Remarks on the Occasion of the 428 Annual Mountain State Forest Festival in Elkins, West Virginia

I might say first of all it is not a coincidence that five Presidents have been here to the Mountain State Forest Festival. Not only is this a great part of the Nation and a wonderful and enjoyable thing for us to do, but when Harley Staggers and Jennings Randolph suggest to the President— [laughter] —that he attend the festival in Jennings Randolph's hometown, Harley Staggers' district, it's quite an inappropriate thing to turn them down in the invitation. [Laughter]

I'm also thankful that one of the greatest majority leaders of all time, Bob Byrd, was willing to let me off 3 or 4 hours this afternoon to come. [Laughter] I doubt that he would have given me an excuse to go anywhere else in this last week of the 95th Congress.

It is great to be with my friends—with Queen Sylvia, who I hope will visit me in the Oval Office before too long; Governor Jay Rockefeller, one of the 'great Governors of our country, helpful to me in many important issues, particularly important to your State; Senator Randolph; Congressman Staggers; Mayor Martin; members of the victorious Elkins High Tigers. [Applause] I don't know what to say about the Tigers getting a louder applause than the President, but- [laughter] —

It's good to be with you. In spite of the light shower, this is a beautiful fall day. And I can't think of a more beautiful place in the United States to be than right here with you.

I'm especially glad to participate in the Mountain State Forest Festival and to help salute West Virginia's forest industry, your unique heritage, and your great and unexcelled future. I'm here to reaffirm that commitment to your future, to the development of the natural resources and the rich human resources of West Virginia. I want the Government that I lead to be the kind of government that will simply let the greatness of the American people be realized.

I feel at home here. I grew up near a town about one-tenth as large as Elkins and not too far from a county seat of Americus, Georgia, about exactly the same size as yours, a town where people also depended on the land for a living.

We learned how to work, and my people still work, like yours. We had a good life, and we still have a good life, like yours.

We take care of each other. We share the pleasures of a country life. We want our children to have opportunities even that we did not enjoy. And we want to be sure that future generations can see a nation that's strong and free, proud, decent, honest.

We want our young people to grow up and stay in the community and have sound reasons for doing so. We want jobs for them that are secure, exciting, fulfilling, and that use the talent that God has given each one of us.

That's why when I first came to Washington as President, about 20 months ago, I was determined that the Federal Government would take certain stances, would help rural development, help to overcome the problems that we share, and make sure that there's a full partnership between Washington and the rest of the country.

It's been a pleasure to work with these men on the stage with me, with Governor Rockefeller and with Jennings Randolph and with Harley Staggers and with Bob Byrd and with others in the West Virginia congressional delegation. We are working to make sure that West Virginia's great potential is realized.

It's been a special privilege for me to admire for many years, to know and to grow to understand and to appreciate your senior Senator, Jennings Randolph. I work with him every day. No State has a more strong, vigorous, able, experienced, dedicated spokesman for the things that make our Nation great and strong. Nearly everywhere you look in the United States—in Georgia, in Hawaii, in Alaska, California, New England, and of course, here in West Virginia, you can see something that Jennings Randolph has done for common, ordinary, average, good, working American people.

He deserves credit for some of the most far-reaching and exciting ideas that any United States Senator has ever had. More than 20 years ago, he sat down with a roadmap of the United States and drew on that map the lines that presently comprise the Interstate Highway System of our Nation. He had the dream many years before the Congress finally took action. And all of us benefit from it.

He is the prime spokesman for the programs that have made the disadvantaged, the unemployed, and the handicapped people of our country enjoy a good life. He's been a strong and stalwart leader and protector of the integrity and the reputation, the respect, and the wellbeing of American veterans.

Like my own mother, one of the youngest people on Earth, his youth and his vigor have been used to help those who are just getting started in life, or perhaps have tried to get started and haven't been able. It's not an accident that he was the man, long before the Congress ever took action, long before the Constitution of the United States was ever amended, that thought it was right for 18-year-old American citizens to have a vote. If they were able to fight and die, they ought to have a vote. And it was Jennings Randolph who made this possible for our whole country.

He deserves credit for preparing for changing times. He's always had a vision to look to the future, and he's also had the experience and the competence and the respect of his fellow Senators to let his dreams come true for all of us. He's helped us get through Congress steps to evolve a national energy policy, and I wish we had listened to him 20 years ago when he first began to talk of this great need.

We have a lot to be thankful for. One of those is that he is a personal, good friend. Mike Mansfield, who was the majority leader of the Senate after Lyndon Johnson, before your own Bob Byrd, said that no human being who has ever served in the Congress of the United States touched more people in a beneficial way than Jennings Randolph. And I don't believe you could pay a higher compliment to a man than that.

