties between Tennessee and Texas are pretty close. Some of my ancestors lived up here in Sumner County, your neighbor to the north. Sam Houston studied law in Nashville and served as Governor of Tennessee, and really bloomed out in Texas. David Crockett was born on a mountain top in Tennessee, but won his final glory at the Alamo in Texas. One son of Tennessee, one Texan that we never forget, was the closest friend that I ever had in Congress--Sam Rayburn of Rowan County, Tenn.

Another great man of Tennessee from Nashville did not go to Texas, but he did go up in the world and he became President of the United States. He was "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson. I have heard it said that on the day he died, the family pastor was talking with one of the President's closest friends. "Do you think that the General will go to Heaven ?" the pastor asked. The old man thought a moment and replied, "Well, if he wants to go, who is going to stop him?"

Well, it is men like that that have led Tennessee through all the years, and it is men like that that are going to lead and speak the voice of Tennessee in the future.

We are told in the scriptures that there is a time to every purpose under the Heaven--"a time to break down, and a time to build up."

Well, I believe that this is a time to build up. And that is really the main issue in this campaign.

The issue is whether the American people want to continue to build our Nation on those policies and principles that have guided us for generations to new heights of greatness, or whether they want to tear down all that we have worked to achieve.

I came to Nashville today to talk to you about this. I think I know what the answer is going to be in Tennessee. But I will tell you now what my answer is going to be.

I am not going to do away with any of this forward program, and I am not going to sell the TVA. No matter how much they offer and no matter how much they want for it, and no matter what names they call it, I am not even going to sell the fertilizer part of it that they need. And I will tell you, I have a good reason.

In the first place, it doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the people of the Upper South. It really belongs to all the people of America. It is part of the blood and the bone of Tennessee. It is part of the greatness of America, and it is not for sale.

Some day, and you mark my prediction-I don't take pride in being a prophet--the time will come in your lifetime when these men of little faith and great fear who are marching around under another banner not of their forefathers, but another banner today, the blush of shame will come to their cheeks and they will hang their heads when they are told by their children that they supported a party that wanted to sell the TVA.

One of the first official acts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was to send a message to Congress requesting legislation to create the TVA. Franklin Roosevelt did not do this because he was a Democrat. He did it because he was an American.

His strongest ally in the Congress was a Republican, Senator George Norris. Together they worked to give new life to the Upper South, and in those days, 30 years ago, we could only dream that TVA would some day come true, and that TVA would some day make this region bloom and hold its head high again.

Well, today that dream is a reality. A billion dollar industry has grown up along one short stretch of the Tennessee River-more than 30 new lakes with 10,000 miles of shoreline, with 320,000 acres being developed into parks and recreation areas, beautiful countryside, where the hornyhanded sons of toil at the end of the week's labor can take their Molly and the babies and let them have a little recreation and a little vacation of their own.

Yes, TVA is the great pioneer of the 20th century. It has shown what the Government and the people, working together, shoulder to shoulder, can do to conquer hostile nature and create a blessed home for the human spirit.

On November 3d the people of this Nation, I believe led by the people of Tennessee, are going to say, "We are not about to tear all this down."

The investment that we made in this valley has been repaid manyfold: low-cost water transportation has brought new industry; power has brought new industry; flood control has provided flood-free industrial sites.

In the last 4 years you have taken great strides, leaps, forward--faster, far faster, than the national average, and twice as fast as you did from 1956 to 1960.

The number of employed workers in Tennessee has increased almost twice what it did from the last Republican administration of 1956 to 1960. In Nashville, employment has risen by 24,000, from 1960 to 1963, more than three times the increase of the preceding 4 years.

Those steps forward didn't just happen. They weren't accidents. Our prosperity is not an accident. It is not a gift. We worked for it. We built it. We have earned it.

It is the work of the men of both parties, working together, faithful to free enterprise, resolving their differences, fixed on the common goal of American prosperity.

