Remarks Upon Arrival at the Airport, Louisville, Kentucky.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Brown, Senator Cooper, Senator Morton, Mr. Farnsley, Mr. Bingham, distinguished Members of the House and Senate who are traveling with us, my friends of Kentucky:

Mrs. Johnson and I want to express our deepest and sincerest thanks to you for coming out here this late in the evening, bringing your signs and giving us this warm welcome to the great city of Louisville, the wonderful State of Kentucky.

I always get a peculiar pleasure when I set my foot on Kentucky soil. And I am sorry that I can't be here longer tonight--at least not this trip. But I am coming back.

The Johnsons always come back to Kentucky, because--and I hope this won't get me in trouble down home--Kentucky is where we really started out.

My father's mother was born in Russellville. My great-great-grandmother was a sister of a Governor of Kentucky, Joseph Desha (a major general in the War of 1812 and a Congressman from Kentucky), and a sister of a Congressman from Tennessee. All of them happened to be Deshas.

My great-great-grandfather, John Huffman, was a Kentucky farmer until the middle of the last century. He did move to Texas, but I hope that you won't hold that against him.

He was really seeking new horizons. He thought that that was in the best Kentucky tradition. That Kentucky tradition gave us men like Daniel Boone and Casey Jones. It also gave us great institutions like the TVA.

Thirty years ago the people of Kentucky, and this whole region, faced an uphill climb. The hill was long, and it was steep. But while the rest of the country was debating, Kentucky was marching.

You may, with my economists, keep calling the Upper South an exciting new frontier of progress. But you took Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and you converted it into the beginning of a Great Society while I was still just a junior Congressman.

This is a good place, I think, and a good time tonight for the Governor to announce another step forward.

The Governor and the delegation and my associates in Washington, who all are interested in Kentucky, have been working on a plan that we think would be helpful to this great State.

Tonight we can tell you that we have approved the request of the State of Kentucky, through its Governor, for a grant from the Economic Development Administration for the development of a great new national outdoor facility at Lake Barkley State Park.

The amount of the Federal grant is approximately $4 million. It will be matched equally by the funds provided by the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

The public facility which will be constructed with these funds will add to and complete the other facilities planned for the Kentucky Lake, and Lake Barkley, and the national recreation areas that are now being developed by the Tennessee Valley Authority at your lakes.

All of these facilities will provide recreational opportunities for more than 70 million Americans, who will be located within a day's drive of this beautiful recreational area. It will also be available to our fine fighting servicemen and their families who have served this country so well and who are now stationed at Fort Campbell, which we visited earlier this afternoon.

The immediate area adjacent to the site of this project is an area of economic need. And it meets all the tests outlined in the Economic Development Act of 1965.

So we are convinced that the development will make a material contribution to the economic well-being of this area. It is going to save me some time that I have been spending, because I think it is easier to make the grant than it is to take the calls from the Governor and the Senators from Kentucky and the congressional delegation.

This area, which is jointly being developed by Federal and State and private enterprise, I think is destined to become one of this Nation's most attractive and best outdoor recreational areas.

So I am very proud of my Kentucky heritage. And I try to live up to it.

I want to thank you again for your welcome. I want to thank you for the contribution this great State has made in the Halls of the Congress, in the outstanding leaders that you have provided us in this Nation, in the field of public service, in the field of journalism, in the field of the development of the TVA, and many other worthwhile projects.

I particularly want to thank you for furnishing us the most able executive, I think, that we have in the White House--Mrs. Bess Clements Abell, a Kentucky girl, who walks with kings and prime ministers and never loses the common touch to the extent but what she can lecture the President.

So I thank you again for all the contributions of Kentucky. I hope that you will go right on doing what you have been doing since the Johnson family moved away to Texas and just keep on setting the standards for the rest of us to follow.

Thank you and good night.