I want to talk with you very simply about the need for present action in this crisis--the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed. Last Thursday I described the American form of government as a three horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their field might be plowed. The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government--the Congress, the Executive and the courts. Two of the horses are pulling in unison today; the third is not. Those who have intimated that the President of the United States is trying to drive that team, overlook the simple fact that the President, as Chief Executive, is himself one of the three horses. It is the American people themselves who are in the driver's seat. It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed. It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to pull in unison with the other two. I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again. It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was called into being because the Articles of Confederation under which the original thirteen States tried to operate after the Revolution showed the need of a national government with power enough to handle national problems. In its Preamble, the Constitution states that it was intended to form a more perfect Union and promote the general welfare; and the powers given to the Congress to carry out those purposes can be best described by saying that they were all the powers needed to meet each and every problem which then had a national character and which could not be met by merely local action. But the framers went further. Having in mind that in succeeding generations many other problems then undreamed of would become national problems, they gave to the Congress the ample broad powers "to levy taxes. . . and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." That, my friends, is what I honestly believe to have been the clear and underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote a federal constitution to create a national government with national power, intended as they said, "to form a more perfect union. . . for ourselves and our posterity."