Remarks in Hartford to a Group of Business Leaders

I want to first of all say to that policeman up there, if I may have your attention, that any of those nice people that are standing on the steps I believe in them having a little freedom since I have this medal. If they want to, just let them pull up that rope and let them come on down here and talk to us.

I am deeply touched by the thoughtfulness and the generosity that prompted this presentation. All my life I have had great respect for the business leadership of the great State of Connecticut and for that matter, all New England.

I asked when I came here today that I might have an opportunity to meet some of that leadership so I could observe the countenances that had provided the initiative and the adventure and the vision for a substantial part of our free enterprise system in America.

As we meet here, there are two great philosophies that are rivals in the world-and one or the other will ultimately prevail.

One philosophy is the democratic philosophy that has been practiced in this country from the time of our first President, George Washington, up until this moment. Although I have only been your President for 10 months--I was called upon to shoulder awesome responsibilities without a moment's notice--I have had the support and the prayers of the members of this great business fraternity from coast to coast without regard to their business affiliation, their religious affiliation, or their party affiliation.

Because I have had that support as your President, as President of all the people, this whole Nation--Democrats and Republicans and whatnots--enjoys a period of prosperity that has never been equaled before in the annals of the history of this country.

Now while we are enjoying all of that prosperity, we see communism challenging us and challenging freedom on many fronts. I am proud to say to you that we are standing up, we are resisting, and we are trying to halt the envelopment of freedom anywhere in the world. Although there are more than 120 nations in the world, and although there are dozens of nations that have been born in the last decade, we have not lost a single nation to communism since 1959.

Now these two philosophies are in a struggle. They are after each other's jugular, and if we survive it will not be because we have more people than they have, because they outpopulate us. There are many more millions in the Soviet Union than we have in the United States. They have more than 600 million acres of tillable land and we have less than 200 million, so they have a lot more tillable soil. They outnumber us in many of our greatest resources and their potential in other ways far exceeds ours.

So in resources, in human beings, in tillable acres, we are all at a disadvantage. What do we rely on? We rely on the one great advantage that the American people have: that is our system of government.

Now, that system is not built on any one party, or any one people, or any one section, or any one religion, or any one group. That system that we know as the free enterprise system is made up of really four important segments.

The first is the capitalist. Some of you have been known as capitalists in your time and some of you not many years ago were even called royalists--"economic royalists," I believe it was. You have been so referred to from time to time in various campaigns in America because sometimes you asked for it, and sometimes you couldn't avoid it.

But the capitalist is the man that, through prudence, accumulates wealth and takes that money and is willing to invest it. It may be to rebuild a whole new area. It may be to put skyscrapers in the sky. It may be to provide production lines for jobs. It may be to build railroads and dams. It can follow many lines.

But he invests that dollar in America with a reasonable assurance that it will not be confiscated and will not be taken away from him by some government that stages a coup in the midnight hours, and that he will be secure in his possessions without fear that some night at midnight someone will rap on his door and serve him a warrant and lead him off to jail. He hopes that he may get a reasonable return on it. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he gets it all back plus 5 or 6 percent, sometimes he loses it all.

But anyway, he has hope and he has a chance, he has an opportunity, and he is willing to take care of the rest himself, if you give him that--and he has that in America.

That capitalist is joined by what you call a manager.

That manager is the fellow that gets up at daylight and works to midnight and develops stomach ulcers trying to get a bonus or trying to have a profit-sharing plan, or trying to build a better mousetrap at less cost, trying to compete not only with his fellowman here but with the rest of the world.

He takes his chances where he finds them and if he loses, he fusses with his wife about it, but he takes it in stride. Sometimes he has a good profit. For 43 months now he has had a rather good record, but the next 43 might not be so good, so he has to take it.

But he joins with the capitalist and he manages that dollar, he sees where it is invested and he tries to exercise prudence and yet exercise vision.

Then the third segment there is the worker who gets to work at 8 and works to 5, and he has 27 seconds to put the number of rivets in that car or that plane that he needs to. If he doesn't get them in in the 27 seconds he goes to 28. That car or that plane moves on down the line--and it doesn't have the rivets in it! And you've wound up with a car that is missing a rivet a time or two yourselves. We all do that. But that poor fellow gets a coffee break twice a day. The rest of the time he has 27 seconds to do that job and handle that machine.

He is the worker, and he hopes someday he can have a little hospital care, he can have a little pension, he can have a little social security, he can have a place to take Molly and the babies when he retires. That is his great love. His boys go to war; they fight to preserve this system. He likes his boss and he respects him. He believes in free enterprise, and he does not hate the man who makes a reasonable return.

Now those three--the capitalist, the manager, and the worker--make up free enterprise.

Now, whatever they have after they have produced it, Uncle Sam steps in and takes 52 percent of it. He is the first partner. And every dime you make, I've got a 52 percent interest as President. So I want you to do well. And I think you are doing well, and I am glad that you are.

