I also invite the people of the United States to honor the memory of Leif Erikson on that day by holding appropriate exercises and ceremonies in schools and churches, or other suitable places

I, Lyndon B. Johnson,President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Saturday, October 9, 1965, as Leif Erikson Day

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson,President of the United States of America, and presiding officer of the Smithsonian Institution, hereby proclaim the occasion of the bicentennial celebration of the birth of James Smithson; and I…

The Congress has passed, and I shall sign today, a bill to establish the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch, Iowa, the scene of his birth and the site of his burial.

Our gratitude goes to Congressman Schmidhauser for introducing this legislation and working so tirelessly for its passage, and the entire Iowa delegation, both House and Senate.

Public life can be a cruel life and President Hoover experienced that cruelty.

Ambassador Lodge and I are fully agreed on the underlying principle that in Viet-Nam we are there to help the people and their Government to help themselves.

He was adviser to two Presidents on Government reorganization, and he was adviser to a third one, yours truly, on other things, including Government reorganization.

In Viet-Nam the credibility of our commitment everywhere is challenged.

And when he was first asked, his first and immediate answer was 'Yes, Mr. President.'

I selected General Taylor for this most important of our diplomatic assignments with the understanding that I would ask him to serve for a period of a year.

The United States would never undertake the sacrifice these efforts require if its help were not wanted and requested.

But it is a very great cause for special pride and reassurance that seasoned and able Americans like Maxwell Taylor and Henry Cabot Lodge are willing to respond voluntarily and unselfishly to the same call that our young men have responded…

Herbert Hoover was truly a remarkable man.

This house and this Government and this society, of which we are members, really belong to no party, because the partisan spirit is an alien spirit to America.

Herbert Hoover was President when I first came to Washington in 1931.

I shall always cherish his wisdom and his insights, but most especially I shall cherish the inspiration of his character.

What America is, and all that America will ever be, is built on the willingness of her most able citizens to serve their country in times of need without regard either to their personal comfort or sacrifice.

When he died, we felt the loss of something good and something honest and something uniquely American.

This is a very proud occasion for all of us here.

The defense of peace is the very purpose of our power, and peace for the people of Viet-Nam is the purpose of our presence in Viet-Nam.

Ambassador Lodge and I have spent many hours together these past few weeks.

America is truly, I think, 'America the Beautiful.'

The seas are not our only recourse and that we aim to make it feasible to mine, desalt, and put to productive use the brackish groundwater which underlies more than 2 million square miles of the United States.

I want this Nation to lead the effort to close this gap--not in the next 50 years but in the next 5 years.