McGregor, Iowa Remarks on Arrival at the Town.

We're all delighted that we finally got to Iowa.

This last day and a half, coming down our great Mississippi River on the Delta Queen, has been an inspiration for our family. And we've become convinced anew, the same as I'm sure all of you have, that we live in the greatest nation on Earth. Do you agree with that? [Applause]

Our country has always been blessed by God with every possible advantage that we could desire—military strength, economic strength, political strength; natural resources; basic freedoms; the cherishing of an individual human being; our right to be different; our right to speak our own voice; the right for farmers and business leaders, working people, employers, blacks and whites, those who speak different languages, Protestants, Jews, Catholics, those who have no organized religious belief, in our great country, have a right to be different. But there are times when Americans feel the necessity to put aside differences and to bind ourselves together in the common purpose.

In front of me is a 'distinguished veteran of the First World War, with two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart, symbols of heroism and a willingness to offer his life, 'if necessary, for the preservation of our Union. When we have identifiable threats to our country, we always bind ourselves together. Families, communities, local, State, Federal officials, we respect one another and we try to overlook differences. We don't try to find someone to blame for a mistake or for a problem.

These days our country is threatened. But it's a different kind of threat from what we experienced in the First and Second World War, even the Great Depression. Our Nation's security is threatened because we've become too dependent on oil from foreign countries. We must restore our Nation's energy security.

We can do it in two ways. They're not incompatible; they support one another. The first is to save energy, to conserve energy, to stop wasting energy. And every single American can do this and must do this within our own homes, within our own automobiles, at our own business or workingplace, on our farms. And the second thing we can do is to increase the production of energy in our own country-oil, gas, coal, synthetic fuels, and especially solar energy, which we are enjoying today. We have tremendous opportunities for this.

I proposed to the Congress a comprehensive energy policy, long overdue, dependent on the windfall profits tax on the oil companies. It's not right for the oil companies to take enormous profits and keep them for themselves. Through the windfall profits tax, those profits must be shared with all Americans to help us with conservation, solar power, and to become energy independent. I need you to help me with that. Will you do it? [Applause] This is a time for unity.

The last thing I want to say to you is that Iowa is blessed especially by God's blessings—rich soil, enormous productivity, a low unemployment rate, the kind of unity of purpose that stands our Nation in good stead. And you're also blessed with one of the finest public servants I have ever known—a man who does a great job for our country, but a man who especially has his roots deep in Iowa and who represents you every day, fighting for your rights, fighting for a better life for Iowans. And I'm especially grateful to be in the hometown of John Culver, the man I'm talking about. You're lucky to have him.

Let me say this in closing. Rosalynn and Amy and I have been inspired by the friendship shown us in this first part of our Mississippi River voyage. We'll be going all the way from St. Paul to St. Louis, meeting literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people along the riverbanks, both when the ship doesn't stop, when we go through locks, and when we have a brief stop like this to visit and shake hands directly.

It's been an inspiration for us; we're grateful for it. If you'll stick with us, stick with each other, have confidence in yourselves, in your neighbors, in your communities, and in our Nation, and revere the opportunities of a free nation and a free government, the truest democracy on Earth, then there's no .doubt in my mind that we can make the greatest nation on Earth even greater in the future. That's what I want; that's what we must do together.

Thank you very much.