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I. MESSAGE ON THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF OUR COUNTRY,

FEBRUARY 8, 1965

(Excerpts)

For centuries Americans have drawn strength and inspiration from the beauty of our country. It would be a neglectful generation indeed, indifferent alike to the judgment of history and the command of principle, which failed to preserve and extend such a heritage for its descendants.

We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must not be just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not with Nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world around him. Its object is not just man's welfare, but the dignity of man's spirit.

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There is much the Federal Government can do, through a range of specific programs, and as a force for public education.

I have recommended a community extension program which will bring the resources of the university to focus on problems of the community just as they have long been concerned with our rural areas. Among other things, this program will help provide training and technical assistance to aid in making our communities more attractive and vital. In addition, under the Housing Act of 1964, grants will be made to States for training of local governmental employees needed for community development. I am recommending a 1965 supplemental appropriation to implement this program.

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** * I recommend on a matching basis a series of Federal demonstration projects in city parks to use the best thought and action to show how the appearance of these parks can better serve the people of our towns and metropolitan areas.

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*** I recommend enactment of legislation to

Provide a new research and demonstration construction program leading to the solution of problems caused by the mixing of storm water runoff and sanitary wastes.

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Provide for research and demonstration projects leading to more effective methods for disposing of or salvaging solid wastes.

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I am recommending additional funds for the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce contamination from toxic chemicals through intensified research, regulatory control, and educational programs.

Our needs for new knowledge and increasing application of existing knowledge demand a greater supply of trained manpower and research

resources.

A National Center for Environment Health Sciences is being planned as a focal point for health research in this field. In addition, the 1966 budget includes funds for the establishment of university institutes to conduct research and training in environmental pollution problems.

The actions and proposals recommended in this message will take us a long way toward immediate reversal of the increase of pollutants in our environment. They will also give us time until new basic knowledge and trained manpower provide opportunities for more dramatic gains in the future.

I intend to call a White House Conference on Natural Beauty to meet in mid-May of this year.

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*** It can serve as a focal point for the large campaign of public education which is needed to alert Americans to the danger to their natural heritage and to the need for action.

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The beauty of our land is a natural resource. Its preservation is linked to the inner prosperity of the human spirit.

The tradition of our past is equal to today's threat to that beauty. Our land will be attractive tomorrow only if we organize for action and rebuild and reclaim the beauty we inherited. * * *

J. MESSAGE RELATING TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND ITS
GOVERNMENT, FEBRUARY 15, 1965

(Excerpt)

No more important responsibility rests on any local government than the provision of adequate educational facilities for its younger citizens. No need is more urgent than that of providing for all boys and girls the opportunity to secure the highest and best education of which they are capable.

1. The public school system of the District, which already has many achievements to its credit, must become one of the great school systems in the Nation.

Curriculums and teaching methods must reflect the best experience available in the United States, particularly as it is related to young people who come to the schools from disadvantaged circumstances at home. The most highly qualified teachers must be recruited, and teachers in temporary category reduced to a minimum. More sup

porting personnel, particularly counselors, are needed. No child should lack adequate textbooks and no school should lack either an adequate library or a trained librarian. Vocational education must be more closely related to the demands of the modern world, as well as to the opportunities for further training which will be afforded by the community college. Improvements can be made in the training of the physically and mentally handicapped which will enable many more to achieve full or partial self-sufficiency.

The physical plant, within a decade at most, should be made adequate. New buildings should continue the principles of modern school design now being pursued. More immediately, there must be adequate space for every child, including, needless to say, those whom improved facilities, improved educational measures, and improved economic conditions will prevent becoming dropouts. The capital of the richest nation on earth cannot tolerate part-time classes, classes in makeshift rooms, and classes so large that instruction becomes difficult or impossible.

2. A committee of nationally recognized educators, after careful examination of the District's situation, has recommended that the District should establish immediately a community college and a college of liberal arts and sciences, under a board of higher education. The former institution would provide a 2-year program, including both the first 2 years of college work and advanced technical training in a variety of subprofessional skills. The latter, which would absorb the present District of Columbia Teachers College, would emphasize teacher training but would also provide instruction in the liberal arts and sciences, growing as the need developed. These two institutions should be brought into being without delay. I will shortly recomment to the Congress the necessary legislation.

