Remarks at the Dedication Services of the Grandview Baptist Church.

IT IS a great pleasure for me to stand up here today and look over this congregation. It is very seldom that I stand in a pulpit. The last time was in a Swedish Lutheran Church in Washington.

As I look around this congregation, I see the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of friends and relations of my family. I lived down here in this neighborhood before there was a railroad here. There was a town here, and the church was down in the pasture at home, and most of its members lived north of here. My grandfather once lived in Holmes Park, and they came from as far as Belton to go to church at the Blue Ridge Baptist Church.

I saw the first train run through here, and I saw this Blue Ridge Baptist Church--after the population that came when the train established a station here--most of the members were centered right around here--I saw the church moved to Grandview, and be renamed the Grandview Baptist Church.

I was out on the farm--it was during vacation time--and my uncle Harrison Young said, "Come on, Harry, let's go and see the old church walk off, it's going up to Grandview." We saw it "walk off," and I think the building is still standing.

I have been very happy that this new church has been built here, because it will be good for the community. I hope it will be possible, on the site where the old church is now, to erect a shrine to our Masonic Lodge. I don't want to see a tavern or anything of the sort go on this corner where that church has been, and if I can prevent it, it is not going there.

I want to say to you that I never have a day when one duty constitutes all I have to do. It is going to be necessary for me to be in Independence, Mo., at 4:13, to light the National Christmas Tree in Washington, and authorize a broadcast of a message which I am sending to the whole world. So I don't think it will be possible, with the time what it is, for me to be able to shake hands with everybody here, although I see many, many people I would like very much to greet.

I was in the same situation the other night when I was out here, and last night, too, when I was out here. You will have to bear with me that it will not be possible for me to shake hands with everybody. It is not possible, as I may miss my connections. And as President of the United States, I can't miss any connections.