My 1965 budget--when I came in they anticipated it would be $5 billion more than 1964, because '64 was $5 billion more than '63, '63 was $5 billion more than '62, and '62 was $5 billion more than '61. We have a growing population, we are moving on-we have more schools, more roads, more needs to fill.

But I spent the first 37 days and nights I was in office trying to find some way, somehow, some means to keep that budget under $100 billion, because I thought psychologically it would be a good thing.

I thought if we could not pull down our expenses in a great era of prosperity I did not know when we could pull them down. So instead of a budget of $5 billion more-$103.8 billion--we reduced it. And I had the help of Republicans. President Eisenhower came down and worked with me 2 days. Bob Anderson, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Eisenhower, came down and worked with me almost a month.

I had the budget directors from other administrations come in. I got all of the advice I could get, because nobody needed it any more than I did. We finally developed a budget that was $1 billion less in '65 than it was in '64.

While we were doing that, we passed a tax bill. We put some of the money back for the people to spend instead of letting the Government spend it for them. We put some of the money back for business to invest in new enterprise instead of the Government investing it for them.

So as a result, we have more men working today than we have ever had before. Our profits are higher, our wages are higher, our economics are better, our system is producing.

Don't you tell me for a moment that we can't outproduce and outwork and outright any communistic system in the world. Because if you try to tell me otherwise, you tell me that slaves can do better than free men, and I don't believe they can. I would rather have an executive vice president, even if he comes from Hartford, Conn., than to have a commissar!

So I say to you men who are the leaders of this community, and through your industries the leaders of the United States, that we are doing reasonably well today but we have got to do better. We have got other fields to conquer. We have other roads to travel. This part of the United States has always led the rest of the Nation and the rest of the world in two fields: prudence and progress.

You have something about you that permits you to keep your eyes on the stars, and still keep your feet on the ground. And if you don't have both of them on the ground all the time you at least have one of them on the ground. So don't ever get both of them off the ground at one time.

Now I am going to conclude by telling you a story. It is one of the real reasons I asked to meet you insurance people up here today.

You remember back in the thirties when we had to have all of the reforms, and we had the problems in the Stock Exchange, and we had men committing suicide and folks jumping out of windows, and banks popping like firecrackers, and all of the economic problems ?

Well, during that period Mr. Rayburn had to be the author of the Holding Company Act. He came from a little red, sandy land farm down in Texas, and he was just a farm boy. But he had to author the Stock Exchange Act, and he set up the Securities and Exchange Commission, and he had all of these great economic financial reforms.

Right in the middle of it, Mr. Whitney came in and asked him if he wouldn't come up to speak to the Bond Club in New York City. And he said, "Who is the Bond Club?"

"Well," Mr. Whitney said, "it is a group of people who deal in bonds and investments and who are financial experts. As a prerequisite to membership you have to have a good financial statement--$1 million or more. We would like to hear you and we would like to invite you."

This fellow was testifying before Mr. Rayburn's committee, and he kind of wanted to ingratiate himself anyway. So Mr. Rayburn, very much to his surprise, said yes, he would accept the invitation.

The fellow who extended the invitation was almost sorry that he had ever asked him, because he did not think he would accept. But Mr. Rayburn went up there, and the fellow was a little embarrassed in front of all of these millionaires to introduce this sandy land farmer from Texas who had put all of these reforms through--called it "death sentence," you remember, on holding companies, and they were going to ruin all of the power companies and destroy everything.

So he got up to introduce Mr. Rayburn, and he said, "Fellows, I invited this man to come up here. I don't know why he came. But here he is, Sam Rayburn," and that was the only introduction they gave him.

That is more than you all gave me today. I just had to get up here and talk!

Mr. Rayburn got up and said, "I came up for two reasons. If you don't know why I came, I want to tell you." He said, "All of my life I have been poor. I have just a modicum of wealth, and I have accumulated a little, and I have worked mighty hard for it and have saved it. I haven't married, I've saved every penny I had. I haven't spent it on my family, but I have never yet been able to acquire a million dollars. I wanted to come up and associate with all of you fellows who have been successful, and just hope that a little bit of it would rub off On me.

"So that is the first reason I came."

And he said, "The next reason I came was to show you I ain't scared of you!"

So I really have three reasons for coming up here today. I want to associate with you and learn things from you, and ask you to help your Government and to counsel with us and give us all of the advice you can. Because we need it.

Second, I want to commend you for the contribution you have made to your Government during these 10 months when we have had a real critical period on our hands.

I don't know how much longer I will be there--you may change in November. But I want to ask you to help whoever is President, because it is an awesome responsibility to carry the weight of 190 million people and their future on your shoulders. And no man ever occupied that office--there have been 35 of them--that didn't do his dead level best. I never have seen a one that I thought ran on a platform of doing what he thought was wrong. They all do what they think is right, but sometimes they make mistakes, and they need your judgment.

Finally, I want to tell you that I appreciate what you have done for me, and with me, and most of all for your Government, for your country, regardless of your religion, or your party, or where you live. And finally, I just wanted all of you to know I wasn't scared of you.