Newspapers and television have certainly been giving full coverage to your activities in this convention. Everything from the Walter Cronkite Show to the Kalamazoo Times has described the threats, pressures, splits, counter- splits, accusations, rebuttals, power plays, even pickets.
I feel right at home.
Seven years ago when we started the Peace Corps, the Communists called me a “hog butcher from Chicago.” Then they called me a Wall Street Imperialist, which is pretty good for a Democrat.
The Republicans, of course, charged that the Peace Corps would fail. They said the Peace Corps Volunteers were no match for the KKVD. Nixon called us Kennedy’s Kiddie Korps. Ike said it was the Children’s Crusade. Mrs. Bolton from Ohio said she was “absolutely terrified” by the idea of the Peace Corps.
But the Peace Corps has succeeded in becoming one of America’s most supported programs.
When we started the War on Poverty, people accused us of starting a Robin Hood program. They said OEO was the worst thing to happen to America since the Edsel.
The Mayors were against us. The private welfare agencies were against us. The Catholics didn’t like us because we started family planning clinics. The Protestants didn’t like us because we didn’t have enough of them.
The New Republic didn’t like us. They said we weren’t spending enough money on the poor. The National Review said we spent too much. Art Buchwald said, “Asking the poor to participate in the program was like asking the Japanese how to win World War II.”
But no one has ever accused us of having a “no win” policy. We’ve been out to win from the start. And tonight, I can report we are winning our war.
Three days ago, our bill passed in the House -- 283 to 129. That’s the biggest victory on Capitol Hill this session!
But earlier, people were saying OEO would get cut up by the Republicans. They said, Job Corps would go to Labor, Head Start to the Office of Education, the neighborhood Youth Corps would go out the window.
But what happened? None of those programs were spun off. And on the final roll call vote, the Republicans rushed to join the War against Poverty. A majority of Republicans supported our bill: 97 to 79. Last year, only 15 Republicans voted for us and 105 opposed! In 1965, when there were fewer Republicans in Congress, it was 110 against and 24 in favor. In 1964, when the program began, 145 said no and 22 said yes.
What caused the big switch? Some people said we had a super lobby behind us. Others accused the Republicans of tactical blunders.
Both of those reasons are wrong. OEO’s success is based on other reasons. First, it’s a local program that involves local leadership--from business, the churches, labor unions, even the poor. Second, OEO is inexpensive. It costs only 1-1/2 cents out of every tax dollar, whereas 75 cents out of every dollar goes for past and present wars. Third, it’s a small bureaucracy. With only 2800 employees, OEO is half the size of the Small Business Administration Bureau, about 1/500th the size of the Defense Department.
But most of all, OEO’s success comes from the people. When the people heard that OEO was in trouble, they told the Congress “Hands Off!” It was the people who got the program through Congress--not money, not power.
- In New York, 5000 people gathered the other night under the Statue of Liberty at a mass rally for OEO. They were there for four hours in sub-freezing weather.
- 400 poverty workers walked from Baltimore to Washington to signal support of OEO. The walk took 2-1/2 days.
- 600 Head Start mothers met in a mass rally in New York. They got so mad at Congress that the next day 200 mothers drove down to Washington to sit in the House gallery.
- All 200 Roman Catholic bishops meeting in Washington adopted a resolution urging full support of OEO! Only the year before, the same bishops severely criticized 0E0 for its family planning clinics.
- WICS, Women in Community Service, bought a full page ad in the New York Times backing OEO.
- 28 Republican mayors wired Congress to pass the OEO bill.
So it was local action that produced the overwhelming vote of 283 to 129 in the House. It was local action that came from the people -- their strength and their power. That’s the way it should be. Because politics is people. The Greek word “politikos” means people, just as the Greek work “polis” is where people live.
Thus, a good politician is one who has a deep understanding of people. Because that’s where he gets his power. As Ernest Hocking said:
“Politics is the most concerned of arts. It is most concerned with hard facts. For what facts are harder than the facts of human interest and passion?”
But there is a lot of talk going around right now, repeating what a Washington columnist said, that “it’s a bad time to be a politician.”
Nobody has trouble believing that statement!
- City halls have never been held in more suspicion. When the House voted last week to include Mayors in local Community Action Programs, many said that was the end of Community Action. “The Fat Cats in city hall will take over.” And when Mayor John Lindsay proposed to set up little city halls around New York City, many said, “What? More city halls? Damn. One city hall is enough.”
- Senators and Congressmen are concerned about the reputation of Congress. Many people said good riddance when Adam Clayton Powell was voted out of Congress. They called him a crooked politician who got what he deserved. The same was said for Senator Thomas Dodd. And now, Senator Edward Long is getting his.
- How many people point nowadays to a Congressman and say, “There goes a servant of the people?”