I'd also like to say a word, if you have no objection, about Harley Staggers. Not many districts can claim a more effective and hard-working Congressman. He's keeping our transportation system strong. And I think that many who know and depend upon a sound railroad system realize that every now and then, you hear about a Staggers amendment for transportation, a Staggers amendment for better health, a Staggers amendment for better energy programs, and he's the author of those great changes that the Congress adopts.

He's improved our railroad system more than any other person in the Congress. He's been a key man in the energy program. This year, it's no accident that when the Speaker appointed a committee to evolve our national energy policy—this was last year—that one of the chairmen there—there were three men who did the work—Harley Staggers was in the leadership role. He's made sure that we have a future for synthetic fuels, that we use coal to the best advantage, and that we locate these new and exciting plants where you all know the coal is, in West Virginia. And I think our new energy policy is going to depend on you much more than it has in the past because of him. Well, he's been a great credit to you and a great help to me.

I think you can count on me to continue to work with these men and others to see that the Federal Government serves your needs—determined by the people here, not in Washington. Too often in the past, Washington simply wrote checks for projects they decided over there in some obscure bureaucracy that people like you needed. Too often, regulations which were written in Washington prevented the American people from doing a good job and prevented government from being effective. We're trying to do something about those programs.

This past week, my White House staff met with Jay Rockefeller, local officials from around your State, to decide what Federal, State, and local people could do together for West Virginia. We let you make the decisions. They looked at dozens of programs. Most of them identified small problems that had been an obstacle—applications sit around too long, regulations are too complicated. And they evolved, before they left Charleston this week, over $200 million worth of projects for housing, economic development, more jobs. Here in your State, these meetings help you to help yourselves. The first Federal grant will be $4.7 million to the State of West Virginia, to be used as a revolving loan to help keep 20,000 threatened jobs.

The first use of this fund will be not too far from here, in Morgantown, by keeping safe 800 jobs in that city's largest factory. The second grant will be $14 million, matched by $67 million in local funds and other sources, to help build and to renovate the downtown shopping area and the civic center of Charleston. It complements and adds on to a $5 million EDA grant that I announced the last time I was in your State.

This is the kind of initiative that the Federal Government is carrying out to not only let you solve your problems, let you have a better life, but which prevents the deterioration of the downtown urban centers that quite often has been caused in the past.

Well, I won't go on and on naming things that we are trying to do, but I would like to say that we are trying to do the best we can with a partnership that's important—not just one man, not just a powerful Senator, not just an influential congressional leader, not just a President, but all of us as a team.

We got started less than 2 years ago. We faced 8-percent unemployment, much higher in some parts of your State. We faced serious inflation, which has been with us now for 10 years. We faced an energy crisis with no energy policy. We had record high Federal budget deficits, a $66 billion deficit. When I was running for President in 1976, Government spending, Government bureaucracy were out of control. The people were fed up with waste and mismanagement. But working with Senators Byrd and Randolph, Congressman Staggers, and others, we've been able to do something already about these problems.

We've cut unemployment in our whole Nation by one-fourth, down to 6 percent, with over 6 1/2 million net new jobs. We're facing up to inflation now. We look upon it as our number one domestic problem.

We want to stop the outrageous increase in hospital costs. We're getting control of runaway government. We've reformed our civil service system. We've cut down already the Federal deficit by $28 billion, from $66 billion the first year, to this coming year, just begun, of $38 billion. It's on the way down.

We are cutting back paperwork, eliminating unnecessary regulations, stopping government interference in the private lives of American people. We've tried to keep pace with changing times by keeping our Nation strong militarily, economically, and politically.

We've strengthened our Armed Forces. We've kept our alliances with our friends intact. We've got a foreign policy based on peace and on human rights that we can be proud of. We've been working hard not only at Camp David but throughout the world to ensure that we can continue our record, because since I've been in office, thank God, not a single American soldier has shed blood in a foreign land.

And finally, let me say that we've done all this because of, not in spite of, the people of this country, by keeping open our system of government, letting you participate, letting you know what's going on.

Sometimes you see our mistakes and you see the confusion when a new idea is debated and evolved in government. But by working for a government as good as you are, as kind as you are, as competent as are the people of West Virginia, we hope to reach the heights of which we are capable.

We have still a lot to do together. We cannot rest because we've had some successes already. But we can at least be confident that we are facing the future honestly, and we are working for solutions for the good of all.

If I can tap the strength and the courage, the ability, the dedication, the patriotism of the people of West Virginia and others like you in our country, we'll have an even greater nation than we have already. And as you well know, we still live in the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you very much.