people out of the slough and despond of decay and poverty and disease and illiteracy and ignorance in which we find ourselves? If we do this for our own people, we also want to see other people in the world have the same thing. For that reason we are also trying to weave into our AID programs, exchanges, education, Peace Corps missions, so that we can say this is what we stand for at home and throughout the world. We want a Nation of 200 million who are educated, enlightened, free of disease. We also want a world of 3 billion that will ultimately attain it, because when we do these things, we will wipe out the ills that cause riots, wars, and anarchy. That is what we are trying to do in this land. Not long ago our House of Representatives passed the international education act, which will help our schools and colleges build bridges to your countries to carry out the things that I have mentioned here this morning. That measure is now awaiting action in the Senate. I am doing my utmost. I want to put in a plug here to encourage action on that international education bill in the Senate. I believe the outlook is bright. Why are we making all these efforts? Not only because we think education and world cooperation are necessary to a decent life for all human beings, but we believe these efforts can mean the difference, the important difference, between living at peace and living at war. I have lived long enough to know that a peaceful world will not come through some final summit conference, through the dramatic feats of statesmen, or the eloquence of some orator. Peace will come, I believe, when men everywhere learn, slowly and painfully perhaps, that more is to be gained from cooperation than from conflict. Peace will come not suddenly, like a lightning flash. It will come slowly and steadily, like the light of day. The work you are doing as exchange teachers in America will help to bring that light. Four thousand years ago it was boasted that "We have thrown open our city to the world; we never . . . exclude visitors from any opportunity of learning or observing... In our age we have thrown open our Nation to the world. America welcomes the world with open arms because we believe that learning and observing and teaching are among man's noblest and most hopeful works. Because you are here to advance those works, I came here this morning to thank you for that effort and to salute you for the assignment that you have and the undertaking that is yours. I welcome and wish you a great year among our people, because you, and those like you, in my judgment, hold the future of human kind in your hands. If you are successful in helping us to banish poverty and illiteracy and ignorance and disease and pollution and filthy air and filthy streams from the world, you will banish war from the world. Think about what a great satisfaction it will be to you or to your children or your children's children to recognize that you participated in an effort that got away from the necessity of man killing man, from disease eating up man, or from ignorance and discrimination and bigotry destroying man to the day when there can be rose gardens like this throughout the world. And the educated minds can become the guardians of democracy. We will put our swords over the door or under the bed and we will come and reason together and enjoy the bounty of our efforts. I commend you for having enlisted, I hope, for the duration. [NOTE. The President spoke at 11:15 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House. [As printed, this item follows the text of the White House release.] INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY Proclamation 3739. Dated August 30, 1966. Released August 31, 1966 By the President of the United States of America a Proclamation It is not difficult to test a man for literacy. Ask him to write a simple message. Or to read one. Millions upon untold millions of persons cannot pass that test. Their communication with their fellow man is severely limited. Their intelligence is unformed by contact with the written word. They live out their lives in the darkness of ignorance. Illiteracy is the greatest single barrier to economic and social progress in many of the countries of the world. The people of Angola are 97 percent illiterate. Rhodesia is 93 percent illiterate. Haiti has the highest illiteracy rate in the Western Hemispherenearly 90 percent. In Iraq, in Iran, in Bolivia and in many more countries the majority of men and women cannot read and write. Even in our own country where education is accorded its proper importance, there are three miÏlion illiterate adults. September 8, 1966 is the first anniversary of an event which I believe was the turning point in the battle against illiteracy. On that date one year ago the World Congress of Ministers of Education convened in Tehran, Iran to consider the problem. That Congress, made up in part by a delegation of distinguished statesmen and scholars sent by the United States Government, established the principles which now guide the highly commendable efforts of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Through experimental projects UNESCO is creating methods, techniques, and materials for full-scale literacy programs. Here at home education is receiving concentrated attention. A partnership of Federal, State, and local authorities is working to provide America with an educational system commensurate with our position of world leadership. More than a dozen major pieces of education legislation enacted in the past three years have added greatly to the effectiveness of the partnership. Our efforts for education of quality and equality extend to those adult citizens who have received little or no formal schooling. They are not discards of our society. They must share in its economic, social, and cultural benefits. New adult education programs will equip them to participate as fully as possible. The work of the United States of America to eradicate ignorance does not stop at our shores. Nowhere in the world is the universal desire to eliminate illiteracy held more passionately than in this Nation which was founded on belief in the dignity, worth, and perfectibility of the individual. Our worldwide endeavors—individual, private, and governmental-are unsurpassed. In recognition of the foregoing, the Congress has, by a joint resolution of August 27, 1966, authorized and requested the President to proclaim the 8th day of September 1966 as International Literacy Day: Now, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 8, 1966, as International Literacy Day, and call upon the people of the United States to commemorate that day in ways most appropriate to the occasion and to reaffirm our strong desire to cooperate with national and international organizations, private groups, and individuals dedicated to the goal of eliminating the scourge of illiteracy. