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TIM PUGMIRE: Walter Mondale says while growing up in Southern Minnesota during the great depression, he had many friends living in severe poverty. He says it always felt unfair that those children through no fault of their own had few options for education and a better future.

Mondale says as a US Senator, he looked for ways to address the inequities that touched him as a child. He says he felt there was a compelling case for the Child and Family Services Act of 1971.

WALTER MONDALE: Nearly 17% of American kids were growing up in poverty. Many of them without adequate nutrition, healthcare or the other necessities America take for granted.

TIM PUGMIRE: The bill provided for early identification of poor preschool children and provided assistance to the families. It included funding for child care, parenting skills training, and health and nutrition programs. Mondale says the bill was a chance for all children to grow up to be healthy and productive adults.

The bill passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support. But President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill, calling it a radical piece of legislation. Mondale says the veto message penned by Nixon's speechwriter Pat Buchanan was savage in its tone and off the mark.

WALTER MONDALE: He said it would be quote a long leap into the dark for the United States government and the American people. And that it would alter the family's relationship, take away parent's authority over their children, and commit the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of a communal approaches to child rearing.

TIM PUGMIRE: Mondale says the veto was not about children. He says Nixon was trying to appease conservative Republicans who were upset about his planned trip to China. He says it was early evidence of the growing influence of the political right-wing.

Mondale also blames the bill's demise on the lack of research at the time, showing the benefits of early childhood education can have on brain development. Developmental psychologist Deborah Phillips, who had a National Child Research Center at Georgetown University, says it is now clear that children show astonishing development from the day they're born.

DEBORAH PHILLIPS: The environments that they're in for the first five years of their life have a profound at home and in child care have a profound influence on how they look at kindergarten entry and that how they're doing at kindergarten entry, is the single best predictor of their lifelong trajectories in terms of achievement and earnings and work.

TIM PUGMIRE: One panel participant claims the benefits of early childhood education are still not conclusive. Ronald Haskins, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, also argues Mondale's bill was a potential waste of money.

RONALD HASKINS: The American people do not necessarily like big government. And this 1971 proposal was big government at its biggest most governmental.

TIM PUGMIRE: 30 years after Mondale's proposal failed, child welfare advocates say many children from low income families still aren't getting the preschool care they need. Mondale says many states including Minnesota have developed effective early childhood education programs. But he says a national strategy is still as important as ever.

WALTER MONDALE: Nothing is more vital to our future national security than the healthy development and education of our children. It is and always will be our country's first line of defense.

TIM PUGMIRE: The Mondale lectures on public service continue next spring with a discussion on the evolving role of the vice president. I'm Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio.