Small Community and Rural Development Policy Remarks Announcing the Policy.

Being here this afternoon to announce the administration's small community and rural development policy is a very special occasion for me. It's special, because I know how important this policy will be to rural America, and I know how important rural America is to our country.

As a life-long resident of Plains, Georgia, and as a farmer; as an organizer and the original manager of a seven-county rural area planning and development commission; as a State senator, representing a rural district; as a Governor, representing a predominantly rural State; and as a President: I feel that I know rural America.

I know its greatness; I know its beauty. I know its diversity and its resilience in time of trial and trouble and testing. I know its strength, and I know the character of the people who live in rural America. I know the critically important role that it plays in the production of food and fiber, of energy and of wood, minerals. I understand the ultimate, strategic value of the land, and what it will mean in the future, as a force for peace, and the beneficial influence of our Nation around the world. And I also know the problems of rural America: its pockets of poverty; its problems of isolation; the hardships and deprivation of some of its residents, which they still have to endure.

I grew up on a farm, within 7 or 8 miles of my town, of my present home. My wife's ancestors and mine are buried, who were born in the 1700's; we haven't moved very far. I remember my life on the farm during the Depression, when we didn't have electricity, we didn't have tractors. We did the work with our hands. Wages for an able-bodied man were a dollar a day. And health problems and education problems and racial discrimination problems were very difficult to overcome.

We made a lot of progress. And I am convinced, as President, that we ought not to measure the quality of life of people according to how densely the area is populated. I don't care if a thousand years from now Plains still has 700 people; but I would like to make sure that those 700 have a good education, good homes to live in, good transportation opportunities, good health; that they know what's going on in the rest of the world; that they have a purposeful life; that they have jobs; and that the quality of their life will equal that of any other community in this country.

For the first 150 years or so of our Nation's existence we were primarily a rural nation. National policy and rural policy were often almost always the same. More lately, as our cities have grown and the suburbs have grown, we've become predominantly an urban nation. But now the demographic trends of the 1950's and 1960's, the migration of people from the rural areas into the cities has reversed. And since 1970 the population of the rural areas has increased 40 percent more than has the population in our urban centers.

The rural economy is also growing. It's becoming more diverse. In contrast to the rural America known by myself and by my parents and my grandparents and yours, a much larger proportion of the rural residents are now employed, not in agriculture as such, but in manufacturing and trade and the provision of services to other human beings. These changes create new demands, new challenges, new opportunities. They require us to take stock of who we are and what we want in life. They point to the need for wise use and continued productivity of the bountiful rural resources that God has given us. And they challenge us to renew our commitment to address basic, unmet needs, and to redress longstanding inequities.

There have been calls for a more conscious national policy for our rural areas for more than 50 years. It's become increasingly evident that rural areas are unique, that they are not well served by government programs designed for the majority of the population.

With the leadership of Senator Humphrey, Senator Talmadge, Tom Foley, other Members of Congress, including those on this platform this afternoon, this concern eventually has become translated into the Rural Development Act of 1972 and its evolutionary changes since that time. This provided the letter of the law, but it could not provide the spirit and a sense of common purpose that must come from those who execute the laws.

Thus, while programs have grown and prospered under this basic legislation, something important had been missing, as all of you well know. That is the dedicated and the wholehearted commitment of all of us to a better life in rural America: a mechanism by which we could join together, not complaining about one another and not complaining about the deprivations of rural life, but through an easy sense of common purpose and communication and cooperation, work together to overcome the problems, to meet the challenges, and to answer the difficult questions that face the people who don't live in the urban parts of our country.

The goals of our Nation's first comprehensive rural policy, which we'll describe this afternoon, are to create new jobs and provide a favorable climate for rural business and economic development; to promote the responsible use and the proper stewardship of rural America's natural resources; to address the special rural problems of distance and size; and to meet the basic human needs of rural Americans.

To accomplish these goals, the policy that I'm announcing today does three important things. First, in recognition of the need for a strong partnership between the public and private sectors of American life, and among all levels of government,

we will recognize the primacy of local priorities and local decisionmaking. We will assure that Federal investments support and reinforce those State and local development initiatives. We will use Federal assistance to increase private sector cooperation and participation. We will target Federal assistance specifically toward individuals in rural communities which are most in need. We will make Federal programs more accessible and better adapted to rural circumstances. And we will help to strengthen local management and development capability.

