The Civil Service Commission, acting under the authority of Executive Order 11246, has issued new regulations which will become effective on and after April 3d.

Our Government has long been one avenue by which members of minorities have entered into full participation of our national life.

I want this administration to be recognized as one in which we finally achieve full and equal opportunity for persons of every race, color, creed, and nationality.

As long as any American is denied the chance to fully develop and to use his talents, to become all that he can be, then every American is less than he should be.

We have failed that person and, finally, we have failed our country.

With your leadership and with your personal commitment to this objective, I have high confidence and great hope that we can build a government where talent and energy and integrity will prevail and where discrimination will not.

These new regulations call upon you to undertake action programs.

If race, skin color, religious beliefs, sex, or national origin prevent anyone from reaching the heights, then we have all wasted a human being.

I intend to do everything I can to see that the goal is finally reached.

It is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity.

A Negro scholar and exceptional administrator for the first time sits in the President's Cabinet.

So I challenge each of you here today, and each of you within the sound of my voice, to try to accept this as your own creed.

If we are going to have equal employment opportunity in the Federal Government, we must attack that problem on many fronts.

If members of minority groups can't be employed because they can't find housing, then we must find housing.

If our magnificent young men can die for freedom in a foreign land, how can we refuse any of them a full measure of freedom and opportunity here at home?

I want to talk to you about a goal of this Government that is very close to my heart.

A most charming and intelligent lady is our first woman to be both an Ambassador and a Negro.

Able Negro lady is a United States Federal judge.