312
Remarks in Des Moines at a Democratic Party Dinner.
June 30, 1966

Governor Hughes, Governor Guy, Governor Morrison, Congressman Schmidhauser, Congressman Smith, Congressman Callan, Congressman Culver, Congressman Bandstra, Congressman Greigg, Congressman Hansen, my dear First Lady of the great State of Iowa, fellow Democrats:

I think I ought to make it clear at the outset tonight that this is a very selfish visit. In the grade school history books, most Presidents are pictured as forever smiling and always self-sufficient, altogether content to be desk-bound in Washington.

They never seem to need anything. Besieged by problems on every hand, with the winds of crisis always howling all around them, they seem to rest like some Gibraltar on a sea of self-assurance.

Some day I may rewrite a few chapters of those books. If I do, I will have something to say about the needs of a President, the needs of a President to get away from the big desk in the Oval Room, away from the telephone and the briefing papers that are brought in every minute of every hour; the needs of a President to go out again among the men and the women and the children whose servant he is; the needs of a Presidentto experience, again, the strength that comes from the power for good that lies out there in the fertile lands and the great cities of America; to be refreshed once more by America’s deep confidence in itself, by its conviction that we don’t have any problem that we are not big enough to solve ourselves—and always remembering that all of our successes are always subject to improvement.

I confess tonight that I did not come out here just to talk to you. But I did come out here to draw strength from you. For no matter how steadfast in his determination a President may be, he is not, I can assure you, a Rock of Gibraltar.

As you may have heard on the grapevine, he is just a plain, simple, human being.

Two generations ago a President might have come to Iowa prepared to talk only about the farm program, more specifically and particularly about corn and hogs, as he might have talked only of cotton and trade in the South, or as he might have talked only of manufacturing and tariffs in New England.

Well, tonight I want to talk of other things. I want to tell you about some of the things that we have to be thankful for, some of the things that we have a right to appreciate.

The first thing that I want to mention from that high priority list of mine that I am thankful for is the Governor of the great State of Iowa, Harold Hughes.

And the Governor of your neighboring State, the great State of Nebraska, Frank Morrison.

And the Governor who has honored us with his presence tonight by coming here to Des Moines, the great Governor of the State of North Dakota, Governor Guy.

I want to thank each and every citizen of the great State of Iowa, their uncles, their cousins, and their aunts, for sending to the House of Representatives one of the greatest Democratic delegations that any State in the Union ever sent to Washington.

I don’t think you are going to change horses in the middle of the stream. Polls notwithstanding, I have not the slightest doubt that every man, woman, and child in this room is ready to go out of here tonight and tomorrow, and the next week, and every day until November, to see that Schmidhauser, Smith, Culver, Bandstra, Greigg, and Hansen—and if you get over the line in Nebraska, Callan—are all sent back to Washington with a resounding vote.

Last year we passed 85 percent of our platform. This year we submitted 90 major measures for the benefit of all the people of America. With the help of this delegation in the House, we have already passed through the House of Representatives 60 of those 90 measures.

While I don’t speculate, I anticipate that we are going to pass some more of the 90 before I let them come back to campaign for re-election.

But it is hot here tonight and I have had a long day, and I am going home. So I am not going to speak as long as I would like to, or as I am accustomed to. But I do want to speak to you of a whole nation, your Nation, that is remaking itself year by year, that is multiplying the abundance of all of its people.

Since January 1961, annual per capita income in America after taxes—since the Democrats came into office following a Republican administration—annual per capita income, the income of every individual in this country, after taxes, has been increased by 28 percent. And don’t you let them forget it!

Now I don’t want to give you a lot of statistics. I didn’t ask you to bring your yellowtablet and take notes all evening as if you were in college history class. But I want to give you enough statistics to permit you to defend yourself between now and November.

You hear a lot of talk about people who want to leave politics at the water’s edge and support us in Vietnam.

Well, the best way to support us in Vietnam is to support us—not to hamstring us, not to harass us, not to humiliate us, not to send word that broadcasts throughout the world that this is a divided Nation.

I am in contact with a lot of these folks who give me advice every day. I get a reasonable amount of it. If I don’t have a chance to read my mail, I do have a chance to get the papers. And I get a good deal of it through the newspapers.

