A comprehensive legislative program for water conservation will be submitted to the Congress during the Session.  The development of our water resources cannot be accomplished overnight.  The need is such that we must make faster progress and without delay.  Therefore, I strongly recommend that action be taken at this Session on such wholly Federal projects as the Colorado River Storage Project and the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project; on the John Day partnership project, and other projects which provide for cooperative action between the Federal Government and non-Federal interests; and on legislation, which makes provision for Federal participation in small projects under the primary sponsorship of agencies of State and local government.

During the past year the areas of our National Parks have been expanded, and new wildlife refuges have been created.  The visits of our people to the Parks have increased much more rapidly than have the facilities to care for them.  The Administration will submit recommendations to provide more adequate facilities to keep abreast of the increasing interest of our people in the great outdoors.

Disaster Assistance

A modern community is a complex combination of skills, specialized buildings, machines, communications and homes.  Most importantly, it involves human lives.  Disaster in many forms—­by flood, frost, high winds, for instance—­can destroy on a massive scale in a few hours the labor of many years.

Through the past three years the Administration has repeatedly moved into action wherever disaster struck.  The extent of State participation in relief activities, however, has been far from uniform and, in many cases, has been either inadequate or nonexistent.  Disaster assistance legislation requires overhauling and an experimental program of flood-damage indemnities should be undertaken.  The Administration will make detailed recommendations on these subjects.

Area Redevelopment

We must help deal with the pockets of chronic unemployment that here and there mar the nation’s general industrial prosperity.  Economic changes in recent years have been often so rapid and far-reaching that areas committed to a single local resource or industrial activity have found themselves temporarily deprived of their markets and their livelihood.

Such conditions mean severe hardship for thousands of people as the slow process of adaptation to new circumstances goes on.  This process can be speeded up.  Last year I authorized a major study of the problem to find additional steps to supplement existing programs for the redevelopment of areas of chronic unemployment.  Recommendations will be submitted, designed to supplement, with Federal technical and loan assistance local efforts to get on with this vital job.  Improving such communities must, of course, remain the primary responsibility of the people living there and of their States.  But a soundly conceived Federal partnership program can be of real assistance to them in their efforts.