Remarks to Officers of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

IT IS GOOD to see all of you. I wish it were possible for me to attend every veterans meeting to which I am invited. It is impossible, though I am glad it was possible to get you in this afternoon.

I am familiar with your problems, and I am familiar with your organization, having been a member of it since 1919. I have been to a number of your national conventions. I was at one of your encampments when I was Vice President, if you remember. I couldn't get around last year; I had too many other engagements I

I hope that you can continue your constructive program. I hope it will be possible for you to help me to help the veterans of the country understand that this United States is theirs. They fought to maintain it. It was due to their efforts that we have been able to continue the constitutional government instituted in 1789 by the greatest group of young men who ever got together to organize a government. That was the Constitutional Convention of 1787, implemented in 1789.

In order to maintain that government, we must understand that it has certain limitations. It is your Government. Your Congress and your Governors and your State legislators are all a part of it, and there are certain limits to which its financial welfare cannot be stretched. I want you to bear that in mind very carefully when you are considering the welfare of the veteran.

I don't think that in the history of the country any veteran has ever had the opportunity that was presented to those returning from this war, and I am happy to say that a vast majority of them took advantage of those opportunities.

They are now the businessmen and the citizens and the executives in every walk of life. There are around 17 or 18 million veterans in the United States at the present time, and they are the young men of the country. They are connected with at least 40 million of the population of 140 millions. So it is as necessary for you to assist the Government as represented by your President, and Congress and the Governors and the State legislators to maintain that Government, and see that it maintains the solvency that is necessary for its continuance, as it is for me as President to try to maintain it now in this troubled world.

I am counting on you for help and support to carry out those policies which will make the country a better place in which to live and one which will give the rest of the world an example of how a government, of and by and for the people, can function. I know you can do that.

Thank you very much for coming over. I appreciate having you.