Remarks to Members of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

I WANT you to get this--much thinner than you gentlemen have been--I deliberately took off about 5 pounds before this meeting.

I want to welcome you all to the White House. You entertain and instruct us and I must say that the ability to place in one picture a story and a message and do it with impact and conviction and humor and passion, all that, I think, makes you really the most exceptional commentators on the American scene today.

So we are very much indebted to you for instructions. Those who read the paper quickly get your message, and those who read it slowly study it with more care. I am glad to have you here, and I am going to examine what you have done to us with some concern. You see, the hair is much less than you have it!

We are glad to have you here.

[At this point John Chase of the New Orleans States-Item introduced Hugh Hutton of the Philadelphia Inquirer who presented the President with an original cartoon by Thomas Nast, a gift of Mr. Nast's son Cyril. The President then resumed speaking.]

I want to thank you very much. We will present this to the White House and have it hung here. We are very much indebted to you. We have hung some of your contemporary cartoons, but those I am going to take with me.

Thank you.