Remarks at Dedication of Aerial Fire Depot, Municipal Airport, Missoula, Montana

Governor Aronson, Congressman D'Ewart, Mr. McArdle, and my friends:

I am more than fortunate to be here today. Long have I wanted to have an occasion where I could join with other Americans in a salute to the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture, and more particularly to the Smoke jumpers of that organization.

I first heard about their work when I was still in the Army. They helped to train the paratroopers who were so valuable to us in the war-their techniques and their practices and all their experiences were passed on to us, to give us some of the finest organizations that America has ever sent to battle.

I am not at all astonished that it is such a good outfit. Within the last week I have had a little proof of the qualities of leadership of Mr. McArdle himself. It has not been my good fortune to know him, but only 2 nights ago, in Fraser, Colorado, I was visited at my cabin by a cook, a cook in the Forest Service. And he said, "I read in the paper you are going to Missoula. There you will see my boss, Mr. McArdle. Give him my greetings and best wishes."

I was long with the Army, and I have seen some of the finest battle units that have ever been produced, and whenever you find one where the cook and the private in the ranks want to be remembered to the General, when someone sees him, then you know it is a good outfit. I pay my salute to Mr. McArdle.

Incidentally, I think it is a happy coincidence that for the only time in my life that I know of, I have been introduced to an audience by an ex-Forest Ranger, my good friend Wes D'Ewart.

Now, I know the establishment of this great training center here is the culmination of long years of work--20 years of work. With units scattered all over, they need a center such as this for training and other experimental and centralized work.

And I want to pledge, here and now, that this kind of effort will have the support of the Federal Government as long as I am connected with it.

To that extent, and in accordance with what Mr. McArdle has told us, possibly I am a vicarious member of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce. If so, I am proud of it.

Now these people, in the course of their service to us, have saved, as Mr. McArdle said, millions of dollars in property. They have saved a crop that means so much to us, not only because of its value as lumber and paper and all that, but the time it takes to grow. Forty years is an average time for a pine tree to grow, and down in the Rockies 150 years for pole pines to grow the way we want them. To think of what one devastating fire can do to such a crop in an instant, and what these people have done to save our crucial values!

Now, as I came up here today, I was told by Secretary McKay of the Interior, that in 1 year they have fought twelve thousand fires. It seems like an incredible number, but I hope he is right, because I am going to quote him whenever I talk about them. And if he is wrong, I just hope they don't correct me.

Incidentally, you know, as I landed here and saw this great crowd, I was a little alarmed that you expected me to take to a parachute and jump out. Not only had I no such intention, but I am also delighted that the demonstration was cut short of the place of taking any chances of injuring one of these men, none of whom can we spare.

Now, I am not going to try to recite to such a crowd as this all of the work that the Forest Service does. I think it is better--more appropriate--that I should call attention to this fact: each of us can do something to assist them, directly or indirectly, in their work.

For us, for our children and our grandchildren, they are saving the priceless assets and the resources of the United States. And we can help. We can help by avoiding any of those careless acts that sometimes set these fires. We can help by joining in every kind of conservation practice and conservation organization that helps also to preserve these resources.

In so doing, it seems to me we cannot fail to think more objectively, in a more sincere way, about this country, what the good Lord has given us in the way of priceless resources.

Certain it is that whatever we help to do engages our attention and our interest more deeply than those things that seem to us to be free and to come without effort. We don't particularly worry about the air that we breathe, but we do worry and think about things we earn by the sweat of our brow and bring home.

Now when we are preserving these resources of the United States, we are helping by the sweat of our own brows or the concerns of our own minds and hearts to save them for the others.

This brings up the basic policy of the administration now in Washington. It is the intense belief that every citizen of the United States has a part to play in keeping this country great, that we are not wards of a centralized Federal system, that the Federal system is set up by the people to help, when help is indicated for us, but that each citizen in his own right is better qualified to look after himself than is some bureaucrat in far off Washington.

Now, in a very brief and homely way, that states the policy by which this administration tries to live. Never will we desert any section or any people who, through no fault of their own, suffer disaster and need the help of central Government. And by the same token, never will we step across that line that permits unwarranted Federal intrusion into your lives.

Lincoln said this better than anybody else. He said the function of government is to do for people and a community of people those things which they need to have done, and cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves as can the Federal Government. And he went on to say when people can do these things for themselves, the Federal Government ought not to interfere.

And never has a better philosophy for America been stated than that.

My friends, I am on a hurried trip, and I hope you will allow me to thank each of you for coming out for these few minutes, so that I might greet you--to bring you greetings from your Government, to gain the inspiration that I always gain from association with great groups of Americans; and then, that you will permit me to go to my plane and be on my way, because I believe I am due in Walla Walla in a very short time.

I again assure you that to be here present at the dedication of this training center is a very great honor--one I shall long remember.

Goodbye and good luck.