“Let me present to you a great decision now before the Congress and the people ... Will we undertake wholeheartedly the war against poverty that President Johnson has proposed? ... As President Johnson said to Congress, ‘There are millions of Americans ... who have not shared in the abundance which has been granted to most of us.” ... The question is: What are we going to do about it?”
Our Quote of the Week hits home in more ways than one as we look back on the US Congress’ past ability to enact bold, innovative legislation, and its willingness to put the welfare of people above politics.
In April of 1964, Sargent Shriver addressed a group in Arkansas and spoke of the “great decisions” of the US Congress, past and present. He included the Peace Corps, of which he was Director at the time, as having been born from one such decision:
“But Congress has a deep faith in the American people, and that faith was never better exemplified than by the Congressional approval given to the Peace Corps at the very time when this new idea was being ridiculed and scoffed at not only in the United States but all around the world. Congress agreed to give the Peace Corps a try. The courage and the vision of that decision has since been acclaimed on all sides. One Washington writer has even gone so far as to declare that the Peace Corps is the only agency which enjoys the combined simultaneous support of Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater. In Washington, that’s the highest test of all. The Peace Corps has also passed a vital test abroad. Every country which now has Volunteers has asked for more. Two dozen countries which do not have Volunteers have requested them.”
The decision Shriver is focused on in the speech, however, is to pass legislation that would create the Office of Economic Opportunity, which would manage the programs of the War on Poverty.
He then speaks of the debilitating effects of poverty on those struggling with it and on society as a whole, effects that he had spent the previous months researching during an intensive fact-finding session with his poverty task force:
“The facts are clear. We know that almost one million young men and women between the ages of 16 and 21 are both out of school and out of work. We know that many of these will remain in poverty, a burden on society—on all taxpayers—unless something is done to train them, to give them hope, to give them a chance. We know that there are over one million poverty-stricken, fatherless families, with mothers unable to support the children in a decent life. We know that there are over four million rural families trying to live on less than $250 a month—over a Million rural families trying to live on $80 a month. We know that there are over three million families whose head is over 65, whose income is less than $3,000 a year—over a million and a half such families whose income is less than $1,000 a year.”
He then stresses that poverty must be looked at as any societal challenge that can be faced and overcome. He says:
“Fifty years ago we did not know how to eliminate typhoid fever, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria or paralytic polio. But we found out. Twenty-five years ago, we didn’t know haw to harness atomic energy, but we found out. Today we do not yet know how to go the moon, but we are going to get there. And we may not yet know exactly how to go about ending poverty and abolishing war, but we can do it.”
Sargent Shriver’s words remind us that our collective ingenuity and resources have made it possible for us to rise to a variety of major challenges. They also remind us that the US Congress has had the courage to innovate and embrace the spirit of service before.
Today, we witness a Congress that is deadlocked, shut down, and sacrificing the livelihood of millions in order to score political points. We call on our representatives to once again put the welfare of people above politics, to resolve the impasse that is putting jobs and healthcare at risk for millions of people, and to resume the activity of representing the best interests of the people.
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