Evening star., 1935-11-20
Roosevelt Speech Text
President Tells Mayors He Does Not Propose to
Let Citizens Starye-Forecasts Confer
ence on Taxes.
ence on Taxes.

Here is the text of Presiden
Roosevelt's talk to the United State
Conference of Mayors late yesterda
at the White House:
I am glad to see you here. Many
of you I have known personally
for a great many years. With some
of you, I have worked on many
problems in the past.
I have not prepared any formal
remarks for your gathering here.
I wish, though, that I could have
sat with you in your meetings to
hear what has been said and to
learn more about the problems of
government.
We have, all of us, I think,
learned a great deal about the
problems of government, in the
broad sense of the word, in the
past few years. We have tried
experimentS-some of them have
been very successful and some of
them, like all experiments, have
not been quite SO successful.
Through this process, we are build
ing up, as Mayor Hoan (of Milwau-
kee), has said, new relation
ship-a perfectly sound relation
ship-b etween the different
branches of Government, munich
pal, state and national. .
None to Starve.
One of the newspapermen.
few moments ago in the press
conference, asked the kind of ques:
ton you are all asked and I am
asked every week. Members of the
press are present, know, but I do
not mind their hearing this. The
particular question was this:
"Is the Government going to
stop giving relief next July?"
That is the kind of thing
spreading the word around that
everybody who Is now on relief
will be taken off relief rolls begin
ming the 1st of July-we have to
combat.
My answer was that the Federal
Government, and am sure your
answer will be the same for the
city governments, does not propose
to let people starve after the 1st
of July any more than during the
past few years.
We are learning also greater
efficiency. Certainly the new work
this year, so far as lasting useful
ness is concerned, has been in
nitely more successful, better
planned and better carried out
than 1t was under the old c. w. A.
program of 1888. Think what
gain / has been in two years. Go
over the lists of projects, both
w. P. A. and Public Works this
year, and the percentage of them
which will be of lasting benefit
to the communities Is very, very
high. That Is something I think
the average citizen In all Of your
cities appreciates, in spite Of vari-
GUS attacks which have been made
on CneSe prOJecCS.
Gives Them Responsibility.
OF course, in the last analysis,
you people who run governments
of the cities in this country-and
IL the country districts, the super
visors and county commissioners
are responsible for these projects.
You people suggest them and, on
the whole, your suggestions with
respect to these projects have been
extraordinarily good. I am de-
lighted with the usefulness and
permanence of these projects.
Well, all of this has come about
in the course of less than three
years. All of us have learned a
lot, but we still have much to
learn. There are various processes
of government that can be sinpli-
fed and ought to be simplified.
For example-and this is not my
fault because Congress put it in
the bill-I have to sign all the
allotments in person. II have
signed hundreds, thousands of al
lotment papers for various projects.
They ought never to come to my
desk, but we have 3 go through
what Is called red tape" because
Of the law. When apnlications