RECREATION promotes health and health means strong people upon which the future of our nation depends. Our recreation resources are as much a part of our national resources as are our minerals, our fuels and our forests.
The increasing pressures of our rising population, our need for healthful exercise and recreation, necessarily call for an increase in our existing recreational facilities.
We must learn to plan effectively for the use of the recreation resources of our great outdoors. Boating, fishing, camping, hiking, skiing and hundreds of other recreational opportunities can and must be wisely developed so that present and future generations of Americans can more fully enjoy their own country.
The members of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, under the chairmanship of Laurance Rockefeller, are competent, dedicated individuals who, in the past, have given unselfishly of their time to many of these purposes. I am confident that their new work will result in the advancement of the welfare of all of us.
Note: A brief statement by Mr. Rockefeller and a list of the 15 members of the Commission were released with the President's statement. The Commission was created by Public Law 85-470 (72 Stat. 238).
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Statement by the President: Our National Recreation Resources. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/234026