00:00:12.640 - 00:00:50.360

pleasure. Oh, he's one. Pick 1, 27. 17 Smathers. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk with you today about the achievements of the first session of the 89th Congress. I think this session of the Congress has certainly been one of the most productive in history. It has enacted more bills that will affect more Americans than any Congress one could possibly name.

00:00:51.040 - 00:01:23.460

It has done so not as a rubber stamp but because most of the legislation advocated by President Johnson has been the kind that Congress could enthusiastically support. Let us look at some of the most significant actions of this Congress. First, we passed the Medicare bill. The bill which passed this year, had my full support because it is soundly financed because it does not interfere with the private practice of medicine and because it provides our senior citizens with the protection they need against illness.

00:01:24.440 - 00:01:46.160

By July 1st 1966 some 18 million Americans will be covered by the Medicare bill. Secondly, we passed some of the most sweeping education legislation in history bills to provide federal aid for the first time to elementary and secondary schools and to further assist in her higher education.

00:01:47.530 - 00:02:11.260

I'm convinced that education is the pathway to more prosperity and better jobs for all Americans. Attendance in the elementary and secondary schools will increase by four million in the next five years, and nearly half a million new classrooms will be needed. Our high school enrollment has grown six times as fast as the population, and our college enrollment has grown 84.

00:02:11.940 - 00:02:38.020

So these bills are needed, and they will help millions of young Americans defined a better, more useful life. Also, the 89th Congress help continue the unprecedented American prosperity, which has been expanding for 55 consecutive months, the longest peacetime growth in our history. We now have a gross national product of some $677 billion.

00:02:38.030 - 00:02:58.860

The greatest productivity have any nation in all time. One of the ways Congress helped produce this record was to pass the $4,000,000,700 million excise tax reduction and as a member of the Finance Committee, I was proud to play a role in helping manage this bill on the floor of the Senate.

00:03:00.540 - 00:03:23.090

But I think this Congress was also effective in not passing some laws Most significantly, we were able to reject the repeal of Section 14 B of the Taft Hartley Act. We did so because a majority of the people of America did not support compulsory unionism. So I think the Congress was wise to turn down this proposal.

00:03:24.240 - 00:03:59.660

Overall, the 89th Congress spent 10 months of hard work on problems which have been before us as legislators for many years. Many of the bills we passed were important. First Steps. Columnist Walter Lippmann has called him a series of promissory notes. And so we will have to come back in January and sit as a legislative oversight Congress to make sure these bills which we've passed, who carried out as Congress intended them to be, and to ensure that state and local governments retain a voice in executing these new policies.

00:04:00.840 - 00:04:24.950

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this program will conclude the series of weekly reports, which I have been making during the 10 months Congress has been in session. I want to thank the television stations of Florida, which have brought these reports to you as a public service, and I am now looking forward to some physical rest and the opportunity to visit with my family.

00:04:25.840 - 00:04:49.950

First of all, however, I intend to enter Georgetown University Hospital here in Washington for a physical checkup. Afterwards, I will visit my son, Bruce, who is now in California. Completing Navy training, is an underwater demolition expert. Later, I plan to journey to the Far East, where my other son, John, has been serving aboard a destroyer which patrols the waters off Vietnam and have a reunion with him.

00:04:51.040 - 00:05:22.960

So again, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening and looking in on these programs for these past many months, and I look forward to seeing you again in January 1966. I want to go further into some of the bills, which will have a great impact on our on large numbers of people.

00:05:23.640 - 00:05:42.860

This is the yardstick which I think must be used to measure the productivity of the 89th Congress, but we produced quality as well as quantity. These bills will have profound effects because they reach out to correct many unsolved problems and because they touch the lives of many, many Americans.

00:05:43.640 - 00:06:04.610

For instance, we not only passed the Medicare Act, we also passed a law creating regional health centers to help conquer cancer, stroke and heart disease. We also passed a law to provide grants and loans to improve medical education. In addition, we passed new legislation to label cigarettes as possibly harmful.

00:06:04.610 - 00:06:23.650

To help this. Congress also passed bills to eliminate the pollution of our air and water problems, which are becoming of great concern as our nation becomes more populous and as our state becomes more popular as a Congress, we also recognize that this nation is becoming highly urbanized.

