It really was the instrument which took a boy from the countryside of Texas and opened to him the boundless dreams and the opportunities of American life.
Lyndon Johnson
The Public Record
Lyndon Baines Johnson was the 36th President of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. A member of the Democratic Party, he was born in Texas and began his political career as a U.S. Representative in 1937, later becoming a U.S. Senator in 1949. Johnson ascended to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and his administration is noted for significant domestic policies, including the Great Society programs aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice. His legislative achievements included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid.
This Nation has really always been an experiment--an experiment in the capacity of a whole people, ruling its rulers, to deal with changing peril and with shifting expectations.
I not only learned, but I taught, and I saw for myself how the light of learning could brighten the path of the humble.
This central faith remains an unchallenged tenet of the American way of life.
A great public servant in the early days of the republic of my State said: 'Education is the guardian genius of democracy. It is the only dictator that free men will recognize, and the only ruler that free men will accept.'
We are far too easily satisfied when we know that a child has a desk in a classroom with a teacher to instruct him.
He will always have direct and ready access to, and the full and respectful confidence of, the President of the United States and the Secretary of State.
The roads we walk and the lanes we sail lead toward a more prosperous world.
In this America--this lively, stirring, exciting America of today--our hearts, as well as our homes, are open to you, open to you always.
Adlai Stevenson enlarged our horizons as Americans and helped to light the hopes of mankind all around the world.
We mean to win the wars that we have declared: the wars against poverty, the wars against ignorance, the wars against disease, the wars against discrimination and bias and bigotry.
Expanding our overseas trade is a matter that this Nation must give the highest priority.
In all the fields of transportation, our future progress depends upon the willingness of many different groups and interests to cooperate in a manner to which they are not always accustomed.
At the insistence of the President of his country, he has accepted this call to duty.
In this new office he will speak not only for an administration but he will speak for an entire Nation, firmly, earnestly, and responsibly committed to the strength and to the success of the United Nations in its works for peace around the…
All through our Nation's history the prosperity of our people--as well as the safety of our people--has been tied very closely to the role that we play on the seas of the world.
He called us to greatness--and we shall never forget either the man or his call.