"Your organization was founded by William Jennings Bryan,
Bob LaFollette,
William Howard Taft,
and Paul Pearson,
and I think it has a very special meaning for a former debate coach, like the one speaking to you this morning. "
Remarks to the International Platform Association Upon Receiving the Association's Annual Award
August 03, 1965
"I only wish that my college teacher could be here to see what is happening now.
Because in my first term in college, when I made the debating team as a freshman-which was slightly unusual-
-when I got my grade cards my teacher gave me the lowest grade I ever received in college--
and in just the course that you would expect him to give it to me in. He gave me a "D" in argumentation"
'President Eisenhower told me an interesting story after he returned from World War II. He said before he went out there, before he went to Europe to take command, they met at his mother's home out in Kansas.
And some of his brothers were there, and his mother told him goodby, and his brothers told him goodby as he went away to war.
And he said, one day one of the Russian generals came in and complained to him about a story that an American newspaperman had written about him which he felt was not fully in keeping with the facts, and that
he demanded that this newspaperman be punished,
and that he be refused the privileges of a press correspondent.
President Eisenhower said he thought it over and told him to come back the next day.
The next day he came back and he showed the Russian general a big scrapbook of unfair things and unkind things that had been said about him,
because his plans went astray on occasion, too, and a lot of American soldiers had died.
And he said to the general, "Now let me tell you this story." He said, "lust before I came over here f met at my mother's home in Kansas with four of my brothers, and they were there to tell me goodby." And he said,
"My father was a railroad man and he had married my mother as a young girl and out of this union had come these boys." And he said one of them was there and said he was a constitutional lawyer and a very conservative fellow, and nearly everything that came up he would quote the Constitution.
Another one of them was a college professor--college president Milton Eisenhower of Johns Hopkins now--and, he said, he was very liberal.
And he said, "Another one of my brothers is a conservative banker, and another is an engineer that is more liberal."
And he said, "The fifth boy is General of the Armies."
And he said, "The real reason I'm over here, General, fighting this war is so that a railroad man can marry a little American girl and
out of that union come five boys, two that are conservatives, two that are liberals, and one that is General of the Army."
That is what America stands for, and we want to keep it that way.
, I think, that story rather well emphasizes that these are rights that we ought to keep sacred.
These rights were not come by easily. They were hammered into our Bill of Rights, and they were put there by men who knew what it was to be jailed and to be beaten, and to be banished and to be ostracized for what they said or what they thought, or what they preached or what they published.
Our forefathers knew what these rights meant, and they exercised them. And we must exercise our rights, too. We must never allow ourselves to be cowed by conformity.
I don't think, from what I know about the fellow that introduced me, that he's likely to have that happen to him because I have never seen him conform very much.
But all of us, collectively, must never be cowed by conformity.
We must never be afraid to discuss or to challenge, or to innovate or to stimulate new ideas and new approaches.
____
This year, I sent to the Congress a rather novel and unique suggestion, and I must say that my prediction was wrong. It wasn't 83 percent wrong--it was 100 percent wrong. I thought the Congress would debate it 10 years before they acted on it--and we got it passed the first session. We're going to sign it this week.
It was a rent supplement that provides that when a fellow pays 25 percent of his rent--if he makes $200 a month and he pays $50 for rent, then the Government, if his rent is $60, can pay $10 of that $60.
He pays $50 and the Government pays $10. If the Government paid $10 a month, that would be $120 a year,
and that would be a lot cheaper than building big public housing that would cost $34,000 for him to live in.
And it takes care of many more hundreds of thousands of families at less cost.
Now, we hope that it works out.
It was not too many years ago that a Midwestern newspaper circulated a petition at a Fourth of July rally. Now what do you think that petition contained? This is an interesting story. That petition was composed of extracts from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. And every member but two in the entire crowd refused to sign it because they said it was too radical and they were too cowed to think for themselves.
So, free speech,
free press,
free religion,
the right of free assembly, yes, the right of petition,
the right to buy ads and to have teachins, and sit-ins, and parades and marches and demonstrations--well, they are still radical ideas.
And so are secret ballots, and so are free elections,
and so is the principle of equal dignity,
and so is the principle of equal rights
for all the sons and daughters of man.
But all of these things are what America stands for, and all of these things are what you and all other Americans need to stand up for today.
Now, it is a new idea, and a somewhat radical one, that the people of small nations have a right to live in peace without fear of their neighbors.
______
This Congress this week will pass a voting rights bill that will give every American, regardless of his economic status, or where he lives, or what kind of a dress or suit he wears, or what his color is, or what his religion is-he will have that right that every free American ought to have of a secret ballot and to go and vote for his official, and it will be guaranteed to him by the United States flag in every precinct in this land.
This week we're going to have the most comprehensive housing bill in 50 years, to try to permit every person to have a roof over the head of his wife and his children.
Last week I sat down with that great humanitarian, Harry Truman, 81 years old, in Independence, Missouri. And with tears in his eyes, I saw his dream of 20 years ago come true when we signed
we signed the Medicare bill
that not only provided hospital care and nurses' care and nurse home care and medicine, but also provided for doctors' bills that could be paid;
and no longer made it necessary for a mother and a father, in the twilight of their career, to write their nephew or their niece or their son
or their daughter and say,
please come, send me some money so I won't starve, or so I can go to the doctor.
In these days we are all more responsible in what we say than Americans used to be. I remember one public figure once described another public man as, and I quote,
"a mushtoed, spotted traitor to the Constitution
and a political turkey buzzard."
Now, sometimes they try to get me involved in personalities.
But we don't need name-calling and we don't need slander and we don't need libels and we don't need labels.
You really don't gain much by getting into personalities and talking about a man or his wife or his dogs on a personal basis.
hope that you of the IPA will go out into the hinterland and rouse the masses and blow the bugles and tell them that the hour has arrived and their day is here; that we are on the march against the ancient enemies and we are going to be successful.
Thank you very much."
Note: The President spoke at 10:40 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White House
before 200 members of the International Platform Association
a group of lecturers and speakers devoted to improving the quality of public speaking.
In his opening words he referred to Drew Pearson, newspaper correspondent and columnist and former president of the association.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks to the International Platform Association
Upon Receiving the Association's Annual Award Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,
The American Presidency Project
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241318
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