Rear-Platform Remarks at Garden City, Kansas

My friends, I am glad that we are able to stop here for a while but I do wish it were daylight. I am not going to make a campaign speech at this hour of the night. Some day I hope to get in through this section by daylight and see some of your problems at first hand. Of course, I have read about them and have read all the reports about the drought and about the subject of water conservation. I can say that your Government is extremely interested in the whole problem of water.

As I travel all the way down the Arkansas River, I am confirmed in the opinion I formed years ago—that in the watersheds out here in the West we have to aim ultimately at making use of every single drop of water that comes out of the heavens, as it comes down through all the States between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River.

We have not only the problem of soil conservation; we also have the problem of floods. As you know, I am a great believer in trying to think and plan ahead. If we had thought and planned ahead twenty-five or fifty years ago we would be a good deal further along in the solution of both these problems than we are today.

Those problems and others which we face cannot be solved in the course of five years or ten years, but we have learned a great deal about scientific law. When I was a small boy, people did not appreciate nearly as much as we do today the dangers of flying in the face of Nature. I am convinced that by the cooperation of the Federal Government and the State Government and the local government, and by taking the advice of people who live on the land itself, we are going to make this whole country out through here a much safer place in which to live in the course of the next generation. We are aiming at security, security not just for one year or two years but security which comes from attaining the objective of making farming and cattle-raising real careers, by which a man and his wife and family can earn a decent living.

And that, in turn, is all part and parcel of what we are trying to do to provide security against unemployment and old-age distress throughout the United States. We do not pretend to be infallible in our efforts- but we are at least trying.

Well, the train is pulling out. Good night.