Second, this policy presents an action agenda—nearly 100 specific actions that address pressing rural needs and translate the policy principles into tangible results. This agenda of things to be done expands on the White House rural development initiatives that have evolved in an uncoordinated way, perhaps, in the White House over the last 2½ years, and it's based on months of extensive consultations, as you know, with all of you here.

Beginning more than a year ago, we began to put together a program, and more than 6 months ago, we called you in to let you look over what we had done because of your initial recommendations and ideas. And then we have forged this, not in an isolated ivory tower here in Washington, but we've kind of put into practice, in putting this program together, what you wanted done, and other people around the country, including, obviously, Members of Congress, State and local officials, and rural leaders of all kinds of organizations. Just a few weeks ago I, myself, met with the leaders of 50 different rural organizations in the Cabinet Room. Many of you were there.

Third, our policy will provide us with the ability to develop programs to solve problems and to get things done without unnecessary delay. In order to implement this strategy, that is, to get things done without delay, I will seek authority for an under secretary of small community and rural development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to work for me and to assist the Secretary of Agriculture, working under him, in rural development activities throughout the entire administration.

I will form a working group of high-level Federal program managers in many different agencies, I think about 17 of them, to ensure implementation of the program being introduced today, and this working group will be cochaired by Jack Watson, and by the under secretary for rural development, working under the Secretary of Agriculture.

I will appoint a citizens advisory council to monitor the progress that we make and to advise me and the Secretary of Agriculture on needed Federal actions. I'll invite the Nation's Governors to establish in each State a rural development council to ensure effective coordination among the different levels of government. And I'll direct my Cabinet and all the heads of my agencies to review all relevant policies and programs in existence now, or to be proposed to the Congress in the future, in order to monitor implementation of the policy that will be described today. And I would like to ask them, and will, to designate a senior official in each agency to serve as a rural advocate and to act as a point of contact for small community and rural leaders like you, who are seeking information and assistance.

I'm pleased with the achievements that we've realized in the last 2 1/2 years or so since I've been President in addressing the problems of rural America and the small communities. It's a good record, and it provides experience and a firm foundation for the policy initiatives that we've announced today. But the more we have dealt with these problems, the more we've seen the need for a comprehensive national policy with a large group of people directly involved in it.

This policy is the first of its kind. It redeems my own pledge that the rural areas of our country will receive the attention that they've needed and which they have deserved for so long. It also represents a return to the principle that government should encourage but never dictate the decisions made by American people and by local initiative. With your cooperation some elements of this program have already been tested in action.

The comprehensive policy we announced today is not the end of our work. It's just the beginning. It'll give us the tools to do the job, to finish the job, something that I know from my experience, both as a farmer and as a President, that rural America knows how to do, to start a job, to do it well, and to finish it.

In closing let me say that I want to express my gratitude for the strong and continued support that we've had in preparing this policy, to all of you, the groups and individuals who've contributed, too numerous to mention specifically—but I would like to thank Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Rural Development, who will follow me at this podium; Congressman Wes Watkins, the chairman of the Congressional Rural Caucus; Governor Jim Hunt, my good friend and chairman of the Governors' subcommittee on small cities and rural development; Lynn Cutler, county commissioner from Iowa; David Humes, mayor of Hayti Heights, in Missouri; Charles Bannerman, the president of the Delta Foundation and cochairman of the Rural Coalition; the Rural Caucus; the National Governors' Association; the Rural Coalition; and many other individuals and groups that have given us so much encouragement.

Together, I'm convinced that you and I together and all those who work with us can bring a new and a better life to rural America. I'm dedicated to it. With your help we will not fail.

Thank you very much.

[At this point, Senator Leahy and Governor Hunt spoke. The President then resumed speaking as follows.]

We have an overflow crowd. Part of the group is in the Treaty Room down the hall. So, I'll be listening very carefully to Congressman Watkins, who's done such a good job on this program, from the other room, and this will give him a double audience. It's in honor of him that I'm going to stop in the other group and listen to his speech. Wes, good luck to you.