Remarks in the Civic Center, Fargo, North Dakota

I always like to talk to young people and I think that young people here are really with it in terms of their understanding of national issues, their interest in them and the like.

Sometimes people who live in Washington, New York, other cities, they get out to the Midwest, particularly North Dakota and Wyoming, and they think that that is sort of the sticks. It is not true anymore. This is really one country.

This is a country where, by reason of the communication, television and the rest, there is a tremendous interest in all the national issues here, just like there is in other places.

Let me say, too, that it was very interesting to find, as I went through the crowd, and I thought very encouraging, that a number of people who had lived in places like Los Angeles, St. Louis, one from Connecticut, had moved to North Dakota. We hear about the out-migration. I am convinced now that our program, which we are going to discuss in here now, our program of reversing the migration flow, so that for what is called rural America--and, of course, Fargo is a big city but it is part of rural America-this process of reversing the migration flow really can work, because the attraction, of course, is quite obvious. You have jobs, you have clean air, you have opportunity, you have schools, you have more of an opportunity than you would have in a much larger city to control your own future.

I think that is one of the reasons people like it here. I have always liked it here because they have always been good to me.

I want to say this, Governor,¹ that I recall you as a young Republican. You have always been telling us how great this country was. You have been strong for your State, for this part of the country. And one of the reasons that I have developed this Rural Affairs Council, which, as you know, is something new in the Federal Government, and now bringing the Government of the United States, rather than just sitting there in Washington and waiting for people to come in--is bringing the Government to the country so that we can see what the country is like. You have to see it and feel it. You can read about it in a 150-page document, but there is nothing like talking with people, seeing people, seeing their faces, to know what their attitudes really are. That is something that we have been working for.

I think that leadership of men like yourself and the other Governors that we are going to meet, can develop a new, progressive policy where this--what is called the great heartland of America, which has so much to offer in the way of a good life-can have the good jobs and the greater opportunity that will bring people from the overcrowded cities back to the country where they will have a better life.

That is our program. And I think your 150-page document probably deals with that.