Remarks to Young Representatives From Marshall Plan Countries.

YOU ARE a fine-looking group, and we are glad to have you in this country--glad to have you take a look at it. I think you have been spending too much time in New York. New York is just the door of the United States. It is both the entry and the exit. You will find that that part of the country west of the Appalachian Mountains is most interesting, and I hope you had the chance to get to see the Grand Coulee Dam, and the electrical installations in the Tennessee Valley. I also hope that you had the opportunity to see something of the valleys of the Mississippi River.

I am glad you are now in the Capital. I hope you will spend some time here, and get a chance to interview our governmental workers and to see how the Government of the United States operates. It is not posed as the most efficient government in the world, but it is posed as one that is most just to the people of the United States.

We have a government, as you know, that is divided into three sections. We have a legislative branch, which makes the laws. And we have an executive branch, of which the President is head, and he executes the laws. And then we have a judicial section of the government which interprets those laws. And in that way we have what we call a check and balance government, so that no one has too much power.

The power is in the people themselves. They demonstrated that completely in November.

I hope to see the time come when every section of the world will have a government that is a government of and by and for the people, as Mr. Lincoln said along in the 1860's.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit here. I sincerely hope that you will continue your studies of the peoples of the world, and that eventually when you get to be as old as I am, that the United Nations will be functioning fully and completely, in keeping the peace of the world--which we all want.

Thank you very much.

[At this point Anthony Demetriades, the spokesman for the group, told the President that they had been in the United States for 5 weeks. "We have had the most wonderful time of our lives here," he added, "and we only wish that American students could come over to our countries and see our needs and our way of living there." The President then resumed speaking.]

I appreciate that very much, and I sincerely hope that some of our people will pay a visit to your countries and become as well acquainted with them and their peoples as you have tried to become acquainted with us.

Thank you again, very much.