Speech Transcript:

 Twenty-five years ago I sat here as a freshman Congressman--along
with Speaker Albert--and listened for the first time to the President
address the State of the Union.

I shall never forget that moment. The Senate, the diplomatic corps,
the Supreme Court, the Cabinet entered the Chamber, and then the
President of the United States. As all of you are aware, I had some
differences with President Truman. He had some with me. But I
remember that on that day--the day he addressed that joint session of
the newly elected Republican 80th Congress, he spoke not as a
partisan, but as President of all the people--calling upon the
Congress to put aside partisan considerations in the national
interest.

The Greek-Turkish aid program, the Marshall Plan, the great foreign
policy initiatives which have been responsible for avoiding a world
war for over 25 years were approved by the 80th Congress, by a
bipartisan majority of which I was proud to be a part.

Nineteen hundred seventy-two is now before us. It holds precious time
in which to accomplish good for the Nation. We must not waste it. I
know the political pressures in this session of the Congress will be
great. There are more candidates for the Presidency in this Chamber
today than there probably have been at any one time in the whole
history of the Republic. And there is an honest difference of
opinion, not only between the parties, but within each party, on some
foreign policy issues and on some domestic policy issues.

However, there are great national problems that are so vital that
they transcend partisanship. So let us have our debates. Let us have
our honest differences. But let us join in keeping the national
interest first. Let us join in making sure that legislation the
Nation needs does not become hostage to the political interests of
any party or any person.

There is ample precedent, in this election year, for me to present
you with a huge list of new proposals, knowing full well that there
would not be any possibility of your passing them if you worked night
and day.

I shall not do that.

I have presented to the leaders of the Congress today a message of
15,000 words discussing in some detail where the Nation stands and
setting forth specific legislative items on which I have asked the
Congress to act. Much of this is legislation which I proposed in
1969, in 1970, and also in the first session of this 92d Congress and
on which I feel it is essential that action be completed this year.

I am not presenting proposals which have attractive labels but no
hope of passage. I am presenting only vital programs which are within
the capacity of this Congress to enact, within the capacity of the
budget to finance, and which I believe should be above
partisanship--programs which deal with urgent priorities for the
Nation, which should and must be the subject of bipartisan action by
this Congress in the interests of the country in 1972.

When I took the oath of office on the steps of this building just 3
years ago today, the Nation was ending one of the most tortured
decades in its history.

The 1960's were a time of great progress in many areas. But as we all
know, they were also times of great agony; the agonies of war, of
inflation, of rapidly rising crime, of deteriorating cities, of hopes
raised and disappointed, and of anger and frustration that led finally
to violence and to the worst civil disorder in a century.

I recall these troubles not to point any fingers of blame. The Nation
was so torn in those final years of the sixties that many in both
parties questioned whether America could be governed at all.

The Nation has made significant progress in these first years of the
seventies:

Our cities are no longer engulfed by civil disorders.

Our colleges and universities have again become places of learning
instead of battlegrounds.

A beginning has been made in preserving and protecting our
environment.

The rate of increase in crime has been slowed--and here in the
District of Columbia, the one city where the Federal Government has
direct jurisdiction, serious crime in 1971 was actually reduced by 13
percent from the year before.

Most important, because of the beginnings that have been made, we can
say today that this year 1972 can be the year in which America may
make the greatest progress in 25 years toward achieving our goal of
being at peace with all the nations of the world.

As our involvement in the war in Vietnam comes to an end, we must now
go on to build a generation of peace.

To achieve that goal, we must first face realistically the need to
maintain our defense.

In the past 3 years, we have reduced the burden of arms. For the
first time in 20 years, spending on defense has been brought below
spending on human resources.

As we look to the future, we find encouraging progress in our
negotiations with the Soviet Union on limitation of strategic arms.
And looking further into the future, we hope there can eventually be
agreement on the mutual reduction of arms. But until there is such a
mutual agreement, we must maintain the strength necessary to deter
war.

And that is why, because of rising research and development costs,
because of increases in military and civilian pay, because of the
need to proceed with new weapons systems, my budget for the coming
fiscal year will provide for an increase in defense spending.

Strong military defenses are not the enemy of peace; they are the
guardians of peace.

There could be no more misguided set of priorities than one which
would tempt others by weakening America, and thereby endanger the
peace of the world.

