682 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



mouth, and if I knew the answers and answered all of his questions 

 correctly, grandpa would take me in and open a black mahogany 

 desk he had and reach in and get an apple. And I would walk 

 satisfied, quite proudly, back along the banks of the river. If I failed, 

 the walk seemed endless if I hadn't known the answers. 



And those hills, and those fields, that river was the only world 

 that I really had in those years. So I did not know how much more 

 beautiful it was than that of many other boys, for I could not imagine 

 anything else from sky to sky. Yet the sight and the feel of that 

 country somehow or other burned itself into my mind. 



We were not a wealthy family, but this was my rich inheritance. 

 All my life I have drawn strength, and something more, from those 

 Texas hills. Sometimes, in the highest councils of the Nation, in 

 this house, I sit back and I can almost feel that rough, unyielding, 

 sticky clay soil between my fingers, and it stirs memories that often 

 give me comfort and sometimes gives me a pretty firm purpose. 



But not all the boys in America had the privilege to grow up in a 

 wide and open country. We can give them something, and we are 

 going to. We can let each of them feel a little what the first settlers 

 must have felt, unbelieving before the endless majesty of our great 

 land. Thus, they, too, will reach for the wonders of our future, re- 

 inforced by the treasured values of our past. 



I have one thought here that I overlooked. We have 24 million 

 acres in our National Park Service. I asked a young friend of mine 

 to go out and ask Mr. McNamara how many acres we declared 

 surplus this year from our military establishments. Our military 

 establishments now consume about half of our Federal budget. He 

 tells me that we will make available, from the Office of Defense, 

 1,200,000 extra acres of land this year. 



This is one-twentieth of the acreage we accumulated in national 

 parks since this country was born one-twentieth of it which will be 

 made available this year in substantial blocks. First priority is the 

 State and local governments, the park services, the park systems, the 

 recreation bodies. 



A camp available in the State of California has more than 20,000 

 acres of land. An Air Force base in one of our southern States has 

 more than 5,500 acres of land. An Air Force base in one of the 

 smallest western States has more than 7,300 acres of land. 



I have asked the Secretary of Defense to work very closely with 

 the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to be 



