Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks to Members of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association.

August 11, 1959

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

When I realized that I was to have the privilege of meeting so many of the rural letter carriers, it was inevitable that my mind should go back to the farming community where I was raised as a boy. It was there I first met people of your profession--people who had the duty and the responsibility, and indeed the privilege, of keeping our rural families in touch with the rest of the world.

Now, in those days, it was not so easy. So far as I can recall, I never saw a paved road in my youth. My small town of Abilene--as the Kansas representatives here will probably know--didn't have a paved street, even in that town, until somewhere along about 1906. But back in 1898, when I was a young boy--starting down to the Smoky Hills to fish, or shooting rabbits and quail in the fields--the one vehicle, the one activity that you could count on was the rural mail deliverer. He came along with a one-horse wagon, always with the top up, because the weather was bad. In rainy weather he was down to his axles. I often wondered just exactly when his day ended, because he had quite a route-an assignment of a dozen miles or so--and it really took time, this dozen miles or so, down a Kansas gumbo road in a rainy season.

So you have come a long way, not only in numbers, but in the type of service or at least the exact character of the work that you are required to do. With automobiles and with paved roads, it's a different thing. But the job is still the same--to make certain that our rural population is not cut off from the same privileges of mail delivery and in touch with the rest of the world exactly as the urban population is kept in touch.

Of course now with the television and the radio and your mail carrier, we think of the country home, the country family, as just as well informed--possibly better informed--than a lot of our urban families.

I lived among those farm families, and I know how difficult it was to keep in touch, in the old days. Beyond the crops and the condition of the cattle, and the hogs, and the rest of it, we didn't know, often, what was going on. Although as a boy, I must tell you, particularly those of you who are Democrats--very few, I hope--that I did carry a torch in a McKinley torch parade in 1896 in Abilene, Kansas.

So I congratulate you today, one reason being that you have become so numerous, your importance is more recognized, and because you have so organized that you can make your own sentiments and your own feelings and your own convictions expressed through your officers and through your organizations.

Someone told me that your organization was very much on the side of keeping down rising costs, keeping down inflation, and above all, unnecessary Federal expenditures. If that is your doctrine, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to be an honorary member of your organization.

Thank you and good luck.

Note: The President spoke at the south portico of the White House. His opening words "Mr. President" referred to Charles R. Larson, President of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks to Members of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235194

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