In our foreign policy, we have entered a new era. The world has
changed greatly in the 11 years since President John Kennedy said in
his Inaugural Address, ". . . we shall pay any price, bear any
burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to
assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Our policy has been carefully and deliberately adjusted to meet the
new realities of the new world we live in. We make today only those
commitments we are able and prepared to meet.

Our commitment to freedom remains strong and unshakable. But others
must bear their share of the burden of defending freedom around the
world.

And so this, then, is our policy:

We will maintain a nuclear deterrent adequate to meet any threat to
the security of the United States or of our allies.

We will help other nations develop the capability of defending
themselves.

We will faithfully honor all of our treaty commitments.

We will act to defend our interests, whenever and wherever they are
threatened anyplace in the world.

But where our interests or our treaty commitments are not involved,
our role will be limited:

We will not intervene militarily.

But we will use our influence to prevent war.

If war comes, we will use our influence to stop it.

Once it is over, we will do our share in helping to bind up the
wounds of those who have participated in it.

As you know, I will soon be visiting the People's Republic of China
and the Soviet Union. I go there with no illusions. We have great
differences with both powers. We shall continue to have great
differences. But peace depends on the ability of great powers to live
together on the same planet despite their differences.

We would not be true to our obligation to generations yet unborn if
we failed to seize this moment to do everything in our power to
insure that we will be able to talk about those differences, rather
than to fight about them, in the future.

As we look back over this century, let us, in the highest spirit of
bipartisanship, recognize that we can be proud of our Nation's record
in foreign affairs.

America has given more generously of itself toward maintaining
freedom, preserving peace, alleviating human suffering around the
globe, than any nation has ever done in the history of man.

We have fought four wars in this century, but our power has never
been used to break the peace, only to keep it; never been used to
destroy freedom, only to defend it. We now have within our reach the
goal of insuring that the next generation can be the first generation
in this century to be spared the scourges of war.

Turning to our problems at home, we are making progress toward our
goal of a new prosperity without war.

Industrial production, consumer spending, retail sales, personal
income all have been rising. Total employment, real income are the
highest in history. New homebuilding starts this past year reached
the highest level ever. Business and consumer confidence have both
been rising. Interest rates are down. The rate of inflation is down.
We can look with confidence to 1972 as the year when the back of
inflation will be broken.

Now, this is a good record, but it is not good enough--not when we
still have an unemployment rate of 6 percent.

It is not enough to point out that this was the rate of the early
peacetime years of the sixties, or that if the more than 2 million
men released from the Armed Forces and defense-related industries
were still in their wartime jobs, unemployment would be far lower.

Our goal in this country is full employment in peacetime. We intend
to meet that goal, and we can.

The Congress has helped to meet that goal by passing our job-creating
tax program last month.

The historic monetary agreements, agreements that we have reached
with the major European nations, Canada, and Japan, will help meet it
by providing new markets for American products, new jobs for American
workers.

Our budget will help meet it by being expansionary without being
inflationary-- a job-producing budget that will help take up the gap
as the economy expands to full employment.

Our program to raise farm income will help meet it by helping to
revitalize rural America, by giving to America's farmers their fair
share of America's increasing productivity.

We also will help meet our goal of full employment in peacetime with
a set of major initiatives to stimulate more imaginative use of
America's great capacity for technological advance, and to direct it
toward improving the quality of life for every American.

In reaching the moon, we demonstrated what miracles American
technology is capable of achieving. Now the time has come to move
more deliberately toward making full use of that technology here on
earth, of harnessing the wonders of science to the service of man.

I shall soon send to the Congress a special message proposing a new
program of Federal partnership in technological research and
development--with Federal incentives to increase private research,
federally supported research on projects designed to improve our
everyday lives in ways that will range from improving mass transit to
developing new systems of emergency health care that could save
thousands of lives annually.

Historically, our superior technology and high productivity have made
it possible for American workers to be the highest paid in the world
by far, and yet for our goods still to compete in world markets.

Now we face a new situation. As other nations move rapidly forward in
technology, the answer to the new competition is not to build a wall
around America, but rather to remain competitive by improving our own
technology still further and by increasing productivity in American
industry.

