Remarks in Hartford, Connecticut

Governor Dempsey; my longtime friend and valued adviser, Tom Dodd; your able and courageous Senator Abe Ribicoff; Congressman Daddario; all Members of the most effective Connecticut delegation to the Congress; my old and trusted and helpful friend who may get us elected, John Bailey; your distinguished Mayor Glynn; my fellow Americans:

I was told before I came here that it was a little bit too early to talk politics in New England. I came on, anyway--because I don't intend to and I guess it is not necessary to talk politics, anyway. I intend to talk today about what I know is on your minds and what I believe is in your hearts--and that is responsibility.

Say what they will, change their stands all they wish, no partisans can conceal the issue before America this year because that issue is responsibility.

This ought not to be the issue. It would not be the issue if the responsible views of the responsible men in the responsible party were represented in this campaign. I say that because I have more respect for the Republican Party than some of those who have taken over its name this year.

Responsibility is the issue.

Responsibility is the choice.

The American people can choose to keep government that is responsible, like the kind of government that you have had 3 1/2 years under Jack Kennedy and 10 months under Lyndon Johnson. Or the American people can choose to change the government to a government that is reckless abroad and reckless at home.

I believe I know what your choice is going to be.

In all this Nation no citizens anywhere value responsibility in government more highly than the great citizens of the great State of Connecticut. You have responsible government at the State level. You have responsible government at the local level. You have gotten good government because you have insisted on it and because you have been active in it.

You people of Connecticut have led the entire Nation since World War II in building highways, in supporting better schools, in rebuilding your cities, in retraining your workers. And the benefits show up in all the faces that I see out there today. They show up in all your lives.

In all this lovable, prosperous, progressive land of the United States, the State of Connecticut is one of the most prosperous States. Your personal income averages $740 more than the average of the rest of the Nation. You have fewer families living in poverty than any other State in the Union, and you ought to be proud of that. In fact, with the help of Congressman Daddario and Abe Ribicoff, Tom Dodd and John Bailey, and Governor Dempsey, if Connecticut holds its progressive course that you are now following, you will be the first State in the Union to win the war on poverty.

I know this is the work that you want to keep on doing. I know this is the work that you want your country to keep on doing.

The character of our country, of all the Nation, was really formed right here in New England. Wherever Americans live, there is a little of New England in them. Our Nation has gotten far more from this New England region than can ever be returned to it. But the greatest of your contributions are two traits that are deep in the American character.

One of those traits is prudence--caution, care, responsibility. The other is progress.

As President Kennedy said, "Keep the country moving." The American people throughout this Nation are a prudent people, and they want and they expect prudence in their Government. But the American people are also a progressive people, and they want to keep on progressing. They want to keep on making progress toward a better land and toward a better life. In short, the American people, from Connecticut to Texas, want to keep moving.

Prudence and progress are the watchwords of this administration that serves you now.

We have increased our Nation's strength until today the United States is the strongest Nation in all the world. We have, at the same time, controlled your Government spending so that the budget that I presented for fiscal 1965 was lower than the budget for 1964.

In relation to gross national product, total Federal spending in 1965--are you listening?--total Federal spending in 1965 will be the lowest in 14 years, and nondefense spending will be lower than it was 30 years ago and lower than in all but 2 postwar years.

We have been frugal without being fatalists and without being fanatical. For we have kept America on the move--we have been meeting our needs, we have been solving our problems, we have been fulfilling the hopes of our people.

This session of the Congress has been the most productive and the most constructive in all American history.

Ten months ago, after that terrible tragedy that thrust upon me, without a moment's notice, the responsibility of the Presidency, I tried to pick up where President Kennedy had left off. I tried to carry forward a program for all of you that he had dreamed of for you.

And when we took the scoreboard, we listed 51 major measures that should be considered. And of those 51 major measures, most of the newspaper people who travel with me today said if we could pass 2 we would have a successful session. If we could pass the tax bill, which was not moving in committee, and the civil rights bill, we would call it a successful session.

