Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Farm price supports are an essential part of our program to achieve these
ends. Price supports should be used to prevent farm price declines which
are out of line with general price levels, to facilitate adjustments in
production to consumer demands, and to promote good land use. Our price
support legislation must be adapted to these objectives. The authority of
the Commodity Credit Corporation to provide adequate storage space for
crops should be restored.
Our program for farm prosperity should also seek to expand the domestic
market for agricultural products, particularly among low-income groups, and
to increase and stabilize foreign markets.
We should give special attention to extending modern conveniences and
services to our farms. Rural electrification should be pushed forward. And
in considering legislation relating to housing, education, health, and
social security, special attention should be given to rural problems.
Our growing population and the expansion of our economy depend upon the
wise management of our land, water, forest, and mineral wealth. In our
present dynamic economy, the task of conservation is not to lockup our
resources but to develop and improve them. Failure, today, to make the
investments which are necessary to support our progress in the future would
be false economy.
We must push forward the development of our rivers for power, irrigation,
navigation, and flood control. We should apply the lessons of our Tennessee
Valley experience to our other great river basins.
I again recommend action be taken by the Congress to approve the St.
Lawrence Seaway and Power project. This is about the fifth time I have
recommended it.
We must adopt a program for the planned use of the petroleum reserves under
the sea, which are--and must remain--vested in the Federal Government. We
must extend our programs of soil conservation. We must place our forests on
a sustained yield basis, and encourage the development of new sources of
vital minerals.
In all this we must make sure that the benefits of these public
undertakings are directly available to the people. Public power should be
carried to consuming areas by public transmission lines where necessary to
provide electricity at the lowest possible rates. Irrigation waters should
serve family farms and not land speculators.
The Government has still other opportunities--to help raise the standard of
living of our citizens. These opportunities lie in the fields of social
security, health, education, housing, and civil rights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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