Mary Silva thank you for that extremely generous introduction. I didn’t and don’t deserve it. But I loved every word you spoke!!!
I am profoundly grateful also to my famous brother-in-law, Senator Kennedy, for what he has said about me today. I shall treasure his words forever.
I am grateful also to Alexis Herman, the distinguished Secretary of Labor, to Congressman Meehan, who represents Massachusetts so successfully, and to Mary Silva, the Director of The Job Corps, for the inspiring words all of you have spoken about me and about the Job Corps. Herman, Meehan, and Silva! You are a powerful and eloquent trio!
I am also grateful to Americans from every walk of life, from labor unions as well as corporation, from educational institutions, as well as politicians, -- all who worked almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to make The Job Corps a success, from its beginning.
Will all the members of the original War Against Poverty, please stand up and be recognized by this audience: -- Vernon Alden, George McCarthy, Edgar May.
Denise Warren, may your inspiring report on your history with the Job Corps elevate and inspire your life upward, forever!
Most of all, I extend my thanks to the 1.8 million Job Corps graduates who have proved that the Job Corps is a success, that the Job Corps works, that Job Corps’ Graduates pay back more than our Government put into their Job Corps education! And to men and women like George McCarthy, Vernon Alden, and Mary Schell, all Veteran advocates and workers for The Job Corps who are here with us.
We don’t have a “Statue of Liberty” at the Job Corps, but we could now erect a “Statue of Success” at every Job Corps Center in America. Why? Because Job Corps’ Graduates have proven they can succeed, --
If given a chance, -- they can succeed!
If education designed for them is given to them, they can succeed!
If they get three square meals a day, a classroom and teachers, athletic coaches, and doctors and nurses, they can succeed!
Yes, we need a “Statue of Success”, a statue dedicated to the 1.8 million Job Corps Graduates who have made themselves into law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of our country.
Very few Americans know that “The Job Corps” graduates 50,000 persons every year! That’s 50,000 human beings saved from potential or even probable failure every year! That’s five (5) times as many students as graduate annually from West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy combined!!!
Our Job Corps Graduates are proof that our original dream, our vision, was realistic! We proved that all of us could work together, successfully, to provide the necessary skills to thousands of young Americans who had neither jobs nor skills! Our program was a “no-fault program”. Nobody was blaming anyone for where, we, the lucky ones, were, or where the y, the unlucky ones, the unemployed, were!
Moreover, The Job Corps was not then, and never has been, a Federal Government program imposed on an unwilling, and uninterested economic system. From the start, it was a joint venture by business, labor, the private sector, and government persons dedicated to the proposition that all Americans who want to work deserve a chance to prepare themselves, voluntarily, and energetically for a job..."not “make work"; not “forced work”, not holier-than-thou, “work-fare”, but genuine voluntary work, for a freely chosen employer, under truly human working conditions!
During the first 50 days of the Job Corps, 188,000 young men and women volunteered! They all said “We want to go to work. We want a new chance to learn!!!” 1.8 million have been given the chance to learn; they have gone to work; and they have stayed at work!
At the beginning, the “left-wingers” accused us, of giving business a chance to make “profit out of poverty!” The “right-wingers” said we were misusing, hard- earned, tax payers dollars to establish a socialistic, paternalistic, boondoggle to spoon-feed the worthless poor! The skeptics just said it couldn’t be done!!! The greedy said it cost too much, -- more than a Harvard education, they loved to say!!! But Congress said, and President Johnson said, and the country said: -- “let’s give it a try”. Together, all of us Americans, together, they said, -- because America cannot afford to do nothing about teenage unemployment — young men and women standing idly on street corners, or lost in the backwaters of poverty pockets of rural America.
Everyone, they said, should work, together with Government, to offer a hand-up, not a handout, to helpless, but not hopeless, young Americans.
Our combined efforts succeeded! The Job Corps has survived and prospered. It has served our nation well.
I believe in the Job Corps and its future, whether it grows or declines. The Job Corps will tell as much about ourselves; our courage, our vision, our sense of equality, our trust in God and His providence, our future as one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all!
I repeat the words “for all”... because those words include all young Americans!
I hope and pray that the entire world, in the 21st century, will create comparable educational programs for all their young people. Then we would truly have “a brave new world”, worldwide!
Thanks for all your applause! Before I sit down, let me introduce the person who has inspired and continues to inspire my life, -- morning, noon, and night! The person who has energized my heart and brain, -- the person who always urges me onward and upward, the greatest influence on my life, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, mother of 5 children and source of strength to them as well as to me.
Truthfully, I cannot express my joy and my thanks to all those in Congress, to all those men like Senator Kennedy and Congressman Meehan, in the management and faculty of the Job Corps itself, and to all The Job Corps’ Graduates and enrollees, then and now. I hope to God that every one of you will, one day, in each of your lives, experience joy and fulfillment equal to mine today. Truthfully, no one really deserves what you have given me: -- total and unequivocal praise and thanksgiving for what I have done for you and for all in the Job Corps. Please let me try to explain what I mean.
The facts are these: -- Hundreds of men and women have given their hearts and their lives to make the Job Corps a success – especially in our earliest days. Thousands scoffed at our idea about The Job Corps, even ridiculing our name. They call us the “Kiddie Corps”. They derided us using many other epithets. And they did so night and day, everywhere. But, thanks be to God, there were a few courageous and visionary persons holding prestigious positions who came to our support. One of those early prestigious friends is here with us today. His name is Vernon Alden. And there he is. Please, stand up, Vernon!, President of Ohio University...Associate Dean of the Harvard University Business School... an articulate and outspoken booster of The Job Corps in high-level academic circles nationwide. Vernon Alden had the courage and vision to put his whole University’s Faculty, students, top-side executives, women and men – into one group of human beings working together to make a success of their work with Job Corps’ students. They overcame the idea that a college or university had no ability or responsibility to get involved with uneducated young men and women, as Job Corps members are. But Ohio University worked together with us and proved that the Job Corps could be effectively united with an University.
