rewind continues now with george mcgovern accepting his party's presidential nomination at the 1972 democratic national convention in miami beach, florida. in his speech, the south dakota senator criticizes president richard nixon's policies on vietnam and calls for more transparency in government. senator mcgovern lost to richard nixon in the general election in a lopsided contest, with the president taking 49 states. this speech is just over 40 minutes, and our coverage is from the nixon presidential library and museum. >> chairman o'brien, chairwoman burke, senator kennedy, senator eagleton and my fellow citizens, i'm happy to join us for this benediction of our friday sunrise service.

[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. [laughter] [applause] i think we learned from watching the republicans four years ago as a selected their vice presidental nominee that it pays to take a little more time. [applause]

and i can tell you that eleanor is very grateful that the oregon delegation at least kept her in the race with martha mitchell. [applause] so i congratulate you on your patience and i pay my respects to those two superb presiding officers of this convention, larry o'brien and yvonne braithwaite burke. [applause] so tonight i accept your nomination with a full and grateful heart. [cheers] this afternoon i crossed the wide missouri to recommend a

running mate of wide vision and deep compassion, senator tom eagleton. [cheers] [applause] i'm proud to have him at my side, and i'm proud to have been introduced a moment ago by one of the most eloquent and courageous voices in this land senator ted kennedy. ,[cheers] my nomination is all the more precious in that it is a gift of the most open political process in all of our political history. [applause] it is 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. [applause] 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 this country. [applause] it is an organization that gives dramatic proof to the power of love and to a faith that can literally move mountains. [applause]

as yeats put it, "count where man's glory most begins and ends, and say: my glory was i had such friends." [applause] this is the people's nomination and next january we will restore the government to the people of this country. [cheers] [applause] and i believe that american politics will never be quite the same again. [cheers] 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 the men and women are party has to offer. [applause] my old and treasured friend and neighbor hubert humphrey. [cheers] a gracious and good man from the state of maine, ed muskie. [applause] fighter for his own jackson of, stew washington.

and a brave and spirited woman, shirley chisholm. [cheers] an effective lawmaker from arkansas, wilbur mills. [applause] and the man from north carolina who over the years has all been -- in education and excellence, terry sanford. [cheers] leader who in 1968 combined both the travail and the hopes of the american spirit, senator eugene mccarthy. [cheers] was as moved as all of you by the appearance and 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 acts that disrupted his campaign, and governor, we pray for your full recovery so you can stand up and speak out for all those who see you as their champion. [applause] now 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 going to concede a single state to richard nixon. [cheers] [applause] i should like to say to my ohio mayrank king that have passed a few times in this convention, but tom eagleton and i are not going to pass ohio. [cheers] [applause]

and i shall say to governor gilligan, ohio is sometimes a little slow in counting the votes, but when those votes are counted next november ohio will be in the democratic victory column. [cheers] now to anyone in his hall or beyond the 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. [cheers] [applause] [applause]

he is the unwitting unifier and the fundamental issue of this national campaign. [applause] us are going to help him regain a pledge he made 10 years ago the next year you won't have richard nixon to kick around anymore. [cheers] [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 all an empty event which will doubtless take place here in miami next month. [cheers] we chose this struggle. we performed our party and would let the people in. [cheers] today not as a collection of backroom strategists, not as a tool of itt or any other special interest. [cheers] let our opponents stat on the status quo while we seek to refresh the american spirit. let the opposition collect their $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. in 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. [cheers] [applause] i want those doors opened and i want that war closed. [cheers] [applause]

and i make these pledges above all others: the doors of government will be opened, and that war will be closed. [cheers] 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. [applause] 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. so let us give our -- let us give your 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. [applause] 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 ached for the past ten years over the

agony of vietnam, i will halt a senseless bombing of indochina on inaugural day. [cheers] there will be no more asian children running ablaze 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. [cheers] [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. [cheers] this is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. america must be restored to a proper role in the world. but we can do that only through

the recovery of confidence in ourselves. [applause] i believe the greatest contribution america connect to our fellow mortals is the heel our own great but very deeply troubled land. we must respond -- we must respond to that ancient command. physician, heal thyself. [applause] necessary in an age of nuclear power and hostile forces that we 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 1941, i give you my

pledge that if i become the president of the united states, america will keep his 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 promised land. [applause] believe that every man and woman in this convention hallfor 30 years we have been so absorbed with fear and danger from abroad that we have fermented our own house -- permitted our own house to fall in 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 deterrence in the eyes of others abroad. [applause] 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. [applause] someday choked on the pollution of our own air, there will be little consolation of leaving behind a dying continent

ringed with steel. [applause] so while protecting ourselves abroad let us form a more perfect union here at home, and this is the time for that path. [applause] 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. most wasteful the economics of all. 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 do. [applause] that job guarantee will and must depend upon a reinvigorated private economy, free at last on 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.

exist with most of our people working and paying taxes to support too many others mired in a demeaning and hope was welfare mess. [applause] therefore we intend to begin by putting billions back to work, and after that is done we will assure that those unable to work and income fully adequate to a decent life. [cheers] [applause] beyond this a program to put america back to work demands that working properly rewarded. that means the end of a system of economic control in which labor is depressed, but prices and corporate profits run skyhigh. [applause]

means a system of national health insurance so that a worker can afford decent health care for himself and his family. [cheers] [applause] it means real enforcement of the law so that the drug racketeers are put behind bars and our streets are once again safe for our families. [applause] all honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. [applause] today does not reward hard work, it 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 was a depletion allowance for oil wells, but no depletion for the farmer who feeds us with a worker who serves us all. [applause] the administration tells us we should not discuss tax reform in an election year. they would prefer to keep all discussion of the tax laws in closed rooms where the administration, it's powerful friends and their paid lobbyists can turn every effort to reform into a new loophole for the rich and powerful. [applause] year is the people's year to speak, and this year the people are going to ensure that the tax system has 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. [applause] let us stand for justice and jobs and against special privilege. 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 changes so we may love it more. [cheers] and this is the time, 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 we are truly brothers and sisters. so join with me in this campaign. senator eagleton in the your strength and support and we will call america home to the ideals that nurse us from the very beginning. [applause] 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 privilege and tax favoritism, from the waist -- waste of idle hands to the joy of labor, from 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 we can seek a newer world. and let us be joyful in the hope and homecoming, for this land is your land. this land is my land. to the new york islands, on the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me.

[cheers] [applause] let us close on this note. may god grant each of us the landm to cherish this good and meet the great challenge that beckons us home. and now is the time to meet that challenge. good night and god speed to you

all. [cheers] [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] ♪ will feature highlights from democratic and republican conventions back to 1948. this is american history tv,

only on c-span 3. >> tonight on american history tv, author tammy ingram discusses her upcoming book "the wickedest city in america." here is a preview. >> this what is interesting because his reply is a little bit less firm of a no then he would be giving to people later on. he simply tells him that time will permit them to come to every place, but every small town with maybe some problem. he indicates he is interested in learning more about what is going on the city's. hunting us to luttrell, he was corresponding with albert patterson and keeping up very well with what was going on. i think he took a special interest in those letters. there are other correspondence like this. there are memos like the scattered throughout papers.