Remarks at the Airport, Huntington, West Virginia, Upon Departing for Washington.

Governor Barron, Governors of visiting States in the Appalachia area, ladies and gentlemen:

This has been a marvelous day. I am so grateful to all of you who would come here and be present with us this evening. I wish I could look into every face and shake every hand. I wish I could tell you how proud I am of the faith and the hope that I have seen in your eyes as I have traveled over five States since daylight this morning.

The trip has been inspiring. We have been in large cities. We have been in small villages. We have been out in humble homes. We have been in great industrial areas. We have been in areas where industry is virtually unknown. We have seen workers who do have jobs; we have seen workers who do not have jobs.

We have seen workers who are training for new jobs to replace old jobs. We have seen some willing and able men who barely remember the last time they had a paycheck. Today I saw a father with 11 children who had worked 4 days last month. I saw another father with 8 children who had worked only 5 days last month.

But everywhere we have gone, the thought has inspired us: What a wonderful spirit there is among the people. The enthusiasm and the determination of all these people have been to join us all tonight in a great national effort to wipe out the causes of poverty. No one says and no one expects that this curse of centuries can be wiped out in a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, or even years.

But that is not the point. I believe that good Americans of all parties, in all States, in all stations of life, are responding as they are for just one reason: It is a source of pride and gratification to me in doing the kind of work here at home that made America the great and strong and good Nation that it has been and that we want it to be for our children.

Today I took a trip which should be unnecessary. I took a trip which, in our times, should become impossible, for I visited among the victims of American poverty, as I told you. I do not go simply to see what poverty is like and what it means to be poor. I already know that, for I have seen this face of poverty many times in many years. I saw it around me in my early years in Texas soon after I discovered America, as the son of a tenant farmer. I have seen it on campaign trips across the country.

I remember when poverty engulfed the Nation in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal began, when 12 million people were out of work, when 25 million people had no income at all.

Yes, I remember the day the Bonus Army was driven down the streets to the mud flats of Anacostia. I remember standing out there as a young secretary to a Congressman and seeing that great man march up and hold onto that podium and say, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and it gave me an inspiration that has carried me all through the years since. I remember the little poor housewife who said, "I have forgotten how to cook, for I have nothing to cook."

But those were not just years of despair; they were years when we had faith and we had hope. In the angry bitterness of the depression, we forged the vision for America. It is an America in which every man has an equal chance for the well-being that is essential to the enjoyment of this freedom that we brag about and this liberty that we treasure so much. I come to you in pursuit of that vision again, tonight.

This is one of the oldest and proudest regions of our land. President Roosevelt talked of the one-third that were ill clad and ill fed and ill housed. In 30 years of effort, we have brought that group down to one-fifth that are now in the poverty group, from one-third to one-fifth in 30 years.

Won't it be a great blessing, won't it be a great achievement, won't it be a great satisfaction for you Governors and the rest of you here tonight to pass on to your children to know that young Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., has been with us all day, trying to do something to move this one-fifth down to where it is one-tenth, and that all of us have had some little part in starting this movement to drive poverty underground and to say to the child that is born poor, in the poor neighborhood, "If you have the will and if you have the determination, we will try to provide the system where someday you can grow up to be a great leader, you can be a Senator, or a President, or a head of an industrial corporation, or a great leader on your own" ?

That is the kind of a legacy that we want, that is the kind of a hope that we plan. But our challenge and our clear and present challenge is to cure what needs to be cured, correct what needs correcting, set the people of this region out on the bright highway of hope as free men, living in dignity and with the promise of opportunity.

No Governor here tonight has the blush of shame come to his cheek. Each one is proud to represent a great constituency. But they are realistic men, and a very fine effort, they know, has been made to develop programs for their States that we need in this Appalachian area. That program has been under the chairmanship of young Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., who has done a great job.

I have received the report of that Commission, and I have received the report of the Governors' Conference. The Governors have again tonight renewed their interest in that report and again indelibly stamped their approval on it. I have gone over it in some detail with them and I will have an announcement to make in a very few days concerning further implementing of that report, or supplementing it.

It is my hope that in a matter of days, I can send a message to the Congress in connection with the work that we have done today and in connection with the work of this commission. I hope that I shall be able to come back here some time and visit in this area again.

In the meantime, please know that we are going to be united in our efforts to bring not only peace to our country and the world, but to bring unequalled prosperity to the Appalachian area and to all the people of this wonderful land.

Good luck and good night. And God bless you all.