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed. DONE at the City of Washington, this 30th day of August in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-first. [SEAL] LYNDON B. JOHNSON. ON-THE-JOB TRAINING PROGRAMS Statement by the President and Memorandum Report by Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz. September 2, 1966 A major program segment of our manpower policy is already beginning to pay its own way. Secretary of Labor Wirtz has reported to me that the average trainee in the on-the-job training programs developed by the Labor Department is returning the total cost of his training to the Treasury in less than 2 years. There will continue to be dividends for many years to come. We welcome the fiscal integrity of these programs. We also welcome the individual dividends paid. Through these training programs tens of thousands of jobless workers are becoming productive citizens. Their dignity and self-respect are being restored. On-the-job training is an example of a sound economic and social investment. It illustrates clearly how the Nation and the individual may benefit from the wise use of the national wealth. HIGHWAY SAFETY Statement by the President Urging Americans To Drive Responsibly During the Labor Day Weekend. September 2, 1966 Since the automobile was invented, 12 million Americans have died. in traffic accidents. Fifty thousand Americans will die this year alone-hundreds on our crowded highways this holiday weekend. This slaughter must stop. The Congress has moved to stop it by passing the historic Traffic Safety Act of 1966. For the first time now, we can mount a massive and truly national traffic safety program. For the first time, we can expect to replace suicide with sanity on the roads of this country. But legislation can only guard your life-it cannot save it. Government programs can only protect you-they cannot do the driving for you. So I ask every American to drive responsibly on this holiday. Let us all join this Labor Day weekend to help launch a new and a safer day in the history of American driving. [NOTE. The President read the statement at 11:55 a.m. in the Theater at the White House.] -What part can libraries play in the development of our communications and information-exchange networks? -Are our Federal efforts to assist libraries intelligently administered, or are they too fragmented among separate programs and agencies? -Are we getting the most benefit for the taxpayer's dollar spent? To help answer these questions, I have signed today an Executive order creating the National Advisory Commission on Libraries, composed of distinguished citizens and experts. I have asked the Commission to appraise the role and adequacy of our libraries, now and in the future, as sources for scholarly research, as centers for the distribution of knowledge, and as links in our nation's rapidly evolving communications networks. I have also asked the Commission to evaluate policies, programs, and practices of public agencies and private organizations and to recommend actions which might be taken by public and private groups to ensure an effective, efficient library system for the nation. I believe that this new Commission, aided by public and private efforts, will bring real advances in our progress toward adequate library service for every citizen. Dr. Douglas Knight, president of Duke University in Durham, N.C. will serve as the Commission chairman. EXTENSION OF THE PEACE CORPS ACT The President's Remarks at the Bill Signing Ceremony at Georgetown University. September 13, 1966 Earlier this year I submitted to Congress a plan that promised a new dimension for the Peace Corps. It would establish: -an expanded school-to-school program, to enable American schools to help their sister schools in other lands through the Peace Corps; -a new Exchange Peace Corps, to bring volunteers from other countries to teach and to learn about our own land. We won only a partial victory in the Congress. But we will operate the school-to-school program. Furthermore, although this act does not include what we requested to launch the Exchange Peace Corps, we intend to carry out Congress' suggestion to test the idea under existing authority. SHAW JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill To Provide an Alternative Method for Acquiring a New Site for the School. September 13, 1966 I am happy to sign H.R. 15858, authorizing the D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency to acquire real property for a new Shaw Junior High School, prior to the adoption of an urban renewal plan for the Shaw area. My pleasure in signing this bill is tempered by the fact that it helps only with the replacement of the Shaw school, and that even as to Shaw, the students who entered the school last week will probably finish their junior high school work in that same inadequate structure. Ways must be found to speed up the replacement of the antique and often overcrowded buildings to which so many of the school children of the District of Columbia are assigned. For Shaw Junior High School, this bill provides an alternative method of acquiring a new site. By reducing site costs, it will increase the range of available locations. It is my hope, too, that with this additional assistance, the Board of Education will give serious consideration to making the new Shaw Junior High School an integrated part of a center which would provide a variety of services to the community around it. Inner-city schools, particularly those at the junior high school and senior high levels, face many new challenges and provide many new opportunities. There could be no better place and time to demonstrate, through the Shaw replacement, the potentials of creative planning. [NOTE. As enacted, H.R. 15858 is Public Law 89-569, approved September 12, 1966.] FOREIGN ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1966 Statement by the President Upon Signing the Bill Including His Concern Over New Administrative Restrictions. September 19, 1966 The Foreign Assistance Act of 1966 which I signed today provides the authority to carry forward our efforts to help other nations help themselves. These efforts are the foundation of our foreign policy in the emerging nations. Nothing we do at home or abroad is more important. Programs authorized by this act will: -attack the causes of poverty through special efforts in agriculture, health, and education; -be concentrated in countries that are doing the most to help themselves; -permit us to play our part in the exciting new regional arrangements emerging in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. |