Part 29

If ever there were a time to know the pride and the excitement and the hope of being an American--it is this time.

So this, my friends, is the State of our Union: seeking, building, tested many times in this past year--and always equal to the test.

Thank you and good night.

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State of the Union Address Lyndon B. Johnson January 14, 1969

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress and my fellow Americans:

For the sixth and the last time, I present to the Congress my assessment of the State of the Union.

I shall speak to you tonight about challenge and opportunity--and about the commitments that all of us have made together that will, if we carry them out, give America our best chance to achieve the kind of great society that we all want. Every President lives, not only with what is, but with what has been and what could be.

Most of the great events in his Presidency are part of a larger sequence extending back through several years and extending back through several other administrations.

Urban unrest, poverty, pressures on welfare, education of our people, law enforcement and law and order, the continuing crisis in the Middle East, the conflict in Vietnam, the dangers of nuclear war, the great difficulties of dealing with the Communist powers, all have this much in common: They and their causes--the causes that gave rise to them--all of these have existed with us for many years. Several Presidents have already sought to try to deal with them. One or more Presidents will try to resolve them or try to contain them in the years that are ahead of us.

But if the Nation's problems are continuing, so are this great Nation's assets:

--our economy,

--the democratic system,

--our sense of exploration, symbolized most recently by the wonderful flight of the Apollo 8, in which all Americans took great pride,

--the good commonsense and sound judgment of the American people, and

--their essential love of justice.

We must not ignore our problems. But .neither should we ignore our strengths. Those strengths are available to sustain a President of either party--to support his progressive efforts both at home and overseas.

Unfortunately, the departure of an administration does not mean the end of the problems that this administration has faced. The effort to meet the problems must go on, year after year, if the momentum that we have all mounted together in these past years is not to be lost.

Although the struggle for progressive change is continuous, there are times when a watershed is reached--when there is--if not really a break with the past--at least the fulfillment of many of its oldest hopes, and a stepping forth into a new environment, to seek new goals. I think the past 5 years have been such a time.

We have finished a major part of the old agenda.

Some of the laws that we wrote have already, in front of our eyes, taken on the flesh of achievement.

Medicare that we were unable to pass for so many years is now a part of American life.

Voting rights and the voting booth that we debated so long back in the riffles, and the doors to public service, are open at last to all Americans regardless of their color.

Schools and school children all over America tonight are receiving Federal assistance to go to good schools.

Preschool education--Head Start--is already here to stay and, I think, so are the Federal programs that tonight are keeping more than a million and a half of the cream of our young people in the colleges and the universities of this country.

Part of the American earth--not only in description on a map, but in the reality of our shores, our hills, our parks, our forests, and our mountains--has been permanently set aside for the American public and for their benefit. And there is more that will be set aside before this administration ends.

Five million Americans have been trained for jobs in new Federal programs.

I think it is most important that we all realize tonight that this Nation is close to full employment--with less unemployment than we have had at any time in almost 20 years. That is not in theory; that is in fact. Tonight, the unemployment rate is down to 3.3 percent. The number of jobs has grown more than 8 1/2 million in the last 5 years. That is more than in all the preceding 12 years.