But today those principles are under attack, and I think that attack endangers you, because the same leader, the same voice, that talks about selling TVA, or parts of TVA, also says that we should withdraw from education at a time when the number of students in higher education in Tennessee has doubled since 1950.

That same voice says we should eliminate our farm program, and that would cut farm income from $12 billion to $6 billion. You folks that do business here in Nashville, and don't get out on any of these dirt roads, you wait until you cut that farm income from $12 billion to $6 billion, and you will see the biggest depression that is farm-led and farm-fed you ever heard of.

And they are going to bring it and put it right on your doorstep if you permit it to happen.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy said in the 1960 campaign that it is time to get America moving again. Since that campaign the profits of American corporations after taxes have increased more than $12 billion per year. Since that campaign we have reached the astronomical number of having 72 1/2 million people working on good payrolls. Those people are drawing today $60 billion more after taxes than they drew when John Kennedy made that statement.

America is moving again, and I resent those people who attack him, when he is not here to answer, and say they are going to do away with that program.

Eleven months ago, after that great tragedy, I was called to pick up on most short notice and carry on as best I could. I told the people of my country and the people of the world that I promised them that with God's help and theirs I would do the best I could, and I have done the best I could. Uncertainty was in the air. Divisions had occurred.

The world was frightened and concerned, and we did not know what the next moment held for us. But we tried to look calm and to proceed with caution and with care, and to appeal to the Americanism in every person in this land, and we asked them for their prayers, and for their help, and for their support.

We told them what they had heard at their mother's knee, that united we stand, divided we fall. They rallied around their President in those dark hours and we showed all the world and all our adversaries that we had a system that would carry on, regardless of the individual, regardless of the man.

When I came back to the White House and sat there with that grieved Cabinet, 85 leaders of the world came to attend the funeral. I set aside a portion of my days and nights for many days and nights to talk to each of them about the problems of the world.

Their number one problem in every country is the same number one problem that we have in this country, and that is their relations with other nations: How can we live in the world without destroying each other? How can we achieve peace?

Well, I will tell you one way we can't achieve it: by rattling our rockets, or talking about throwing our bombs around and defoliating areas. We can do it by building the strongest nation in the world with all the power that we will ever need to defend it under any conceivable circumstance, and I am here to tell you as your Commander in Chief today that we have that power. We are the strongest nation in the world; we are stronger than all of them put together. But that doesn't mean that we ever want to use that power. Just because we have a button here that will put off a blast over yonder is no reason you want to put that thumb on that button.

Here in Tennessee you conceived and you produced and you developed the most awesome and the most frightening and the most mighty power that was ever known to humankind anywhere in the world. By mashing that button you can destroy and wipe out the lives of 300 million human beings in a moment.

You have o responsibility, and you have an obligation, and you have a guardianship and a trusteeship, and the good Lord is watching you right this minute to see how you are handling that thumb on that button. You have that strength in order that you will never have to use it.

I sat in 37 meetings of the National Security Council, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Joint Chiefs in their gold uniforms, and the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the CIA and all of the great minds of this Government--37 long meetings during the Cuban missile crisis.

I never left home in the morning knowing whether I would see my wife and babies when I got back that night. You have read of it. But I don't know whether you have ever felt those chill bumps come up on you or not, but I am not one that can't say I have never been scared. I have been scared most of my life, ever since they took me snipe hunting when I was a kid and they left me out in the dark.

I was scared every moment that the Russians had their missiles there pointed toward this country. But I am proud to tell you that the coolest head in Washington during all that period was a man that is not here to answer the attacks on him today.

The coolest man in Washington was President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And ben cause of his caution and because of his care, and because of the steel in his spine and the brain in his head, the American leader and the Russian leader were there eyeball to eyeball, and after that confrontation over a very tense period, when the chips were down and the thumb moved toward the button, both leaders decided that they could never in the eyes of God justify wiping out humanity.

And Mr. Khrushchev picked up his missiles and put them on the decks of his ships, and with our helicopters whirling overhead with their photographic machinery, he took them back home.