00:06:24.340 - 00:06:48.360

More than 70% of our of all Americans now live in cities, and so we created a Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, which will help solve the multiple problems of city life. We also passed a new omnibus housing law with provisions that will help older Americans find decent housing and which will help cities plan wiser use of their land area.

00:06:49.420 - 00:07:15.750

As this, Congress has been concerned with beauty and culture. We therefore moved and passed a highway beautification act, and we passed a law to provide assistance to the arts and the humanities. We passed improvements to the legislation which is designed to combat poverty and which will make it possible to do a better job of providing lives of decency and dignity to more Americans.

00:07:16.240 - 00:07:38.650

In particular, our senior citizens will benefit from this expanded war on poverty, although there are more jobs today than ever before and more dollars to spend. Regrettably, many Americans are still poor. They live in blighted areas like Appalachia or in the Iron Range country of Minnesota and even in some parts of the Deep South.

00:07:39.240 - 00:07:59.860

So we have passed programs of regional economic assistance to Appalachia itself and to any other area which may be chronically poor. This Congress also passed an immigration bill, which I believe will set fair standards for admitting new immigrants to our shores without at the same time opening wide the gates.

00:08:00.340 - 00:08:35.350

The new bill, in fact, will greatly clarify and simplify our immigration policies. That is something that four presidents of the United States have asked for in the past. The 89th Congress has also acted to clarify a problem that has long troubled our American government. We passed a resolution spelling out the question of presidential disability and the circumstances under which the vice president would take over this resolution has been sent to the states for ratification, and I'm confident that it will soon be adopted and soon be the law of the land.

00:08:36.350 - 00:08:55.650

We have covered much ground in this first session of the 89th Congress, and as I said earlier, we will have to give this program close scrutiny in the next session of Congress in order to ensure that all of this legislation is carried forward in the way that Congress intended it to be carried forward.

00:08:57.140 - 00:09:14.560

Ladies and gentlemen, this program will conclude this series of weekly reports which I have been making during the 10 months Congress has been in session. I want to take this opportunity to thank the radio stations of Florida which have brought these reports to you as a public service.

00:09:15.540 - 00:09:34.560

I will resume these broadcast in January of 1966 when the Congress once again convenes. This has been a most enjoyable experience to be able to chat with you on the progress of the Congress and to introduce to you various officials of the government whose activities affect your lives.

00:09:35.440 - 00:09:59.560

As I said, the first session of the 89th Congress was a long and arduous one. We concluded our legislative action the other night, well past the hour of midnight. So I'm now looking forward to some physical rest and the opportunity to visit with my family. I intend, first of all, to enter Georgetown University Hospital here in Washington for a physical checkup.

00:10:00.340 - 00:10:20.560

Afterwards, I will visit my son, Bruce, who is in California, completing his Navy training as an underwater demolition expert. Later, I hope and plan a visit with my son, John, who is in the Far East serving on a destroyer which patrols off the waters in the waters off Vietnam.

00:10:21.740 - 00:11:31.250

And so again, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening in these past months, and I look forward to chatting with you again about legislative matters. In January 1966 mhm Earlier this year, I informed my constituents that I had been undergoing medical test and by fall would undergo further checkups to determine whether I could at this time, make a final determination as to what my future plans would be, particularly as they pertained in 1968 and my candidacy for 1/4 term.

00:11:32.340 - 00:12:02.530

I've just completed the most recent series of tests. They indicate no material change in my physical condition. Thus, no complete assessment of the future can be made on the basis of information thus far received. My doctors, however, informed me that by following a careful regimen and reducing my outside activities during the adjournment of Congress, I will be better able to pursue my senatorial responsibilities in the next section of the 89th Congress.

00:12:03.600 - 00:12:27.460

In order to follow the doctor's advice, I will be forced to forego customary speeches and public appearances. Unfortunately, this means that I will not be able to make my usual fall visits around the state reporting to the people of Florida. This, of course, deprives me of personal contact with friends in Florida, something I have always very much enjoy again.

00:12:27.940 - 00:12:57.960

I won't emphasize that while it's impossible to ascertain at this time what my future decision will be, there is no cause for serious alarm. Indeed, the indications are that with some rest and a careful schedule, my condition could improve. But if that improvement does not materialize within the next year or 18 months, I would, of course, have only one alternative to complete my present term through 1968 and thereafter retired to private life