I want to say to all those people that I appreciate their advice. A man’s judgment is no better than his information. I particularly appreciate the advice that contains information. I particularly appreciate judgments that are based on facts, on information, on knowledge, on evaluation.

The United States Government has the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the greatest intelligence services in the country, and has a network of ambassadors in every capital of the world, 120 capitals. It has a flow of information from every capital, even the few that it doesn’t have representation in.

I use that information—and I need it. I am glad to have it supplemented by any volunteers who feel they have a little bit better approach or they have a little inside information.

But I do want you to know that in the final analysis, when the decision is made and you have to mash the button and the bell rings, it is like Mr. Truman said: "You can get all the advice from all the world, but you have to act on your own head, your own heart, and your own conscience."

Under our constitutional system, one man has the horrifying, terrifying duty to finally make the decision.

So this year I am told that we are going to talk about two things—about the war in Vietnam and about inflation.

The war in Vietnam is something we must talk about, spend a lot of time on, think about, and work at. We have a terrific responsibility there to provide the maximum deterrent possible to keep an aggressor from conquering 14 million innocent men, women, and children, with the minimum cost to the United States of America.

We have lost 2,000 lives, a little over, in Vietnam this year. We lost 50,000 lives on the highways. We could lose 200,000 in Vietnam. So every move we make must be deliberate, careful, prudent, and cautious, and must be based on the very best comprehensive information available anywhere.

I come here to pledge you tonight that without regard to party, race, religion, or any other element except what is right, the decisions affecting our men in Vietnam and affecting the foreign policy of the United States are going to be based on only one thing: that is, what is good for the United States of America and the free world.

Now on the inflation front, if you are distraught, if you are worried about high prices, if you have a stomach ulcer because of high wages, if you are concerned about hogs bringing too much, or calves bringing too much, or wages getting too high, and you are really worked up about inflation, it may be that you ought to vote Republican, because there is one guarantee I can give you from my 35 years’ experience: If you vote Republican and by chance you should win, you won’t have to worry very long about high prices—or high wages.

When I went to Washington we were worrying about some of these things. Wewere worrying about those 3-cent calves that we were raising down in Texas that I sold under contract last week for 28 cents. We were worrying about those $2.40 hogs that are bringing $22.40 today.

We were worrying about corn at 12 cents a bushel; that is, the corn you were not burning out here, that today sells for $1.13.

We were worrying about that $65-an-acre land that the insurance companies were foreclosing.

That is when I went to Washington following a Republican administration of 35 years ago.

After the last administration, your net farm income was $11 billion when you elected a Democratic President. In 1965 that $11 billion had gone to $14 billion.

Your net income per farm was $2,900. That has gone from $2,900 to $4,200.

Your calves that brought 21 cents brought an average of 23 cents.

Your hogs that brought 15 cents under the last administration bring 22 cents.
Your corn that brought $1.07 brings $1.19.
Your grain sorghum that brought $1.54 brings $1.79.

Your soybeans that brought $2 brought $2.09.
Your milk that brought $3.09 brings $3.65.
Those are the latest official figures of the average prices of the Department of Agriculture.

I want to ask someone to take enough of the proceeds of this dinner this evening-at least that which the Congressmen haven’t already gotten off with—and get this little card mimeographed and put it on everybody’s plate in lieu of that $100 ticket they bought. Because this is $100 worth of information to you. It may be worth thousands of dollars to you when you go to the ballot box.
When these folks start talking to you about inflation, you tell them that is something that you only have to worry about in Democratic administrations.

The unfinished economic business in America is for us to make a place at the table of our abundance for our brothers and for our countrymen. Who is it that can look out here into the Iowa countryside that I saw today and say that we cannot make such a place?

Surely not the Iowan whose personal income has risen faster than the national average in the last 5 years.

Surely not the Iowan whose hybrid seed corn is one of the 20th century’s greatest blessings to mankind.

Surely not the men and women who exported almost a half-billion dollars of farm commodities to the world last year and who led all the States in livestock receipts with $2 billion in sales.

