Impressed with my control of this convention in that my choice for Vice President was challenged by only 39 other nominees. [ applause ] i think we learned from watching the republicans four years ago, as they selected their Vice President ial nominee, that it pays to take a little more time. [ cheers and applause ] i can tell you that eleanor is grateful that the oregon delegation at least kept her in the race. I congratulate you on your patience and pay my respects to those two super presiding officers of this convention, larry and evonne. [ applause ] tonight i accept your nomination with a full and grateful heart. This afternoon i crossed the missouri to recommend a running mate one of the most eloquent and courageous voices in this land. Senator tom eagleton. Im proud of him at my side, and im proud to be introduced by one of the most eloquent and courageous voices in this land, senator ted kennedy. My mom nation is all the more precious, in that is the gift of the most open political process in all of our political history. [ applause ] its the sweet harvest of the work of tens of thousands of tireless volunteers young and old alike literally funded by hundreds of thousands of small contributors in every part of this nation. Those who lingered on the brink of despair only a short time ago have been brought into this campaign heart, hand, head and soul. And i have been the beneficiary of the most remarkable Political Organization in the history of organization in the history of this country. [applause] it is an organization that gives dramatic proof to the power of love and to a faith they can literally move mountains. As yates put it, count where mans glory most begins and ends, and say, my glory was i had such friends. [applause] this is a peoples nomination and next january we will restore the government to the people of this country. [applause] and i believe that american politics will never be quite the same again. [applause] we are entering a new period of important and hopeful change in america. A period comparable to those areas that unleashed such remarkable ferment in the period of jefferson and jackson and roosevelt. I treasure this nomination, especially because it comes after vigorous competition with the ableist men and women our party has to offer. [applause] my old and treasured friend, and the man from North Carolina who, over the years, has opened new vestiges in education and public education, and excellence, terry sanford. Not conceding a single state to Richard Nixon. I should like to say to my friend frank king, that ohio may have passed a few times in this convention, but tom eagleton and i are not going to pass ohio. I shall say to governor gilligan ohio is. He is the unifier and the fundamental issue of this national campaign. And all of us are going to help him redeem a pledge he made ten years ago, the next year you wont have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore. [applause] we have had our fury and our frustrations in these past months. And at this convention. But frankly, i welcome the contrast with the smug and dull and empty event which will doubtless take place here in miami next month. [applause] we chose the struggle, we reformed our party, and we let the people in. And so we stand today not as a collection of backroom strategists, not as a tool of itt or any other special interest. So let our opponents stand on the status quo while we seek to refresh the american spirit. [applause] let the opposition collect their 10 Million Dollars in secret money from the privileged few and let us find 1 million ordinary americans who will contribute 25 dollars each to this campaign, 1 Million Member Club with members who will not expect special favors for themselves, but a better land for us all. [applause] and scripture and in the music of our children, we are told to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. And for america, the time has come at last. This is the time for truth, not falsehood. In a democratic nation, no one likes to say that his inspiration came from secret arrangements behind closed doors. But in a sense, that is how my candidacy began. I am here as your candidate tonight in large part because during four administrations of both parties, a terrible war has been chartered behind closed doors. [applause] i want those doors opened and i want that war closed. [applause] and i make these pledges above all others, the doors of government will be opened, and that war will be closed. Truth is a habit of integrity, not a strategy of politics, and if we nurture the habit of truth in this campaign, we will continue to be truthful once we are in the white house. Let us say to americans as Woodrow Wilson said in his First Campaign of 1912, let me inside the government and i will tell you what is going on there. [applause] wilson believed, and i believe, that the destiny of america is always safer in the hands of the people then in the Conference Rooms of any elite. [applause] so let us give our country the chance to elect a government that will seek and speak the truth, for this is the time for the truth in the life of this country. And this is also a time, not for death, but for life. In 1968, Many Americans thought they were voting to bring our sons home from vietnam in peace, and since then, 20,000 of our sons have come home in coffins. I have no secret plan for peace. I have a public plan. And as one whose heart has eight for the past ten years over the agony of vietnam, i will halt the senseless bombing of indo china on inaugural day. [applause] there will be no more asian children running a blaze from bombed out schools. There will be no more talk of bombing the dikes or the cities of the north. [applause] and within 90 days of my inauguration, every american soldier and every american prisoner will be out of the jungle and out of their cells and back home in america where they belong. [applause] and then let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad. [applause] this is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to her proper role in the world. But we can do that only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves. [applause] i believe that the greatest contribution america can now make to our fellow mortals is to heal our own great but very deeply troubled land. We must respond we must respond to that ancient command, physician heal thy self. Now, it is necessary in an age of Nuclear Power and hostile forces, that wed be militarily strong. America must never become a second rate nation. As one who has tasted the bitter fruits of our weakness before pearl harbor in 1941, i give you my pledge that if i become the president of the united states, america will keep its defenses alert and fully sufficient to meet any danger. [applause] we will do that, not only for ourselves, but for those who deserve and need the shield of our strength. Our old allies in europe and elsewhere, including the people of israel who will always have our help to hold their promise land. And yet, i believe that every man and woman in this Convention Hall knows that for 30 years we have been so absorbed with fear and danger from abroad that we have permitted our own house to fall into disarray. [applause] we must now show that peace and prosperity can exist side by side. Indeed, each now depends on the existence of the other. National strength includes the credibility of our system in the eyes of our own people as well as the credibility of our deterrent in the eyes of others abroad. National security includes schools for our children as well as silos for our missiles. It includes the health of our families. So while protecting ourselves abroad, let us form a more Perfect Union here at home, and this is the time for that task. [applause] and we must also make this a time of justice and jobs for all our people. For more than three and a half years, we have tolerated stagnation and a rising level of joblessness, with more than 5 million of our best workers unemployed at this very moment. Surely, this is the most false and wasteful economics of all. Our deep need is not for idleness, but for new housing in hospitals, for facilities to combat pollution and take us home from work, for better products able to compete on vigorous world markets. The highest single domestic priority of the next administration will be to ensure that every american able to work has a job to do. [applause] that job guarantee will, and must depend upon a reinvigorated private economy, freed at last from the uncertainties and burdens of war. But it is our Firm Commitment that whatever employment the private sector does not provide, the federal government will either stimulate or provide itself. [applause] whatever it takes, this country is going back to work. America cannot exist with most of our people working and paying taxes to support too many others mired in a demeaning and hopeless welfare mess. [applause] therefore, we intend to begin by putting millions back to work and after that is done we will assure that those unable to work in income fully adequate to a decent life. [applause] now beyond this, a program to put america back to work demands that work be properly rewarded. That means the end of a system of economic controls and which labour is depressed, but prices and corporate profit run skyhigh. It means a system of National Health insurance so that a worker can afford Decent Health care for himself and his family. [applause] it means real enforcement of the laws so that the drug racketeers are put behind bars and our streets are once again safe for our families. [applause] and above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. [applause] the tax system today does not reward hard work, it penalizes it. Inherited or invested well frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the Assembly Line or in farming the land, these hard earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny. There is a depletion allowance for oil wells, from the red wood forests to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me. [applause] so let us close upon this note. May god grant each one of us the wisdom to cherish this good land and to meet the great challenge that beckons us home. And now is the time to meet that challenge. Goodnight, and godspeed to you all. [applause] weeknights this month on American History tv, we are featuring the contenders. Our series i looked at 14 president ial candidates who lost the election but had a lasting effect on u. S. Politics. Tonight, we featured former texas businessman ross perot. Who was an independent candidate in the 1992 and 1996 president ial elections. That starts at 8 pm eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan 3