Richard Nixon

As their international efforts increase their earnings, the nation benefits from a strengthened dollar position and an improved balance of payments.

While we are here, I think this is also a very special occasion in another sense, that I have nominated today the new Ambassador from the United States to Ireland, Mr. John Moore.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon,President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the month of May 1969 as Senior Citizens Month.

Both of us having visited your country, we feel very close to you and on this day we are so delighted to welcome you here so that you can speak to all Americans who on this day have a little bit of Irish in them.

I especially invite the older citizens of this Nation to use this month as a time for reexamining the social role which they are playing and the conditions under which they live.

I look forward to a continuation of that spirit of cooperation and friendship which has for so long existed between your country and mine.

I urge our people to participate with representatives of the transportation industry, our armed services, and other governmental agencies in the observance of these occasions through appropriate ceremonies.

Well, we also have an Irish setter, you see.

On this Saint Patrick's Day, the American people and I extend our warmest greeting to you and the people of Ireland.

This is a very special and happy occasion for us, and I understand an annual occasion here at the White House--the celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

America's transportation network is an example of democracy at work.

Having learned to live with change and challenge, they offer us, now and for the future, a valuable resource of skill and of wisdom.

Proud of my own and of my wife's Irish heritage and proud of the contributions made by the Irish to the United States and to the cause of freedom everywhere.

I urge them to find suitable means for expressing appreciation to older citizens, for encouraging their continued and expanded activity, and for meeting the special needs of the frail and the poor and the lonely among them.

The Secretary of Labor just recently completed a study that I had requested with regard to unemployment of youth in the United States.

All that we want and all that you want is to deal with this basically essential problem in an effective way; to move people from welfare rolls to payrolls.

And I realized how great our responsibility was, yours and mine, to see to it that this great Nation meets its responsibility in the world to maintain our strength so that we can negotiate the differences between nations that may possibly…

We feel that way particularly about our own.

The word 'welfare,' I think, is, in a sense, an inaccurate term if we are thinking of the welfare of the individual in the broadest sense.

That is truly in the best interest of the welfare of the Nation and the welfare of every individual.

I know that without your help we cannot do the job that needs to be done.

I think sometimes we fail to understand that only through strength can this great Nation lead for peace, and it is that kind of strength that we want.

When we think about the welfare of this country and the welfare of an individual, in the best sense, that means a job.

The sad part of the statistic is that unemployment among youth in the United States is higher than in any industrial country in the world.

My friends, I simply want to say this: Whoever is President of the United States, whether it is the man standing before you today, or whether it is his successor, let us be sure that whenever our President sits at a conference table with…