Remarks at the Great Lakes Exposition, Cleveland, Ohio.

President Crawford, Senator Bulkley, ladies and gentlemen:

I am on a real holiday and having an exceedingly good time. I was very glad in fact when the radio announcer said that this was not going to be a political speech. I took occasion to wiggle my finger with joy at my old college friend, Chester Bolton.

I said I had learned a lot after that drive this morning. After we had gone about three, quarters of the way, the Mayor of Cleveland called attention to the large number of people and I said, "How many people do you think I have seen?" He said, "Oh, about three million." I congratulate Cleveland on its growth.

There was only one thing I was worried about. We have been trying to put people to work, but I am afraid that the number of work-hours accomplished today in this charming city will be away below what they ought to be.

This is the third exposition that I have gone to in 1936. The fact of three great expositions in the country—and there is a fourth way out on the Coast—all running simultaneously in one year, means something. It means that things are a lot better in the country than they have been for some years past. I learned something else. I had always supposed that an exposition took anywhere from three to five years of planning before it was held. Now we know that we can stage one in six months if the community is behind it.

I think you have rendered a real service, not merely to the city and the State, not merely to all of those States which border on the Great Lakes, but also to the whole of the country. I wish I could have spent a good many days, not only looking at the more serious exhibits, but also playing on the Midway.

As you know, at this time of the year I am trying to see at first hand, some of the work which is being carried on by government of all kinds. I have been especially desirous of seeing the work that was caused, not by a depression, not by man, but by what we used to call in the old days "an act of God." That is why I have been visiting some of the flood areas in the East and shall visit more. That is why I am going out to the great drought area of the West. I believe that by seeing things at first hand, I can get a better picture and I can have a more useful impression in Washington than if I merely sat at my desk there and read a great many pages of reports and looked at photographs.

What I have seen leads me to believe more and more that the country as a whole recognizes some of these great national problems, such as the prevention of floods and the curtailment of the consequences of drought, not merely from a local point of view but from a national point of view. The destruction of property, the loss of lives in a place like Johnstown, or on the Connecticut River in New England, the serious impairment of health, the destruction of crops and livestock in the Far West—all of these catastrophes affect those of us who are fortunate to live in places that have not been afflicted by flood or drought. It is a very encouraging thing, I think, to all of us, to realize that the Nation as a whole is looking at the Nation as a whole from a national point of view more and more with every passing year.

These expositions further strengthen that purpose of national understanding and national solidarity. I should like to see some exposition started somewhere that would have as its principal objective the drawing of a record number of people from the farthest points of the country as well as from points nearer home. The facts that people all over the East are visiting this exposition in Cleveland, that they are coming here from the South, that the State of Florida has put up a fine building here and that people from the Coast are stopping off on their way to and from the East, mean that Cleveland is rendering a national service.

Incidentally, it is not just a question of education and instruction; it is also a question of having a good time. A good many people in this country today are entitled to a good time after the things they have been through and especially after the courage with which they have faced difficult conditions during these past few years.

I am proud of the American people. I was proud, for instance, yesterday, to see the expressions on the faces of the people of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who, working together as a unit, came through a very serious disaster to their town. That spirit has not failed us in the past, and it is not going to fail us in the future.

That is why I think I am entitled to say to you, on behalf of the Nation, that you are doing a fine job here in Cleveland a fine job for the Nation.

I only wish I could stay for a whole week and see it all.