Vigorous steps to combat the misery and national loss involved in mental illness;

Improved services for crippled children and for maternal and child health;

Better consumer protection under our existing pure food and drug laws; and, finally,

Strengthened programs to combat the increasingly serious pollution of our rivers and streams and the growing problem of air pollution.

These measures together constitute a comprehensive program holding rich promise for better health for all of our people.

Last year’s expansion of social security coverage and our new program of improved medical care for public assistance recipients together suggest modification of the formula for Federal sharing in old age assistance payments.  I recommend modification of the formula where such payments will, in the future, supplement benefits received under the old age and survivors insurance system.

It is the inalienable right of every person, from childhood on, to have access to knowledge.  In our form of society, this right of the individual takes on a special meaning, for the education of all our citizens is imperative to the maintenance and invigoration of America’s free institutions.

Today, we face grave educational problems.  Effective and up-to-date analyses of these problems and their solutions are being carried forward through the individual State conferences and the White House Conference to be completed this year.

However, such factors as population growth, additional responsibilities of schools, and increased and longer school attendance have produced an unprecedented classroom shortage.  This shortage is of immediate concern to all of our people.  Positive, affirmative action must be taken now.

Without impairing in any way the responsibilities of our States, localities, communities, or families, the Federal government can and should serve as an effective-catalyst in dealing with this problem.  I shall forward a special message to the Congress on February 15, presenting an affirmative program dealing with this shortage.

To help the States do a better and more timely job, we must strengthen their resources for preventing and dealing with juvenile delinquency.  I shall propose Federal legislation to assist the States to promote concerted action in dealing with this nationwide problem.  I shall carry forward the vigorous efforts of the Administration to improve the international control of the traffic in narcotics and, in cooperation with State and local agencies, to combat narcotic addiction in our country.

I should like to speak now of additional matters of importance to all our people and especially to our wage earners.

During the past year certain industrial changes and the readjustment of the economy to conditions of peace brought unemployment and other difficulties to various localities and industries.  These problems are engaging our most earnest attention.  But for the overwhelming majority of our working people, the past year has meant good jobs.  Moreover, the earnings and savings of our wage earners are no longer depreciating in value.  Because of cooperative relations between labor and management, fewer working days were lost through strikes in 1954 than in any year in the past decade.