- President Johnson has never been more condemned – all the way from an off-Broadway play to the off-centered paranoia of crackpots who think he is a killer.
- People have never had less loyalty to politicians. They think of what Jay Gould, the railroad tycoon, said 80 years ago. “In Republican counties, I’m for the Republicans. In Democratic counties, I’m for the Democrats. But everywhere, I’m for the Erie Railroad.”
- As for political conventions, how many Americans really take them seriously? How many read their party’s platform? How many of us will read the platform that this convention decides on? In 1932, Arthur Krock wrote this about Democrats when they go to conventions:
“Democrats are excitable, difficult to lead, idealistic and reckless when they gather in convention. History demonstrates that they would rather fight among themselves than with the enemy. When Republican delegations are released from their home instructions, they go to their bosses. When Democratic delegations are released, they go to pieces.”
When this convention is over, will you go to pieces? Or will you go to the only place a good politician can go – to the people.
Every four years, Theodore White tells us about the making of a President. Why don’t the Young Democrats tell us about the making of a politician? All of you are here because that’s what you want to become – a good politician.
That’s what this country needs most right now. We need good politicians who are more than bright young men with bright ideas on how to curb inflation, destroy poverty, stop the war, argue with deGaulle or ban the bomb! I’m not against bright young men – 30 years ago, I used to think I was one myself.
But, right now, we have enough smart young Democrats to reform a thousand worlds, but not enough involved young Democrats to reform one.
What kind of involvement? The kind that makes you become a good politicians: involvement with people – volunteering your service so that their lot becomes better.
Lyndon Johnson did exactly that. At 21, he was a school teacher – among Mexican-Americans. Lyndon Johnson lived with them, suffered with them, hoped with them. He learned how to live off frijoles and beans, how to love Mexican music and Mexican culture. When he came to Washington as a Congressman, he didn’t need to look around for some fashionable causes to champion. He already had enough unfashionable causes – poverty, disease, sickness, the lot of the Mexican-Americans. The lot of the poor, wherever they were in America.
Thirty years later, when he became President, he didn’t need anyone to tell him to start a poverty war. He had already decided to fight one long ago – long before he became a politician. But now he had the power. And he used it.
John Kennedy did the same thing. When he was 22, he was travelling around the world. He was in Munich when Hitler came to power. He was in England when the country was sleeping. In 1946, he went to North Vietnam. He spoke to Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Diem Tsien.
When he wasn’t traveling, he was reading. He read every book he could get on politics, history, economics. At 22, he knew the differences between the political philosophy of Metternich and Bismarck. He knew American history. He read the constitution over and over.
When he became President, everyone felt good about having such a young man of wit, charm, and intelligence in the White House. When they heard his inaugural address, many people thought he sat down with a speechwriter and wrote it the day before.
He didn’t. He lived those famous words long before he said them. He had planned to become a journalist or a teacher. But when he got into politics by chance, he was prepared nevertheless. He had done his thinking – now he could do his acting.
That’s why President Kennedy was a rare politician. Instead of thinking about the next election, he thought about the next generation. He wasn’t too worried about his chances in ’64. He was working to prevent Orwell’s 1984.
More than anything else, John Kennedy understood the history of this country. A nation of immigrants. It was not natural or logical necessity that created America – but an act of the will repeated over and over again by boatloads of immigrants. They came to the U.S.A. because of a conscious choice.
If one word can summarize what Kennedy tried to instill into the Democratic Party and which Lyndon Johnson is trying to carry out, it is service.
Our country was put together by volunteers – and now it must be held together by volunteers.
How can young Democrats best volunteer their service?
One way is to volunteer a year, or two years, of your careers to work in city hall. Many of you are lawyers. You probably have more rich clients than poor clients.
Why not leave your comfortable offices for a year or so, and work in city hall. It’s easy to sit around a convention and talk about making a new America – but the real challenge it so do this in concrete ways.
Instead of letting America’s city halls be hangouts for bureaucrats, why not make them havens for humanists? We need volunteers to bring this about.
Four hundred years ago, the city hall in Europe was a sanctuary for the people. City hall represented honesty and efficiency. Because the city hall of a little burg in France or Germany was truly of the people. It was political in the Greek meaning of the word: of the people.
The people knew it was honest – because they were honest. It was efficient – because they were efficient. There was a city council and a city manager. They served the people, not themselves.
Why don’t the young Democrats make a resolution to volunteer their services for city hall?
What is this country going to be like 10 years from now? 20 years from now? 30 or 40 years from now? Part of the answer lies in city hall. That’s where the power is. You need to go there to get it. Before you can make things better, you have to make things work.
Why can’t the young Democrats inspire others to volunteer? Why can’t they go back home to their local towns and cities – and establish local volunteer service boards?
In America today, there are 4100 local draft boards. If we can to go all that trouble to get young men to defend this country, why can’t we make an equal effort for volunteers to build this country?