But ever since then the leaders of their country and the leaders of our country have thanked the good Lord that nothing worse happened, because what might have been would be too horrible to think of.

You are going to make the decision on who sits in those conferences that try to find a way and a means to peace in the world. You are not ever going to have a more important decision to make for yourself, for your wife, for your children, or for your uncles, or your cousins, or your aunts. You have a little over 3 weeks to make up your mind and to help your neighbors make up. their minds. I am not an objective person to make a recommendation.

I am not going to be like the old Senator down in my country was, after the little boy picking cotton went off and stayed all afternoon. And he came back and the boss said, "Where have you been?" He said, "I've been over listening to United States Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey make a speech."

He said, "The Senator didn't speak all afternoon, did he?" And the little boy said, "Mighty near, mighty near."

"Well," he said, "what did the Senator speak about all afternoon ?" The boy said, "Well, boss, I don't recollect precisely everything the Senator said, but the general impression I got from most of his remarks was, the Senator recommended himself most highly."

You don't need any recommendation from me to know that the most important subject in the world is peace, and to know what you can do about it.

You don't need any recommendation from me to know what kind of a program we have been building together in foreign policy for 30 years, from the day that Harry S. Truman joined up with Arthur Vandenberg, a Republican, and gave you bipartisan foreign policy; from the day that Dwight Eisenhower took the Democratic Senate, led by Lyndon Johnson, and we cooperated for 8 years, when he met the Communist threat in the Strait of Formosa.

I am proud to say that even though I was criticized by some people in the country when I was Democratic leader, that I said, "I am proud first I am a free man, second that I am an American, and third that I am a United States Senator, and fourth that I ant a Democrat--and in that order.

"When the best interests of my country are at stake, if the President is right, even if he is a Republican President, I am going to hold his hand high and support him, because I think if you do what is best for your country, your country will do what is best for you."

So during that period--I looked at the record the other day--in 1960, I voted with President Eisenhower, as the Democratic leader, 95 percent of the time on his foreign policy issues. And the leader of the Republican Party that year voted with him 25 percent of the time, and I think referred to his administration as a "Dime Store New Deal."

So I say to you that the one decision you have to make is what is best for you and your family. Can we meet the Communists, as President Truman did, with the support of both parties, in Greece and Turkey? As President Eisenhower did in the Formosa Strait? As President Kennedy did in the Cuban missile crisis? Or do we want to adopt some new, radically different departure and start off in another direction?

Well, I had a little trouble down in Guantanamo. A bearded dictator went in one day and said he was going to cut our water off at our base there. The first thing I heard was all these folks on the Hill started making recommendations, and one of them jumped up and said, "Send in the Marines." I was new in office and doing the best I could, and I wanted to consider what people had to say.

I called in the admirals, the generals, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, and we all talked it over. And we finally concluded that it would be a lot wiser if we sent in one little admiral to turn the water off rather than send in all the Marines to turn it on.

Now, you are going to be called upon to make some of those decisions in the month ahead. All I ask you to do is to remember that we have two big issues--peace and prosperity.

President Kennedy had a prosperity program going, and he left us with 51 bills to carry it out, and they hadn't passed the Congress. In 10 months that we went to work on them--I looked at them last Friday night and we had passed every one of the 51 bills in the Senate and all but 4 of them in the House.

I not only don't think you can have government by ultimatum abroad--I believe in trying to get along with the rest of the world--but I want our people to get along here at home.

I want business and labor to get along together. We have had less man-hours lost by strike than any comparable period in our history except during World War II. We have lost only 14/100ths of 1 percent of the number of hours worked due to strike. So we have business and labor, and the farmers and the Government all working together.

I want these businessmen and these labor men to get along together, because every time they make a dollar, I get 52 cents of it. And the more they make, and the more prosperous they are, the better off we are.

So we not only want peace in the world, we want peace at home.

When you go to the polls on November 3d, you vote for the man and for the party and for the principles that in your judgment will be most likely to bring to your family the peace that you have prayed for and the prosperity that you have worked for.

Thank you.