Harold Hughes is traveling throughout the Far East trying to find a market for more exports, for more Iowa products, all the time. And with your support, he is going to find them.

Now as I said, there are a few voices in the air tonight that tell us—and there will certainly be more as we get along between now and November—who tall the Midwest farmer that he has to beware. They are saying that someone over there in Washington is out to deprive him of his fair share of the Nation’s prosperity.

They try to divide farmers from consumers; but they never remind you that farmers are consumers, too. No industry has more consumers of goods and services than the great basic industry of agriculture.

I want to let you in on a secret: Your Government in Washington is interested in consumers, too, just as the farmers are. Nothing can sap the prosperity that our people enjoy tonight faster than runaway priceincreases. No one is going to be hurt more than the farmers if inflation does run away and destroy our prices.

We have acted boldly, but we have not acted rashly, to keep price increases within tolerable limits. With management and labor, with manufacturers and farmers, we have sought to protect the interests of all of our people in price stability.

But there is another story about farm incomes in the 1960’s. It is the story of a successful farm policy.

I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to that great leader of the farmers of America, Orville Freeman, the Secretary of Agriculture, who is here tonight.

That record shows that net income on individual farms right here in the great State of Iowa climbed 47 percent since Orville Freeman became Secretary of Agriculture.

That record shows that farm exports were up from $4.8 billion to $6.2 billion since Orville Freeman became Secretary of Agriculture.

I came out here to Iowa tonight to look you straight in the eye and to say to you something that you don’t have to read in the New York Times: We in Washington are proud of that record.

We have promised plentiful food at fair prices for the consumer. We have promised full parity of income for the American farmer in the 1960’s. And we stand tonight on that pledge and that promise.

I want to close this evening on another little note: The productivity of American agriculture is unequaled in this world. No other farmers are so skilled or are so prosperous as are Iowa farmers and American farmers.

In great areas throughout this world men tonight plow the ground with primitive plows, and some with just hoes in their hands. They sow and they reap with their own hands. They have no fertilizer and little or none of the science and the equipment that is familiar to American farming.

Yet their populations continue to grow. The result is as inevitable as it is tragic: malnourishment, starvation, the weakness that breeds disease, slows production, and destroys hope.

Today I engaged in a ceremony shipping wheat to India. Because of the great productivity, resources and generosity of America, 35 million people will not have to die from starvation in India this year because of what we have done.

We are bursting with plenty and we are helping. We will help more. Yet if we were to cultivate every available acre of our rich soil, we could never match the food needs of all the human beings in the world.

It is going to be only through a tremendous reform in the agriculture of these desperate countries, only a profound commitment to agricultural development, only an intelligent approach to the problem of diminishing resources and increased population that can give them the food that they must have if they are not to starve.

We have urged them to make that commitment. Our help will go in generous measure to those countries who are willing to help themselves. Our technology will be open to those countries who want to help themselves.

In our universities and in our colleges in America tonight there are 3,500 students of agriculture from other lands learning the techniques of the American farm. We hope that more students will come, for nothing is more critical to the future of this earth than the wise harvest of its bounty.

I know that Iowans who, for generations, have offered their skills and their human concern to less fortunate peoples will not hesitate to do so again.

So this evening in Iowa, hot as it is, has been good for your President. This may be just a warm-up of things to come between now and fall. But it is good for me to come here and see firsthand the statistics of prosperity and see them take on flesh and bones before my own eyes.

I know tonight that a world of challenges awaits everyone whose heart beats in this room. The dilemmas of world politics in a nuclear age, the struggle for freedom in Vietnam, the search for social justice in our own country—these will not be resolved just because we are prosperous and doing well, and everybody is working and getting a good price for his products.

These call for a policy of patience and daring, of commonsense and vision, of the wise use of power and its wise restraint when needs be.

This has been America’s policy ever since we emerged as a modern world power following World War II. We applied this policy in Berlin. We applied it against raw Communist pressure. We applied it in Greece to resist the Communist efforts to take that little country over by guerrilla warfare. We applied it in Korea when the Communists marched armies across international boundaries in a flagrant invasion of a very weak and struggling little country. Yes, we applied it in Cuba—finally—to meet the threat of nuclear blackmail. And we applied it without any hesitancy in the Dominican Republic to protect the lives of innocent people and to permit the democratic processes to work again among those people.

