Food Stamps

This is a very special and happy occasion for me. During the last three years that I have spent in Washington, I have come to believe more and more strongly in the need for fresh vision and vigorous, dynamic leadership in private industry. Today I am proud to come here and salute many of the young men and women who will provide that leadership in the future.

In speaking to you, I am reminded of a young man who was struggling during the middle of the nineteenth century to establish himself as a poet. To win recognition, he decided to send a manuscript of his poetry to the giant of American Literature, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson read the work, entitled Leaves of Grass, and sent this note back to the young man:

"Dear Mr. Whitman," he said, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career.'

Emerson was right, of course; Walt Whitman went on to become one of the most cherished of America's poets.

And so, too, I greet you as members of Junior Achievement at the beginning of what in many cases will be great careers. Through your participation in organizations such as Junior Achievement, I know that you are learning not only the techniques of organizing and running a successful business venture but that you are also coming to appreciate the contribution that free enterprise makes to this great nation.

Your attendance at this year's convention of Junior Achievers comes at a particularly opportune moment because we will soon celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Republic. Coming here and meeting other young men and women from all corners of America, hearing the Southern drawl and the Midwestern twang, seeing the fashions from the East and hearing the spicy stories about what it's like out West, each of you must be deepening your understanding of America and the rich, incredible diversity which makes us such a restless and energetic people. This is a good time for all of us to reflect on the American experience and what it means.

Some of you may remember the first pilgrims who came to these shores. Crossing the Atlantic to Plymouth Rock, huddled together against the winds of adversity, they heard John Winthrop deliver one of the most famous sermons in our history.

In the New World, Winthrop told them, "we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. . . we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

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And that has been the American experience: to be that city upon a hill a bright jewel in the galaxy of nations that holds out to all mankind the dream of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

What has made this such a great nation? What has made people talk about the American Dream? Has it been the land? To be sure, we have been blessed by an abundance of natural resources, but in the Soviet Union we see a land mass that is much larger than our own, is equally well endowed, and yet the Russian land yields a smaller harvest of goods for its people. Today the Soviets turn to the United States for the grain they so badly need.

Does our secret lie in the talent of our people? To be sure, we are blessed with one of the largest and most talented populations that the world has ever known, but in China we see a population that is four times as large as our own, whose civilization was developed far in advance of our own, and yet today their standard of living is far below our own.

Our land and our people, then, have both been essential parts of the American story, but they are not the whole story. A third ingredientthe ingredient that is missing in the Soviet Union and China, the ingredient that has always made us different-has been our freedom.

The early Americans streamed to these shores in search of freedomfreedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to seek their fortunes without fear or favor of the government. Each of these freedoms was planted firmly in our Constitutional soil; each grew and bore fruit; but each has become such a familiar part of our landscape that I now wonder whether we take them too much for granted.

Those of you who have had the privilege to travel in other lands have seen how precious freedom has become in the world today. Only a tiny handful of nations now permit their citizens the liberties we enjoy here. It is no accident that in every country where people have been given a free choice between communism and democracy, they have voted for democracy. And thousands of people have gladly risked their lives in desperate attempts to escape from tyranny into freedom.

There is nothing plastic or artificial about freedom, nor is there any guarantee of its permanency. As Dwight Eisenhower once said, "Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, and the spirits of men, and so it must be daily earned and refreshed-else like a flower cut from its lifegiving roots, it will wither and die."

I worry greatly today about the survival of one of the most vital but least understood of our freedoms in America: our freedom of enterprise. The free enterprise system is the foundation of our economy, the rock upon which we have built our earthly kingdom.

It is the system of free enterprise that has summoned forth the genius of our people-young men and women like you who wanted to make a difference in the world. One of our greatest inventors, Ben Franklin, was a printer's apprentice at 12, was writing and selling ballads at 15, and was publishing his own newspaper less than a decade later. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin within a year after he graduated from college. By the age of 26, John D. Rockefeller had emerged from the obscurity of being a sales clerk to owning his own oil refinery. At the same time, 10-year-old Thomas Edison-expelled

from school because his teacher thought he was retarded-was working in his own chemistry lab and by the time he was 30, had invented the phonograph. And at the age of 13, Andrew Carnegie went to work in a cotton factory-a poor immigrant from Scotland.

It is the system of free enterprise that has also provided productive jobs for the great majority of workers, fulfilled basic wants, enabled people to live more satisfying lives, and enriched the human experience. The cotton gin that Eli Whitney invented not only increased our cotton exports by more than a hundred fold within less than 20 years, but it also provided inexpensive clothing to millions of people. The mass production introduced by Henry Ford gave the world a cheap form of transportation that has been crucial for our industrial progress and has provided us with personal mobility that would have seemed impossible a century ago. And the little Brownie camera that George Eastman marketed in 1895 opened the way to a whole new art form that has given us all an extra sense of understanding and joy.

Nor have such advances been limited to work done by men. There have been a countless number of women whose stories are not as well known but have also been a vital part of our history-women such as Eliza Pinckney whose perfection of methods for growing the indigo plant gave the Carolinas a product that was the main staple of their economy before the Revolutionary War. Each of these men and women enjoyed and thrived on the freedom provided by our economic system. It is, indeed, the system of free enterprise that has given this country the greatest prosperity and the highest standard of living ever known to man:

-In the last 15 years, poverty in this nation has been cut in half. -Our farms today are harvesting more than twice as much grain as they were a quarter of a century ago-and with far fewer people to get the job done. Each American farmer now feeds as many as 50 of his fellow citizens with one of the most nutritious diets anywhere in the world.

-Our technology has made us the only nation on earth to place a man on the moon-and we've done that six times now.

-Our medical science has extended average life expectancy by more than 10 years since the turn of the century.

-Our technology has provided us with more leisure time-time for recreation, hobbies and for being with friends-than any society since the days of the ancient Greeks.

-And our economic wealth has allowed us to give other nations over $110 billion in food and economic assistance in the last 30 years-generosity that finds no parallel in world history.

It is also the system of free enterprise that has fired the imagination and determination of our people. No mountain has ever been too high nor has any ocean ever been too wide to cross. To cite but one example, you may recall that a century ago the Civil War practically destroyed the country's whaling fleet, bringing a collapse to the industry that provided the major source of lighting. Within a few years the price of whale oil shot up from a few pennies to over $2 a gallon. Cries went up across the land, "We are ruined."

What happended? Men with vision who had discovered a way to make kerosene began marketing kerosene lamps in place of whale oil lamps and before the end of the century two new industries-petroleum and electrical-were rapidly developing. As for whale oil lamps,

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Food Stamps: The Statement of Hon. William E. Simon, Secretary of the ...