Remarks on Departing From Toledo.

Governor Rhodes, Members of Congress, public officials, my dear friends in Ohio:

For many years I have been coming to this wonderful State and meeting its fine citizens. I always enjoy learning that I am scheduled to be here, and I always hate to leave. But for myself and all the people who traveled with me from Washington, this has been a day of both heartsickness and hopefulness.

We have much to be thankful for. We don't know how lucky we are until we go and see what has happened to our neighbors through no fault of their own.

From the air and on the ground today we have seen destruction and desolation the kind of which I have never seen before in all of my life. It is of the very worst degree. When you think of the lives that were lost, the lives that have been changed, the lives which will forever bear the memory of this sad Sunday, when you look at the little boys with the holes in the tops of their heads, the mother's home that was there yesterday and now is gone she knows not where, it is enough to bring tears to the eyes of anyone.

Yet, we have seen very few tears in these six States that we have visited today. At the very worst of the stricken neighborhoods we have seen the young and we have seen the old standing there shoulder to shoulder, planning hopefully for tomorrow.

Well, that is the purpose of our mission-- to come here to personally extend our sympathy and our condolence, to try to learn and understand about what has happened, and then try to do something about it.

There are talkers and there are doers, and there are people who believe in action, and there are people who put it on the back burner. But we want to be certain that everything is done as rapidly and as effectively as it can be done. We want to rebuild for tomorrow.

In a situation such as this, I think it is the role of the Federal Government to assist the States; for the President to work with the Governor; for the Governor to work with the mayors; and all of us to work together. While there are limits to what we can do, I want to pledge this afternoon to every citizen, to every community afflicted by the tornadoes or the floods, that your Government and your President will do everything conceivably possible to be of assistance under our laws.

Before I leave, I want to congratulate especially the Governors, the mayors, and the local officials with whom we have met and talked in these areas. They are tremendously concerned and want to do all they can. You have one of the finest delegations in the Congress, and many of those men are here with me today and are going back and roll up their sleeves and try to redo what was undone only yesterday and the day before.

I am pleased by the ready and the willing understanding and the cooperation which exists between the Federal Government and the State of Ohio, between the Federal Government and the local governments. Everywhere I have gone I have heard the very highest praise for the performance of the National Guard, the highway patrol, the State police, the local law enforcement officers, as well as the Red Cross. I want to express my personal appreciation to each citizen who is giving of himself to be helpful and useful to his neighbors and his community in these times of need. This is really America at its finest and its best.

I remember back when I was a youngster growing up. When adversity would overtake my family, we would all pull a little bit closer together and try to be sorry for the things we had said just the day before about each other--our brothers and our sisters, and maybe our fathers and our mothers. So in this hour of adversity we are not concerned with rifles or positions, we are not concerned with parties or politics. We are just concerned with the country that we all love so much.

As I speak here, men are manning their stations 10,000 miles from here in order to protect the freedom that we enjoy here. And I hope that when we get ready to turn out the light tonight each of us will say a prayer for them, and also for these poor people who have suffered these great losses, but suffered them with chin up and chest out, and who are ready to roll up their sleeves tomorrow and rebuild what has been taken from them.

This has been a sad experience for me today. It has been a long one that began at 5:30 this morning. I am due to report to 33 Senators at 6 o'clock in Washington this evening. And I am going to report to them on what is happening in Viet-Nam and what is happening out here in the heartland of America. I am so proud that I am privileged to live in a country and to lead a country like the United States, and one of the really best parts of that country is the State of Ohio and you people that live here.

Thank you so much.