Excerpts From the President's Remarks Closing the White House Conference of Governors.

WE ARE very greatly obligated to you, because in coming here you demonstrate a conviction that we feel every day: that there has been too long neglected the proper relations between the Federal government and the State governments in the solving of our problems.

Yesterday I referred to the fact that there had been at least partial precedent for this particular meeting. I can't believe that any of them was ever as successful as this one, especially from the standpoint of the national administration. Everyone who has been before you, everyone who has come to report to me on this meeting, has stated that from our viewpoint it has been a tremendous success.

Consequently, we are going to look forward to a time, sometime in the future, when you can spare the time and we can be together again.

We are deadly serious about this business of trying to find a logical division between the proper functions and responsibilities of the State and Federal government. We are--all of us here-deeply concerned that the Commission, for which we have asked legislative authority, will soon be organized; that it will soon go to work and will really go into the whole problem of the proper division of tax fields. We hope it will be able to straighten out our complicated tax system, checking up on those functions where the Federal government has gotten into them too deeply.

I know--and I have the promise of your Chairman and your executive committee--that the Governors are going to cooperate. As a matter of fact, you have a special committee in certain of these fields to cooperate with us during this long and exhaustive study. And I certainly hope that by the time we next meet, we will have some kind of report that can enlist your support, so that we can stand before the nation as a logical, decent organization of function, responsibility and authority, as between Federal and State government.

I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to thank each one of you personally for coming. As I told you yesterday, never has there been a meeting of Governors called by any Federal authority where the percentage of attendance was so high. I believe there are all but four of the States, and all of the Territorial Governors here. So to each of you, my personal thanks. May I assure you that you have helped us, and on the even more personal side, my great satisfaction that I have got again to see so many old friends among you, and to form what I hope are new friendships. And this goes, I must assure you, for those of both political parties.

Thank you very much.