Remarks to Members of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Syrian and Lebanese American Federation.

YOU CAN be exceedingly helpful. I am very much interested in peace in the Near East, as I am in every other section of the world. There isn't any good reason at all why there shouldn't be peace there, and everywhere else, for that matter. And you can make a contribution to attainment of that peaceful settlement by just what you are doing now.

I am anxious to see developments in that part of the world that will relieve the pressures of the populations. In nearly every instance in the history of the world, population pressures have caused the difficulties between countries.

There are developments that can be made in the Near East that can care for a population of three or four times the amount of people that are there now. I have had surveys made in the Euphrates Valley, and along the Mediterranean coast, in Arabia, in Ethiopia, and it is fantastic the things that can be done there to make living more pleasant for the people who already live there.

That will bring about peace--that will bring about peace. And you can be very helpful in that.