Speech #890162445

The education acts which the 89th Congress is enacting can help break this cycle. The use in poorer districts of supplementary Federal funds from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. the availability of banks of new teaching tools. and the enthusiasm of roving National Teacher Corpsmen through the Higher Education Act can help us to make all our schools superior. There is one further legislative accomplishment I would like to talk about tonightone which has particular relevance to this organizationthe administrations Immigration Reform Act. The bill President Johnson signed 2 weeks ago in the wind and sunshine at the foot of the Statue of Liberty is not the most radical legislation this Congress has passed. It will not greatly increase the number of immigrants to America. But It willaffirm in law what we believe In spirit: that this country A5939 judges men individually on their merits. not on their religion. color. or national origin. that this country was built by men and women from all the nations of the world and that we still value that truth for the future. that we are interested in the spirit in which men and women come here. not in the identity of the country they come from. For 40 years. we knew that the national origins system was cruel in praotice and wrong in spirit. Now at last. we have abolished its unworthy proclamationthat individual worth could somehow be established by quotas. that the contribution Polish immigrants could make to this country could somehow be specified mechanically at 6.488 persons each year. To the members of the Polish National Alliance. we all owe a debt of gratitude. not only for the very practical support that you rallied on behalf of the Immigration Act in Congress this year. but even more for your faith. through many reversals. that America would finally repudiate a policy that denied our history and our ideals. You have confronted and prevailed over the prejudice that brands and deprives a man on the basis of his name. or his origin. or his color. At the same time. this organization evidences the richness of diversity in our population. You have shown that this society can be tolerant and open without being homogenized. You have shown that this countrys valid differences of culture and identity need not be nursed by hate or walled around by artificial barriers. The same hostility to such artificial barriers that inspired the Immigration Act also impelled passage of the Voting Rights Act and is at work in every part of President Johnsons program. You have won a place of leadership in the fight against those barriers. and I know that you will not relinquish that place as long as the fight goes on. Message of Thanks