Remarks Upon Arrival at the Airport, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Mayor Duncan, Governor and Mrs. Clement, Senator Gore, Senator Waiters, Congressman and Mrs. Bass, Congressman Fulton, and members of the Chamber of Commerce and Labor Councils, ladies and gentlemen:

It is wonderful to be back in Tennessee. I like your weather. I feel a part of your soil. I have loved your people, and I never cease to remember that if there had not been a Tennessee, there never would have been a Texas.

We have come here today on a very important visit. It does us good to get away from Washington and come out and see the people that we work for, talk to them, see how they live, recognize the sacrifices they make for their country and for us, and try to appreciate their problems.

For many years Tennessee has had one of the most able, aggressive, and influential delegations in the Congress, both the House and Senate. I don't know exactly why you have always had that quality of representation, but one time when they asked Mr. Rayburn, who was a native Tennessean, why it was that he thought Texas had such an outstanding congressional delegation, he replied by saying, "We pick them young, and we pick them honest, and we send them there, and we keep them there."

Now, I don't know whether all of you people will agree with that statement or not. I do, and I know that the members of the delegation agree with me.

We have come here today to see some of the great work that every foreigner that comes to this country wants to see, the Tennessee Valley Authority. We have brought with us several members of the Cabinet, and Mr. Wagner from the TVA.

We want to look at some of your urban renewal projects. We want to talk to you about some of the problems of Appalachia. We want to enlist your support and your help and your advice in a program that we hope ultimately will win the war against poverty in this country.

It was more than 30 years ago when President Roosevelt visited this State, and during that period of the early thirties, in trying to appeal to his countrymen, he reminded them that more than a third of our people were ill fed and ill clad and ill housed. Today, apparently in the midst of plenty, we have reduced that one-third--that was ill clad and ill fed and ill housed--to one-fifth that now make up the poverty group.

But that represents some 30-odd million people in this country. And this administration has decided and has determined that it is going to do something about it. We have put in our budget, funds for a poverty program that is headed by Sargent Shriver.

We have put in our budget, funds for the Appalachia program that is headed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. And we, today, will visit 5 States in the Appalachia area, making a total of 9 of the 10 States in that area that we shall have visited.

We want to listen and to learn. We want to observe firsthand.

I think it is extremely gracious of you and typical of your courtesy and your friendliness to come out here and pay us such a warm welcome. We thank you for the presents. We thank you for the beautiful weather. We know our visit here will be fruitful. I hope that I may be able to get to see you again between now and November.