A strong America depends on its cities—­America’s glory, and sometimes America’s shame.  To substitute sunlight for congestion and progress for decay, we have stepped up existing urban renewal and housing programs, and launched new ones—­redoubled the attack on water pollution—­speeded aid to airports, hospitals, highways, and our declining mass transit systems—­and secured new weapons to combat organized crime, racketeering, and youth delinquency, assisted by the coordinated and hard-hitting efforts of our investigative services:  the FBI, the Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Narcotics, and many others.  We shall need further anti-crime, mass transit, and transportation legislation—­and new tools to fight air pollution.  And with all this effort under way, both equity and common sense require that our nation’s urban areas—­containing three-fourths of our population—­sit as equals at the Cabinet table.  I urge a new Department of Urban Affairs and Housing.

AGRICULTURE AND RESOURCES

A strong America also depends on its farms and natural resources.  American farmers took heart in 1961—­from a billion dollar rise in farm income—­and from a hopeful start on reducing the farm surpluses.  But we are still operating under a patchwork accumulation of old laws, which cost us $1 billion a year in CCC carrying charges alone, yet fail to halt rural poverty or boost farm earnings.

Our task is to master and turn to fully fruitful ends the magnificent productivity of our farms and farmers.  The revolution on our own countryside stands in the sharpest contrast to the repeated farm failures of the Communist nations and is a source of pride to us all.  Since 1950 our agricultural output per man-hour has actually doubled!  Without new, realistic measures, it will someday swamp our farmers and our taxpayers in a national scandal or a farm depression.

I will, therefore, submit to the Congress a new comprehensive farm program—­tailored to fit the use of our land and the supplies of each crop to the long-range needs of the sixties—­and designed to prevent chaos in the sixties with a program of common sense.

We also need for the sixties—­if we are to bequeath our full national estate to our heirs—­a new long-range conservation and recreation program—­expansion of our superb national parks and forests—­preservation of our authentic wilderness areas—­new starts on water and power projects as our population steadily increases—­and expanded Rea generation and transmission loans.

CIVIL RIGHTS

But America stands for progress in human rights as well as economic affairs, and a strong America requires the assurance of full and equal rights to all its citizens, of any race or of any color.  This Administration has shown as never before how much could be done through the full use of Executive powers—­through the enforcement of laws already passed by the Congress—­through persuasion, negotiation, and litigation, to secure the constitutional rights of all:  the right to vote, the right to travel without hindrance across State lines, and the right to free public education.