Our program for farm prosperity should also seek to expand the domestic market for agricultural products, particularly among low-income groups, and to increase and stabilize foreign markets.

We should give special attention to extending modern conveniences and services to our farms.  Rural electrification should be pushed forward.  And in considering legislation relating to housing, education, health, and social security, special attention should be given to rural problems.

Our growing population and the expansion of our economy depend upon the wise management of our land, water, forest, and mineral wealth.  In our present dynamic economy, the task of conservation is not to lockup our resources but to develop and improve them.  Failure, today, to make the investments which are necessary to support our progress in the future would be false economy.

We must push forward the development of our rivers for power, irrigation, navigation, and flood control.  We should apply the lessons of our Tennessee Valley experience to our other great river basins.

I again recommend action be taken by the Congress to approve the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power project.  This is about the fifth time I have recommended it.

We must adopt a program for the planned use of the petroleum reserves under the sea, which are—­and must remain—­vested in the Federal Government.  We must extend our programs of soil conservation.  We must place our forests on a sustained yield basis, and encourage the development of new sources of vital minerals.

In all this we must make sure that the benefits of these public undertakings are directly available to the people.  Public power should be carried to consuming areas by public transmission lines where necessary to provide electricity at the lowest possible rates.  Irrigation waters should serve family farms and not land speculators.

The Government has still other opportunities—­to help raise the standard of living of our citizens.  These opportunities lie in the fields of social security, health, education, housing, and civil rights.

The present coverage of the social security laws is altogether inadequate; the benefit payments are too low.  One-third of our workers are not covered.  Those who receive old-age and survivors insurance benefits receive an average payment of only $25 a month.  Many others who cannot work because they are physically disabled are left to the mercy of charity.  We should expand our social security program, both as to the size of the benefits and the extent of coverage, against the economic hazards due to unemployment, old age, sickness, and disability.

We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country.  In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care.  We are short of doctors, hospitals, nurses.  We must remedy these shortages.  Moreover, we need—­and we must have without further delay—­a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.