Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Council on the Arts

To the Congress of the United States:

For all of our arts institutions, these are times of increasing financial concern. The Fiscal Year 1969 Report of the National Endowment for the Arts, which I am transmitting herewith, notes that "the services offered by arts institutions, and the costs which they incurred, continued to expand at a faster rate than earned income and contributions. Therefore as the year continued, these institutions were confronted by mounting financial pressures."

The sums appropriated by the Congress for the Endowment during this period were at the levels established in prior years. Its programs, though limited in size, were of benefit to all of the fifty States and the five special jurisdictions, and in some instances were the means by which fine institutions in the performing arts were enabled to survive.

It was in response to the growing financial problem that on December 10, 1969, I sent to the Congress a special message on the Arts and the Humanities. I noted then that "need and opportunity combine . . . to present the Federal government with an obligation to help broaden the base of our cultural legacy..." Accordingly, I asked the Congress to extend the legislation creating the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, and to provide appropriations for the National Foundation in Fiscal 1971 in an amount "virtually double the current year's level."

In urging the Congress to approve a $20 million program for the National Endowment for the Arts, and an equal amount for the National Endowment for the Humanities, I maintained that few investments we could make would give us so great a return in terms of human satisfaction and spiritual fulfillment. More than ever now, I hold to that view.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House

March 31, 1970