eagleton, andor my fellow citizens, i am happy to join you for this benediction service.iday sunrise [applause] i assume that everyone here is impressed with my control of this convention in that my choice for vice president was challenged by only 39 other nominees. [applause] but i think we learned from watching the republicans four years ago as they selected their less presidential nominee -- their vice presidential nominee that it pays to take a little more time. [applause] i can tell you that eleanor is very grateful that the oregon delegation at least cap her in the race with martha mitchell. you on yourulate respects and i pay my to those two superb presiding officers of this convention, larry o'brien and yvonne braithwaite burke. [applause] tonight, i accept your nomination with a full and grateful heart. [applause] afternoon, i crossed the wide missouri to recommend a running mate of wide vision and deep compassion, senator tom eagleton. [applause] i am proud to have him at my side. i am proud to have been introduced a moment ago by one of the most eloquent and courageous voices in this land, senator ted kennedy. [applause] my nomination is all the more precious. that is the gift of the most open political process of all of our political history. [applause] the sweet harvest of the work of tens of thousands of tireless volunteers, young and , literally funded by hundreds of thousands of small contributors in every part of this nation. [applause] who lingered on the brink of despair only a short time ago have been brought into this heart, hand, head, and soul. i have been the beneficiary of the most remarkable political organization in the history of this country. [applause] it is an organization that gives dramatic proof to the power of love and a state that can literally move mountains. [applause] count where at, man's glory most begins and anne's, and say my glory was i nds, such friends -- and e and say my glory was i have such friends. [applause] this is the people's nomination, and next january, we will restore the government of the people of this country. [applause] 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 eras 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 women --s men and abeless men and women our party has to offer. [applause] my old and treasured friend and neighbor, hubert humphrey. [applause] a gracious and good man from the state of maine, ed muskie. [applause] fighter for his own convictions, scoop jackson of washington. [applause] woman,rave and spirited surely shows him -- shirly chisholm. [applause] a wise lawmaker, wilfred mills. [applause] and the man from north carolina, who over the years has opened new areas in education. [applause] the leader, who in 1968, combined the travail and the hope of the american spirit, senator eugene mccarthy. [applause] i was as moved as were all of you by the appearance in this convention hall of the governor of alabama, george wallace. [applause] his votes in the primaries showed clearly the depth of discontent in this country, and his courage in the face of pain and adversity is the mark of a man of boundless will. [applause] all of us despise the senseless act that disrupted his campaign. governor, we pray for your full recovery so you can stand up and speak out for all of those who see you as their champion. [applause] in the months ahead, i deeply covet the help of every democrat , of every republican, of every independent who wants this country to be the great and good land that it can be. [applause] this is going to be a national campaign carried to every part of the nation, north, south, east, and west. we are not conceding a single state to richard nixon. [applause] i should like to say to my that ohio maying have passed a few times in this convention, but tom eggleton and i are not going to pass ohio. [applause] i shall say to governor gilligan, ohio is sometimes a votes,slow in coming the but when those votes are counted next november, ohio will be in the democratic victory column. [applause] now, to anyone in this hall or beyond who doubts the ability of democrats to join together in common cause, i say never underestimate the power of richard nixon to bring harmony to democratic ranks. [applause] he is the unwitting unifier, and the fundamental issue of this national campaign. and all of us are going to help him redeem a pledge he made 10 years ago that next year, you won't have richard nixon to kick around anymore. [applause] we have had our fury and 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 doubtlessly take place here in miami in one month. [applause] we chose this struggle. we reformed our party, and we let the people in. [applause] today, not as a collection of backroom strategists, not as a tool of itt or any other special interest. [applause] opponents stand on the status quo while we seek to refresh the american spirit. [applause] collect theirtion $10 million in secret money from the privileged few, and let us find one million ordinary americans who will contribute $25 each to this campaign. a million-member club with members who will not expect special favors for themselves, but a better land for us all. [applause] in the music of our children, we everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. 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 becausein large part during four administrations of both parties, a terrible war has been charted behind closed doors. [applause] i want those doors open, and i want that war closed. [applause] i make these pledges above all others. the doors of government will be open, and that war will be closed. [applause] habit of integrity, not a strategy of politics. if we nurture the habit of truth in this campaign, we will continue to be truthful once we are in the white house. [applause] 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 than in the conference rooms of any elite. theus give our country chance to elect a government that will seek and speak the truth. this is a time for truth and the life of this country -- in the life of this country. [applause] this is also a time, not for death, but for life. many americans thought they were voting to bring our sons home from vietnam and peace. -- in peace. i have a plan, and as one whose heart has a over vietnam, i will halt the senseless bombing of china on inaugural day. [applause] there will be no more asian children running a place from bomb schools, no more talk of bombing the cities of the north. days of mine operation, every american soldier and every american prisoner will be out of the jungle and back home in america where they belong. [applause] then, let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of the country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship. [applause] this is also the time to turn around from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. america must be restored to her proper role in the world. if we can do that, only through the recovery of confidence in ourselves. [applause] i believe 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 thyself." [applause] now, it is necessary in an age of nuclear power and hostile forces that we'll 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. 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 promised land. 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. 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 as much as the size of our bombs, the safety of our streets, and the condition of our cities, and not just the engines of war. if we some day choke on the pollution of our own air, there will be little consolation in leaving behind a dying continent ringed with steel. so while protecting ourselves abroad, let us form a more perfect union here at home. and this is the time for that task. we must also make this a time of justice and jobs for all our people. for more than three and half years we have tolerated stagnation and a rising level of joblessness, with more than five 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 and 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. -- to do. [applause] sen. mcgovern: that job guarantee will and must depend on 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. 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. therefore, we intend to begin by putting millions back to work and after that is done, we will assure to those unable to work an income fully adequate to a decent life. 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 in which labor is depressed, but prices and corporate profit run sky-high. it means a system of national health insurance so that a worker can afford decent health care for himself and his family. 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. and above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. the tax system today does not reward hard work: it's penalizes it. inherited or invested wealth 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, but no depletion for the farmer who feeds us, or the worker who serves as all. the administration tells us that we should not discuss tax reform and the election year. they would prefer to keep all discussion of the tax laws in closed rooms where the administration, its powerful friends, and their paid lobbyists, can turn every effort at reform into a new loophole for the rich and powerful. but an election year is the people's year to speak, and this year, the people are going to ensure that the tax system is changed so that work is rewarded and so that those who derive the highest benefits will pay their fair share rather than slipping through the loopholes at the expense of the rest of us. so let us stand for justice and jobs and against special privilege. and this is the time to stand for those things that are close to the american spirit. we are not content with things as they are. we reject the view of those who say, "america -- love it or leave it." we reply, "let us change it so we may love it the more." and this is the time. it is the time for this land to become again a witness to the world for what is just and noble in human affairs. it is time to live more with faith and less with fear, with an abiding confidence that can sweep away the strongest barriers between us and teach us that we are truly brothers and sisters. so join with me in this campaign. lend senator eagleton and me your strength and your support, and together we will call america home to the ideals that nourished us from the beginning. from secrecy and deception in high places; come home, america from military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, america. from the entrenchment of special privileges in tax favoritism; from the waste of idle lands to the joy of useful labor; from the prejudice based on race and sex; from the loneliness of the aging poor and the despair of the neglected sick -- come home, america. come home to the affirmation that we have a dream. come home to the conviction that we can move our country forward. come home to the belief that we can seek a newer world, and let us be joyful in that homecoming, for this "is your land, this land is my land -- from california to new york island, from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters -- this land was made for you and me." so let us close on 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. good night, and godspeed to you all. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption cot