LBJ Commemorates FDR Birthday

Jan. 30, 1964 - President Johnson (pictured right in 1937) commemorated the 82nd birthday of President Franklin D. Roosevelt today by decrying “fault finders” and calling on the country to take positive actions to help human beings everywhere. He brought together a group of more than 30 White House employees who had served during the Roosevelt years and former employees and staff members of the late President for a brief ceremony in the Cabinet Room. It was one of two ceremonies and several meetings, interspersed with conferences on Panama, South Vietnam, and other world problems, during a busy day.

“Franklin Roosevelt passed to us a trust of compassion and conscience and courage always,” Mr. Johnson said. “We must never lose that trust. In these days when so many stand for nothing and when the fault finders are among us in many spots, let us look forward with our chin up and our chest out, as he did, to a better day not just for our own, but for human beings everywhere. He would have it this way.” He said that in “pride and humility, I readily admit that my own course in life has been influenced by none so much as by this great man.”

President Johnson served as a Congressional aide during Mr. Roosevelt’s first term, after which he was elected to Congress and came to know Mr. Roosevelt well. He sent a wreath to Hyde Park, N.Y., today, which was placed at the grave of President Roosevelt. About 100 persons, many of them schoolchildren, attended a brief graveside ceremony on the Roosevelt estate.