Employees will be selected on the basis of experience, qualifications, and a showing of industry and interest in the particular tasks they are asked to perform. From personal acquaintance and friendship, I know there are many employees now in the State Government who possess the requisite qualifications for public service. Among other things, the average citizen is interested in job opportunities for himself, education for his children, roads for his travel, recreation for his leisure, hospitals for his care, agriculture for his food, law enforcement for his protection, honorable government for his pride. These are only a few of the areas in which our state government attempts to provide services today. In the face of a declining population in our own State and a record national industrial expansion, we are compelled to examine carefully our plans to attract new industries to West Virginia.
Any effort is commendable.
But no matter how colorful our approach, we cannot hide basic weaknesses in transportation, education, recreation and other important services which people and industry demand. The searching eye of a prospective industrial investor will pierce any glossy Madison Avenue cover page we can design. Through realistic efforts to solve basic problems, we can make our greatest contribution to the attraction of new industries and render maximum service to all our people. If my administration achieves no other goal, I hope that at the end of four years it will be remembered as one that made real progress toward the solution of our road problems. Immediately, I will reorganize the State Road Commission to attract highly qualified personnel, to spend wisely the road revenues now collected from our taxpayers, and to secure every available dime of federal aid for our use.