So as your leader tonight, I want to say to you as candidly and frankly as I know how, for 21 years we have been willing to fight if we must, and always ready to negotiate if we can.

I believe that this policy has made possible a rebirth of moderation and commonsense, not just in the United States but throughout all the continents of the world. In the last few years, in country after country, on continent after continent, extremist leaders have suffered one defeat after another. They have been replaced by men of moderation who have assumed power as their successors.

That is why I am here to tell you tonight that the only wise policy to follow in Vietnam is the policy that has worked so successfully for two decades. We just must be patient, but we must be firm.

For as long as the Communist leaders in North Vietnam insist on waging war by crossing the boundaries of South Vietnam and assassinating human beings, as long as they spurn any interest in negotiations, we must use our power to resist their aggression, and use our power to try to change their minds.

I have never seen a Communist government come to power as a result of a free election. And I have never seen Communist aggression bow before its little neighbor’s weakness.

Communist power respects only its neighbor’s strength. Communist leaders turn from their ambitious designs only when they become thoroughly convinced of one thing, and that is that Communist power cannot and will not succeed.

As we meet here on the prairies, in the fertile black land of the great, freedom-loving State of Iowa tonight, I want to remind you that yonder in Hanoi, men who believe that they have more patience in the bank than we do, are watching and listening. They read our polls, even Iowa polls. They listen to our debates, even my speeches. They watch the results of our elections in every congressional district in the land. They see how perplexed some of our peopleare by the shadowy nature of guerrilla war. And they try to prey upon the compassion and the love of mothers and wives.
They say to themselves, as they said to a prominent leader just a few hours ago, "If we only wait long enough .... "

I am confident as I speak to you tonight that they in their hearts know that General Westmoreland is succeeding in Vietnam and they cannot defeat him there. But they do look to Washington and to America to create enough dissidence in this country to defeat him here.

Oh, how I do wish that I could talk to those men tonight. I would like to say to them that it is easy to misread the polls. It is easy to misunderstand the meaning of a debate in a democratic society where we encourage difference of opinion and dissidence, discussion. It is easy to misjudge the true nature of a diverse nation. It is easy to mistake our differences for weaknesses.

The Kaiser was mistaken in World War I, in 1917.

Hitler was mistaken when he marched through Poland in the late 1930’s.

The Japanese were mistaken when we debated and refused to fortify Guam and spend $5 million when I was a young Congressman. They thought we couldn’t or we wouldn’t fight. We loved peace so much that we would not pay any price and they could march on with their armies and gobble up free and innocent people.

Well, the time came when we had to answer the call, and we did.

I want to say to those leaders in Hanoi tonight: "Don’t make the same mistake that the Kaiser made, or that Hitler made, or that the Japanese made."

I haven’t cleared this with every person in Washington, but I have cleared it with myself, and I believe with a majority of the people in 44 States of the Union. I would like to say this to those people yonder who seek to conquer by aggression:

"The American people, when they understand what is at stake, have never in their long and proud history run from their duty. And the American people will not run tonight."

I would say to them, if they are listening, that the American people have never left an ally in a fight. And we do not intend to abandon South Vietnam now.

I would say that the American .people have elected as their President a man who is determined to honor our commitments, a man who is determined to stand with the people of Vietnam, stand with them until aggression has been ended and until the American soldiers can proudly come marching home.

So I say to my friends here in Iowa too night, we could walk away; we could run out of Vietnam tonight. But I ask you what would happen to the millions of men, women, and little children who have fought all these years in order not to have to live under Communist domination? What would happen to these 14 million?

While we are on that subject, I would like you to take this down and put it in your notebook: What would happen to the other 42 alliances and agreements that we have with other nations? What would happen to ANZUS, to SEATO, to NATO, and to all these other countries that we have given our solemn word and our sacred honor that we would stand by them, if they saw us defaulting on one note, running out on one commitment, and tearing up one contract?

If we will not be true to our word in Vietnam with a nation of 14 million, how can a nation of a million and a half across the seas expect us to keep our contract there?