I came here to Connecticut today to report to you that we not only passed those 2 bills, and they are already the law of the land, but the United States Senate, of which Abe Ribicoff and Tom Dodd are two of the leaders, has passed each and every single one of the 51 measures. And that is the truth that you can't wash away.

I know that you people out there in that crowd know in your heart that that is good for America.

We have much work yet to do, but we are going to do it. We are not going to turn back the clock. We are going to rebuild our cities as you are rebuilding Hartford.

We are going to meet the people's needs for fast and efficient transportation so they won't lose 2 hours a day trying to get to and from work. We are on the way. We are going to create new jobs and train new people with new skills. Because this is the responsible way and the Democratic Party is the responsible party, and this is the true American way.

For so long as there has been an America, there have been times when factions have risen up in our land. There have always been people who would divide and conquer. There are people who are trying to divide us now, trying to turn our course off sharply to the left, or trying to turn our course off sharply to the right.

For 175 years, through more than 40 national elections, the American people have said, "No, no, no," to people who would follow this kind of a course. And I think they are going to say "No" this year. Because I think that you know in your heart that we are not going to follow the fringes in November.

I know that we are not going to follow the course of turning class against class, or creed against creed, or color against color, or religion against religion.

No, I am going to ask you folks to leave here today and say to your family and to your friends that we believe that America and the United States should be united; that we want to present a united front, and attack and solve the problems at home and present a united front to all the world abroad.

In the American character there are those qualities of prudence and progress. But there is a deep and abiding commitment to peace, and that commitment to peace and that part of our character that wants peace is going to get peace. We don't have a national police force. We don't have a gestapo that we can send into your town overnight. We have a wonderful Bureau of Investigation that is available to your Governor, to your mayor, and to your local people. We are going to work with them to make our streets and our cities safer, but what we really want to do is to make all the streets in the world safer for all people.

The first time that I came to Hartford to speak was more than 5 years ago. I came to speak to members of my own party, the Democratic Party. At that moment there was a grim challenge to our country from the Communist forces abroad. The then President of the United States was a member of the Republican Party. I was a leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate.

I told the members of my Democratic Party that night here in Hartford, 5 years ago, as I tell all of you here today, that I was not going to attack that President, the only President we had, even if he were a Republican--I was not going to make his job more difficult. Because I have always, and I will always, put the peace and security of America, the peace and security of my country, ahead of the interests of the Democratic Party.

And I think I know that that is what you, in your hearts, want me to do. I have always believed that if you will do what is best for America, you will do what is best for our party.

And I want to leave another thought with you. I voted for and I supported that Republican President more on his Republican program than some present members of the Republican Party did. And I never at any time called it by another name. At times I differed. On occasions I opposed but I opposed it with dignity and decency. And you never heard from the lips of a single member of the Democratic Party that President Eisenhower's program was just a 10-cent model of the New Deal.

No, I tell you when your country is in trouble, when people are trying to divide, when hate and fear is abroad in the land, it is time for the people of New England to lead the way, to start the march of unity, and to say to the rest of the world that we learned a long time ago, "United we stand; divided we fall."

Now, I know some of you have come out here through courtesy today. Some of you are hospitable. Some of you want to be good to your President. But I do want to ask those of you that are here one little question, because the folks in the United States are listening to you, they are watching you, they will be seeing you on television. I just want to ask you: Are we going to be united in November?

Well, it looks like some of you have heard the echo.

There is a time for party and there is a place for partisanship. But there are times in the history of a Nation when higher values matter more than party, and there are greater issues than partisanship. Your two Senators proved that time and time again. I believe that today is such a time in our national life.

All that America is, and all that you want America to be, is challenged today by those who stand on the fringe. Against such a choice as this, responsible people have only one course of conscience, and that is to choose their country's interests over all other interests. I believe that this is a choice that you will make come this November.

For I pledge you--and hear these words-that the next Johnson administration will follow the course once set by a great President, Abraham Lincoln, who told us: "Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."