Our new monetary and trade agreements will make it possible for
American goods to compete fairly in the world's markets-- but they
still must compete. The new technology program will put to use the
skills of many highly trained Americans, skills that might otherwise
be wasted. It will also meet the growing technological challenge from
abroad, and it will thus help to create new industries, as well as
creating more jobs for America's workers in producing for the world's
markets.

This second session of the 92d Congress already has before it more
than 90 major Administration proposals which still await action.

I have discussed these in the extensive written message that I have
presented to the Congress today.

They include, among others, our programs to improve life for the
aging; to combat crime and drug abuse; to improve health services and
to ensure that no one will be denied needed health care because of
inability to pay; to protect workers' pension rights; to promote
equal opportunity for members of minorities, and others who have been
left behind; to expand consumer protection; to improve the
environment; to revitalize rural America; to help the cities; to
launch new initiatives in education; to improve transportation, and
to put an end to costly labor tie-ups in transportation.

The west coast dock strike is a case in point. This Nation cannot and
will not tolerate that kind of irresponsible labor tie-up in the
future.

The messages also include basic reforms which are essential if our
structure of government is to be adequate in the decades ahead.

They include reform of our wasteful and outmoded welfare
system--substitution of a new system that provides work requirements
and work incentives for those who can help themselves, income support
for those who cannot help themselves, and fairness to the working
poor.

They include a $17 billion program of Federal revenue sharing with
the States and localities as an investment in their renewal, an
investment also of faith in the American people.

They also include a sweeping reorganization of the executive branch
of the Federal Government so that it will be more efficient, more
responsive, and able to meet the challenges of the decades ahead.

One year ago, standing in this place, I laid before the opening
session of this Congress six great goals. One of these was welfare
reform. That proposal has been before the Congress now for nearly 2
1/2 years.

My proposals on revenue sharing, government reorganization, health
care, and the environment have now been before the Congress for
nearly a year. Many of the other major proposals that I have referred
to have been here that long or longer.

Now, 1971, we can say, was a year of consideration of these measures.
Now let us join in making 1972 a year of action on them, action by the
Congress, for the Nation and for the people of America.

Now, in addition, there is one pressing need which I have not
previously covered, but which must be placed on the national agenda.

We long have looked in this Nation to the local property tax as the
main source of financing for public primary and secondary education.

As a result, soaring school costs, soaring property tax rates now
threaten both our communities and our schools. They threaten
communities because property taxes, which more than doubled in the 10
years from 1960 to '70, have become one of the most oppressive and
discriminatory of all taxes, hitting most cruelly at the elderly and
the retired; and they threaten schools, as hard-pressed voters
understandably reject new bond issues at the polls.

The problem has been given even greater urgency by four recent court
decisions, which have held that the conventional method of financing
schools through local property taxes is discriminatory and
unconstitutional.

Nearly 2 years ago, I named a special Presidential commission to
study the problems of school finance, and I also directed the Federal
departments to look into the same problems. We are developing
comprehensive proposals to meet these problems.

This issue involves two complex and interrelated sets of problems:
support of the schools and the basic relationships of Federal, State,
and local governments in any tax reforms.

Under the leadership of the Secretary of the Treasury, we are
carefully reviewing all of the tax aspects, and I have this week
enlisted the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in
addressing the intergovernmental relations aspects.

I have asked this bipartisan Commission to review our proposals for
Federal action to cope with the gathering crisis of school finance
and property taxes. Later in the year, when both Commissions have
completed their studies, I shall make my final recommendations for
relieving the burden of property taxes and providing both fair and
adequate financing for our children's education.

These recommendations will be revolutionary. But all these
recommendations, however, will be rooted in one fundamental principle
with which there can be no compromise: Local school boards must have
control over local schools.

As we look ahead over the coming decades, vast new growth and change
are not only certainties, they will be the dominant reality of this
world, and particularly of our life in America.

Surveying the certainty of rapid change, we can be like a fallen
rider caught in the stirrups--or we can sit high in the saddle, the
masters of change, directing it on a course we choose.

The secret of mastering change in today's world is to reach back to
old and proven principles, and to adapt them with imagination and
intelligence to the new realities of a new age.

That is what we have done in the proposals that I have laid before
the Congress. They are rooted in basic principles that are as
enduring as human nature, as robust as the American experience; and
they are responsive to new conditions. Thus they represent a spirit
of change that is truly renewal.