I think it is time for every nation to engage in a little introspection and ask themselveswhat would happen in their country where they depend on American strength and American support if we followed some of their advice and broke our contract, failed to keep our word, and came home with dishonor from Vietnam.

I ask you what would happen to the rising tide of hope in Asia tonight? What would happen to those little free nations which met in Korea last week to try to anvil and fashion a method of building a new future for their people behind a shield of American firmness in Southeast Asia?

Every independent nation in Asia—and they are not confined to Asia, either—every independent nation in Asia has a stake in what happens in Vietnam:
—Japan and Korea;
—The Republic of China and the Philippines;
—Australia and New Zealand—they may be up next;
—Thailand and Malaysia—and they are not going to stop in South Vietnam; Thailand is just next door;
—Burma and Cambodia and Laos;
—India and Pakistan; —Singapore and Ceylon; and
—Indonesia, who has had some turns, we hope, for the better.

You cannot tell me that those who love freedom in Indonesia have not been encouraged by our commitment and our determination in Vietnam.

Now some of these nations are our allies, and others have no special ties to any major power. But I think they all have a big stake in one thing, and that one thing is being left alone. They know their independence is more secure, they know their future is more promising, if America stands firm in South Vietnam.

If we run, or if we quit the fight, if we abandon our efforts to keep stability in Asia, every single nation there will once again be an easy prey for these hungry, yearning Communist appetites.

So to those who seek candor and frankness, I would say tonight: Firmness is a must; and as long as I am President of the United States we shall stand firm.

But there is another side, too, of American policy. That is that we would much rather reason than fight. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah, we have said time and time again, "Come now,"—to all men—"let us reason together."

We are using our power in Vietnam because the Communists have given us no other choice, no other alternative, no other substitute. We have repeated, and repeated, and repeated, time and time again, in 100 nations or more, that we desire to discuss peace at the conference table.

I want to again emphatically repeat that desire tonight in words that anyone can understand. I want to say that the Communist leaders in North Vietnam do not have to doubt what we mean by that statement. They do not have to be in the dark about our position or our intentions. They do not even have to read our speeches, or talk to our ambassadors, or to see the diplomats from other countries. If they will only let me know when and where they would like to ask us directly what can be done to bring peace to South Vietnam, I will have my closest and my most trusted associates at that time and at that place in a matter of hours.

There need be no long, legal-sized agenda. There need be no previous understanding of what will or what will not be discussed. There need be no commitments on either side. There need only be a room and a table, and people who are willing to talk to each other respectfully.

And that is just about as simple as a farmboy knows how to make it.

I say to you tonight, and I say to them tonight, that this is one little way to stop this fighting. It is one way to move toward peace. It is one way to end the killing in the South and to stop the bombing in the North. This is, of course, our fervent desire.

But let me make this absolutely dear. I want the leaders of North Vietnam to know exactly where we stand. As long as they persist in their aggression against South Vietnam, America will resist that aggression.

As long as they carry the battle to South Vietnam and try to conquer by conquest, as long as they carry on this war which they have started, America will persevere.

And don’t let them think because some Senator says on a television program he is going to put the heat on the President that we will not persevere, because they would be mistaking America as other leaders have to their sorrow in years past. They just cannot wear us down. They cannot escape paying a very high price for their own aggression if they continue with their evil acts.

But we do not want to be bellicose or belligerent. The minute they change their minds, the minute they should decide the price is too high for a policy that they now know cannot succeed, then America will be waiting.

As I said today in the great city of Omaha, with that enlightened, progressive Governor presiding, America will be waiting. Our purpose is not war. Our purpose, our hope, our desire, our prayer is peace in the world, good will toward men. If they just give us one single little chance, we will prove the good faith of the American people.

None of this, my friends, is going to be easy. But a world of small and new nations, a world where our word and our power can mean the difference between war and peace, is looking to us tonight. It is counting on us tonight. It is expecting us to produce initiatives and to somehow, in some way, find a way.

I saw a young friend standing there tonight as we drove along who said, "Let’s get out of Vietnam." I thought for that dear person how much I wish I could get out of Vietnam. I want to get out of Vietnam more than any single boy standing there in a rice paddy wants to get out tonight.