Why can’t the young Democrats set up 4100 volunteer service boards – maybe next door to the 4100 selective service boards?
This would not be compulsive volunteering, with letters being sent out saying “Greetings.” Nor would it interfere with the draft board.
Instead, the idea of a local volunteers’ service board would be simple: to use the talents of Americans who have time on their hands to help Americans who have poverty or sickness on their hands.
Since President Kennedy made his famous appeal in his inaugural address, millions of Americans have asked what they could do for their country. But too often, they have gotten no answer.
“Join the Peace Corps or join VISTA,” they have been told. But millions of Americans can’t take on that kind of obligation. They have husbands or wives to care for, children to raise and jobs to keep. They are idealists bound by circumstances. Too often, they think Peace Corps and VISTA are the only outlets for service. So they say, “That’s it. I’ve asked what I can do for my country. And my country hasn’t responded. I’m not needed.”
They are wrong – they are needed desperately.
That would be the function of a local volunteer service board. The board would let people know where volunteers are needed. The reason why thousands of Americans volunteered to work in the Civil Rights movement was because they knew they were needed. They were told. They were aroused. They were invited.
But the Civil Rights movement isn’t the only thing that needs volunteers. In America today, there are more than five million retarded children and adults, four million migrant adults and children, about 20 million unskilled Indians, former prisoners, Cuban refugees, unemployed youth, victims of automation, school dropouts, and push-outs, young addicts, slum parents and slum children.
But the trouble is, affluent Americans don’t see all this. It’s true that some rich Americans don’t care about the poor and the sick, but millions just don’t know about them!
When Senator Murphy went to Mississippi last summer to investigate poverty, he saw poor people who were starving. “I didn’t know we had starving people in America,” said Senator Murphy, very astonished.
Of course he didn’t know. And it’s probably not his fault – because no one told him about it, at least not in the movies.
Thanks God, Senator Murphy found out. But what about the 100 million other Americans like him – the 54% of Americans who earn and spend over $7000 a year? Most of them still don’t know.
Why not? Because they haven’t been told.
That would be the role of the volunteer service board in the local community. Any American who wants to answer the question of what he can do for his country can now do something – even if he has only one free hour a week.
He can go to the local volunteer service board and just say two words: “I’m available.” He would be registered and would put down his interests, skills, volunteer experience, and available period for service.
Why can’t young Democrats put pressure on our high schools, colleges and universities to give “academic credit for volunteer service.”
We hear a lot of educators saying that American education has become irrelevant. But yet, these same educators keep on forcing students to get so many credit hours at such-and-such a quality quotient in order to graduate at such-and-such a time.
The reason American education is so meaningless is because we test only the brains of our youth – we give them no chance to test their courage. Making good is more important than doing good.
If American education is hid-bound to the credit system, then why can’t it give academic credit for volunteer service?
We have junior year abroad and think it’s great. But instead of offering students a year in Europe to twiddle their thumbs, why not let them serve at home in a mental hospital, or Head Start or Job Corps, to stimulate their hearts.
The purpose of education is to lead a person into life. Then why not a year of volunteer service in Head Start or Job Corps or any similar place to confront a student with real life? He will see it more thoroughly than a dozen junior years abroad – and more realistically than a hundred credit hours in sociology and psychology.
If our colleges would be willing to give a year’s worth of credit for volunteer service, I guarantee that thousands of students will give a year’s worth of their life. Because that is what the rebellion of young Americans is all about – they are denied participation in life. So they rebel against a world they didn’t make. It’s time America started letting students build a world they can make.
Third, I propose that as Democrats – old and young – we strive to regain service as a national ideal. That may sound trite and corny – but there is no other way out of America’s present social crisis.
Americans must either begin serving each other with compassion or we shall end by destroying each other with hatred. Our choice is between the hatred that ran wild in the riots of the past three summers or the love shown by the more than 500,000 volunteers now serving in the War on Poverty.
Americans have become over-sophisticated – we feel uneasy when someone urges us to give with our heart. Because we prefer to give with our bankroll. But America does not have a financial problem.
Instead, America has a human problem – and what it needs is our commitment of personal love; the love that gets you into the skin of another man, being weakened by his burdens and heartened by his joys.
If something as plain and common as a volunteer service board is needed to bring this off, then let’s use it. At least it is a concrete effort to which we can assign our concrete energies.
Each of us is called on either to make a small offering of love or else endure a large amount of hate.
The reason there is hate in the world is not because service has failed, but because service has not been tried. We ought to begin trying – by volunteering a few hours each week to teach slum kids, or teaching English to a Mexican-American, or taking a mental patient for a drive, or helping an e-prisoner find a job, or inviting a Job Corps kid to spend Christmas with us.
As Democrats, we owe this service to our party. As Americans, we owe it to our country. And, as human beings, we owe it to ourselves.
