Remarks at a Program in Recognition of Cost Reduction Achievements by the Department of Agriculture.

Secretary Freeman, Chairman Cooley, Congressman Michel, distinguished award winners, and my friends in the Department of Agriculture:

First of all, I want to thank the Secretary for asking me to come here and share this pleasure with you this morning. And I want to thank each of you for the high honor that you have achieved, the success that has attended your efforts, the results that have come your way, and those that are still in the offing.

I want to personally and publicly express my deep satisfaction and pleasure to the House of Representatives. As I said to the distinguished Speaker and majority leader yesterday, I am very proud of Chairman Cooley and Congressman Michel and the other Members of the great Committee on Agriculture for their constructive and prompt action in connection with our food for India resolution which we submitted, it just seems, a few hours ago.

They have already considered it, had their hearings, reported it, and passed it without a roll call. That is the way I like to see them handle legislation in the House of Representatives, Harold.

The farmers of America, because of their ingenuity, because of their diligence, their hard work, their stick-to-it-evenness, their desire to give a value received, have given us an abundance that we can now, as good friends of all the peoples of the world, help to supply our neighbors in need.

There is no greater satisfaction that can come to any human being than the one that came to us the other day, when we learned of the possibility of some millions of people dying of famine in India this year, when we could open our warehouses to them and take the fruits of our bounty and the products of our labor over the years that we had stored, and share part of it with them and still have sufficient reserves on hand to take care of our own people.

I am very proud of the way Secretary Freeman has administered the Department of Agriculture. He has shown imagination and he has shown diligence. He has shown a prudence and a thrift that makes him one of the greatest administrators that this Government has ever known. He has always looked after the interests of the farmer, but he has not been unaware of the interests of all Americans.

I just asked him a few minutes ago, when they were talking to me about saving $15 million in storage rates, "How much do you spend in the Department of Agriculture just storing surpluses?" The man that answered me said, "When Mr. Freeman came in, the taxpayers were spending $400 million a year on storage costs. We are spending $200 million a year now."

That means that we have disposed of some of the stuff we had in storage. That means we have improved on the storage, we have improved on the rates. And the net result is that the taxpayer is spending just half as much now as he did when the Secretary took office.

In all of these economies and all of these good management practices, each employee of the Department of Agriculture can justly take pride. As public servants we know, or at least we ought to know, that the habits that we are most in need of reforming are our own, although Mark Twain used to say that nothing so needs reforming as the other people's habits.

Our Government is very complex and times change. It keeps us busy trying to keep up with the needs of the moment and of the hour. Old ways quickly become inefficient ways, and inefficiency leads to waste. We have a war on waste and we are trying to prove to the people who work in Government that we just cannot afford the waste that we have been enjoying in the years past.

I believe that waste is a crime. I believe that waste is against our freedom. I believe that waste is against our progress. Thus, I believe that waste is against the American people. So I have said that controlling waste is like bailing a boat; you have to keep at it. There is no time to rest. All of our great dreams, all of our visions, and all of our plans will come to nothing if we do not press forward with our reforms.

We are a rich and expanding nation. We are the wealthiest nation in the world, the healthiest nation in the world, the best educated nation, and the one that I think has the most to really be thankful for. We are educating our young, we are caring for our sick, we are providing opportunities for our poor, we are rebuilding our cities, we are beautifying our country, we are exploring the heavens--and Mrs. Johnson is exploring the Rio Grande, I see from the morning paper.

But nevertheless, in doing all these things we have to sometimes drag some of our most respected and our best intentioned colleagues and get them by the neck and drag them every step of the way. These efforts I think are vital to our future and the future of this world, but they have a price tag attached because progress never comes cheaply. Our citizens should be willing to pay that price because they have shown their willingness time and time again to do that.

Some of our people feared the socialism of social security. Well, that's when I came to town. And I remember the horror that some Congressmen expressed before we passed the first social security bill, although there were really less than a dozen of them voted against it when we called the roll back in 1935. But some feared the socialism of social security. And a good many, I remember, spoke for a number of years about the Fair Deal of Medicare. But they are here, both of them. Thank God the status quo did not prevail.

Now I see here this morning that the status quo is not prevailing. You are reforming, you are improving. A year ago last November, at the first Cabinet meeting following my election to the Presidency, I said that "as a nation, we cannot afford to waste a single dollar out of our resources on old programs which once may have been essential, but which time and events have overtaken."

So I have come here this morning because a great Cabinet officer and his entire Department have taken that directive to heart. Under Orville Freeman's leadership, with the help of Jane, this Department became one of the great leaders of all the civilian agencies--and she made more than her 50 percent contribution, too, Orville.

I am glad to honor these Special Award Merit winners today because you show that you have a determination to build a great record here. I have noted, for example, that your new packaging methods for dried milk will save $120,000 a year. Now, none of these cost-cutting ideas was in practice when we first declared the war on waste. These ideas came from Federal employees. They came from people who work for their Government who have ingenuity and imagination.

The record of the Department of Agriculture shows that effective and efficient Government is responsive and warm and concerned with our people. That is why I wanted to come by this morning, to say thanks to each of you for what you have done, and to tell you that I will be watching in the days ahead for any improvements that you can make. I wanted to let you know that all the people in this land are grateful to you for not being satisfied with that old, worn-out phrase, "Well, we have always done it this way." You are looking up, not down. You are moving ahead, not backward. And that truly is the real strength of our Government.

I think every person in this room, and every person in this country, should be grateful for the great production record that the farmers of this Nation have made. They have given us food when we needed it, quality that has never been excelled; they have given us an abundance that not only will take care of all of our needs, but will make it possible for us to help the other starving millions of people of the world.

I was talking to the Prime Minister of India. And when I left her and returned to the Mansion I realized that except for the great work that the farmers of America had done, and the great work that the Department of Agriculture had done in counseling, in guiding, and in helping them, that more people would starve in India this year than live in both North Vietnam and South Vietnam. So that's a record that you can be proud of.

I see that your committee in the House, as I just observed, is equally as efficient. It believes in cost consciousness. It believes in saving money. Otherwise, it could have taken 2 or 3 weeks around here, hearing my India bill the other day. They reported it out promptly. I hope the Senate committee will follow your example, Mr. Cooley, and save money by acting on this measure before the Easter holidays.

Now one little thought I want to leave with you before I get away: One of my assistants just reminded me that this morning the last employee in the White House signed up to buy a savings bond. That gave us a 100 percent record. Just a few days ago we were under the Department of Agriculture. You had 42 percent of your people that bought bonds and we had 41. And we started doing something about it.

Of course, we don't have as many people over at the White House as you have in the Department of Agriculture, and maybe I was a little more persuasive with them than I can be with you.

I know the problems that all of us have in this day of rising costs, when we are trying to meet all the needs of our families, but we have men out in Vietnam who have made great sacrifices and are making great sacrifices for us. At this particular time we have launched a savings bond program. We want it to go well in the country, and I just hope the Government can set a good example.

I have raised the interest rates so that you can get a fair return on your investment. I think that if you can possibly spare the money, it would be a good thing for you to do for yourself and for your family. I know it will be a good thing to do for your country. So I hope that I may be able to come back here in the not too distant future and have the Secretary tell me that that 42 percent record of yours may not have been improved as much as our few employees improved mine over at the White House, but at least improved it enough to justify my coming back and thanking you.

Goodby.