They all want to get out, but not a single one of them has written their President saying we ought to get out except with honor.

I don’t know how much the people in Hanoi reading that sign and listening to these strident voices are encouraged to hold out just a little longer. But the thought did occur to me that the thing that you genuinely want most—getting out of Vietnam—is being postponed a little longer by you and your signs.

I am not angry; I am not even sorrowful. I sometimes think of the words, "God forgive them, for they know not what they do."

But we do know this: We are an honorable Nation; we protect the security of our people; we honor our commitments; we care about human beings, whether they are 14 million or 1 million; we do not bow and salute at any conqueror’s aggression.

Once this Nation makes a pact, a treaty, or a commitment, it lives up to it in word as well as in deed.

I want to bring those boys home from Vietnam more than anyone in this room, just as I wanted to see them come marching home in World War II, just as I wanted to see them come marching home from the Pacific where they had spent many months. I spent a few months with them in the early days of that war. But I never saw a man that proudly wore the uniform who wantedto come home defeated, who wanted to come home with his tail between his legs, who wanted to come home because he had been conquered.

There is not one of them out there—and I hope there is not one in here—who is willing to do that tonight.

Politics stops at the water’s edge. I have received great comfort and strength from all the men that I have known who have preceded me in the most responsible job in the world. Mr. Hoover called me to his Waldorf Towers before he passed away and counseled with me on my problems as President. He knew what the problems of the Presidency were. He had experienced them.

No man ever reached that high office that didn’t want to do, with all of the sincerity that he had in him, what was right. But the problem of the President is not doing what is right; the problem is knowing what is right.

President Eisenhower has communicated with me more than 30 times in 26 months, and has given me the wisdom that has come to him through the years as a student at West Point, as a young captain, as our European commander, as the Chief of Staff of the Army, as the President of Columbia, and finally as the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers in Europe, and President of the United States.

There is not a man I have on my Joint Chiefs of Staff in the prime of his life whose judgment I value more tonight than the judgment of Dwight David Eisenhower.

I called him and talked to him. I sent a general to see him. Then I put on my hat and went to his hospital room and talked to him for more than an hour before I issued the order that sent our men in to destroy the petroleum dumps near Hanoi and Haiphong.

I am very proud to say that that great patriot was one of the first to issue a statement approving of that action so everybody in the world would know that the former President and the present President were united and this Nation was not divided.

President Truman, from his home in Independence, Missouri, has come, has read, has seen, and has counseled, and he has agreed with the course we have taken.

I utter no words of criticism. I want to suppress no discussion. But I do hope that those who may not understand all the reasons for the judgments we have made will be a little tolerant, a little patient, and will ask themselves—as they start out always by saying, "I am confused," "I am worried," "I am troubled," "I am frustrated"—I would remind every one of them when they say that, they have no mortgage on stomach ulcers. I get them, too. I am troubled, too.

But I ask them when they get through with all of that palaver—for goodness’ sake give me their program and give me their plan.

When you think of the burdens that we carry, the responsibilities of this high office, the headaches and the heartaches that it brings, you could get sorry for yourself if you had time. But then you ought to take a trip around the world. You ought to look at the leader of any other nation. There is not a single one of them that I would trade places with. They all have more problems than I have.

I do have one hidden asset, one great strength. I saw it on the faces of Omaha today. I saw it on the cheeks in Des Moines tonight.

Prosperous, yes. Healthy, yes. Happy, yes. Happy, God-fearing, freedom-loving people.

Fight if they must, ready to negotiate if they can, but let no would-be conqueror everdoubt us. We shall persist, and America shall succeed.

NOTE: The President spoke at 8:48 p.m. at the Veterans Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa. In his opening words he referred to Governor Harold E. Hughes of Iowa, Governor William L. Guy of North Dakota, Governor Frank B. Morrison of Nebraska, Representative Clair E. Callan of Nebraska, Representatives John R. Schmidhauser, Neal Smith, John C. Culver, Bert Bandstra, Stanley L. Greigg, and John R. Hansen, all of Iowa, and Mrs. Harold Hughes, wife of the Governor of Iowa.

For the President’s speech on the same day in Omaha, Nebr., see Item 311.