As we look back at those old principles, we find them as timely as
they are timeless.

We believe in independence, and self-reliance, and the creative value
of the competitive spirit.

We believe in full and equal opportunity for all Americans and in the
protection of individual rights and liberties.

We believe in the family as the keystone of the community, and in the
community as the keystone of the Nation.

We believe in compassion toward those in need.

We believe in a system of law, justice, and order as the basis of a
genuinely free society.

We believe that a person should get what he works for--and that those
who can, should work for what they get.

We believe in the capacity of people to make their own decisions in
their own lives, in their own communities--and we believe in their
right to make those decisions.

In applying these principles, we have done so with the full
understanding that what we seek in the seventies, what our quest is,
is not merely for more, but for better--for a better quality of life
for all Americans.

Thus, for example, we are giving a new measure of attention to
cleaning up our air and water, making our surroundings more
attractive. We are providing broader support for the arts, helping
stimulate a deeper appreciation of what they can contribute to the
Nation's activities and to our individual lives.

But nothing really matters more to the quality of our lives than the
way we treat one another, than our capacity to live respectfully
together as a unified society, with a full, generous regard for the
rights of others and also for the feelings of others.

As we recover from the turmoil and violence of recent years, as we
learn once again to speak with one another instead of shouting at one
another, we are regaining that capacity.

As is customary here, on this occasion, I have been talking about
programs. Programs are important. But even more important than
programs is what we are as a Nation--what we mean as a Nation, to
ourselves and to the world.

In New York Harbor stands one of the most famous statues in the
world--the Statue of Liberty, the gift in 1886 of the people of
France to the people of the United States. This statue is more than a
landmark; it is a symbol--a symbol of what America has meant to the
world.

It reminds us that what America has meant is not its wealth, and not
its power, but its spirit and purpose--a land that enshrines liberty
and opportunity, and that has held out a hand of welcome to millions
in search of a better and a fuller and, above all, a freer life.

The world's hopes poured into America, along with its people. And
those hopes, those dreams, that have been brought here from every
corner of the world, have become a part of the hope that we now hold
out to the world.

Four years from now, America will celebrate the 200th anniversary of
its founding as a Nation. There are those who say that the old Spirit
of '76 is dead--that we no longer have the strength of character, the
idealism, the faith in our founding purposes that that spirit
represents.

Those who say this do not know America.

We have been undergoing self-doubts and self-criticism. But these are
only the other side of our growing sensitivity to the persistence of
want in the midst of plenty, of our impatience with the slowness with
which age-old ills are being overcome.

If we were indifferent to the shortcomings of our society, or
complacent about our institutions, or blind to the lingering
inequities--then we would have lost our way.

But the fact that we have those concerns is evidence that our ideals,
deep down, are still strong. Indeed, they remind us that what is
really best about America is its compassion. They remind us that in
the final analysis, America is great not because it is strong, not
because it is rich, but because this is a good country.

Let us reject the narrow visions of those who would tell us that we
are evil because we are not yet perfect, that we are corrupt because
we are not yet pure, that all the sweat and toil and sacrifice that
have gone into the building of America were for naught because the
building is not yet done.

Let us see that the path we are traveling is wide, with room in it
for all of us, and that its direction is toward a better Nation and a
more peaceful world.

Never has it mattered more that we go forward together.

Look at this Chamber. The leadership of America is here today--the
Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Senate, the House of
Representatives.

Together, we hold the future of the Nation, and the conscience of the
Nation in our hands.

Because this year is an election year, it will be a time of great
pressure.

If we yield to that pressure and fail to deal seriously with the
historic challenges that we face, we will have failed the trust of
millions of Americans and shaken the confidence they have a right to
place in us, in their Government.

Never has a Congress had a greater opportunity to leave a legacy of a
profound and constructive reform for the Nation than this Congress.

If we succeed in these tasks, there will be credit enough for
all--not only for doing what is right, but doing it in the right way,
by rising above partisan interest to serve the national interest. And
if we fail, more than any one of us, America will be the loser.

That is why my call upon the Congress today is for a high
statesmanship, so that in the years to come Americans will look back
and say because it withstood the intense pressures of a political
year, and achieved such great good for the American people and for
the future of this Nation, this was truly a great Congress.