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3. The District should participate in the residential vocational school program authorized by the Vocational Education Act of 1963. Such a school can demonstrate the advantages of combining the most modern vocational education with the healthy and stimulating living environment now missing from the lives of many District children. It is my hope that plans for a school will be made immediately with the help of the Commissioner of Education.

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From the very beginning, this country, the idea of America itself, was the promise that all would have an equal chance to share in the fruits of our society.

As long as children are untrained, men without work, and families shut in gateless poverty, that promise is unkept.

Our objective was stated by the Congress in the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 "to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty in this Nation by opening to everyone, the opportunity for

education and training, the opportunity to work, and the opportunity to live in decency and dignity."

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We have already begun to move toward this objective:

Local antipoverty programs have been approved in 44 of the 50 States, and by June every State will be taking part.

Work is now underway on 53 Job Corps centers. Seven are already in operation and 15 will be completed each month. Each will be filled with young men or women anxious to learn and work, and to give themselves a new and often unexpected opportunity for a productive life.

We will, this year, provide a school readiness program for 100,000 children about to enter kindergarten. This will help them overcome the handicaps of experience and feeling which flow from poverty and permit them to receive the full advantages of school experience.

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In 49 cities and 11 rural communities, Neighborhood Youth Corps have been established. In these corps, young men and women, between 16 and 21 can work to keep themselves in school, to return if they have dropped out, or to prepare for permanent jobs. Thirty-five thousand college level students can now continue their education through the income provided by part-time jobs. And 35,000 adults will be taught to read and write this year.

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We estimate that at least 90,000 adults will be ready to enroll in adult basic education programs during the coming year.

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Therefore I am requesting the Congress to authorize the continuation of these programs for the next 2 years, and to authorize and appropriate $1.5 billion to conduct them during the fiscal year.

I am also asking Congress to extend for 10 months, to June 30, 1967, the period during which certain programs may be funded with 90percent Federal assistance. If we do not do this, then many communities, especially those in rural or isolated areas and which lack the resources to get underway quickly, will be unable to qualify before the cutoff date.

In addition, I recommend transfer of the work-study program to the Office of Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, as well as a series of technical amendments.

L. REMARKS TO THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE BOARD,

FEBRUARY 17, 1965
(Excerpts)

We must be concerned with the human mind and its education. We must be concerned with human dignity and its opportunity. We must

be concerned with natural beauty and its preservation-all of man's environment and all of man's improvement.

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Our prosperity and our progress, the prestige our free system enjoys throughout the world, all reflect the victory of the enlightened mind over the mean and the narrow spirit of other times.

So I ask you then, as enlightened men of our times, to join as full partners in all the problems of the Nation, the social problems as well as the economic problems. For we shall be judged not by what we take with us, but by the society that we leave behind us.

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M. REMARKS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, FEBRUARY 22, 1965

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I am so glad that it seems to me that here at the crossroads of this university is where education and Appalachia meet.

Twenty thousand women will be needed, this summer, to help prepare deprived young children for success in school.

All of you are needed to organize community action programs-to map the strategy and to carry out the plans for wiping out poverty in each community.

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N. COMMUNICATION RELATIVE TO AMENDING THE PEACE CORPS ACT, FEBRUARY 25, 1965

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The Peace Corps will, in a few days, reach its fourth anniversary. Since its beginning, on March 1, 1961, the Peace Corps has justified the highest hopes of those who established it. The Congress intended that this new agency would help peoples of interested countries and areas "in meeting their needs for trained manpower, and to help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served and a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people."

In Africa, the Peace Corps has made an impressive contribution to secondary education. In six African nations, our volunteers make up at least one-third of the degree-holding teachers; they represent 90 percent of the degree-holding teachers in Malawi; they reach 50,000 Nigerian students each day. In these and other African countries, they have contributed to a great expansion of the school systems to an increase of tens of thousands of secondary school students.

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*** In Peru and Bolivia, volunteers are helping to train personnel for those countries' newly organized developed agencies. In the Dom

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