stamina to overcome the handicaps created by faltering, ineffective
and even foolish Republican administration, and to guide our State
and the nation along the paths dictated by experience, by wisdom
and by policies unselfish in motive,

My service as Maryland's State Comptroller gave me experience and
the opportunity to learn something about state administration in my
own and in other states, and to be an interested observer of the
impact of national policies and administration on state problems.
Developments over the years in communication, in transportation,
and in the many other fields, have brought all the people closer, and
have created many areas in which the national government and the
state governments must cooperate, must work together for the common
good.

I am new as a governor, but perhaps it will not be out of order
for me to say in the presence of many other state governors, at least
one of whom is serving his sixth consecutive term, that the 35 Demo-
cratic governors should organize themselves in a group for the study
of problems of mutual concern and interests. It would be the aim of
this group of governors to help the states to solve their common prob-
lems—and to see to it that these solutions bare the imprint and label
of the Democratic party. For obviously none of us is facing unique
problems. We are all wrestling with the bitter financial squeeze,
which is forcing states to choose between raising taxes or cutting down
on services which the people need and deserve. We are all faced with
rapidly growing populations and with rapidly growing needs for
schools, mental hospitals and better roads. We are all faced with the
need to attract industry, so as to provide more jobs for our increasing
labor force. Yes, all these difficult problems are common to all of us.
And just think of it—in 35 of 49 states, the voters decided that these
problems should be solved by Democrats! The tremendous vote of
confidence in Democrats for state and local office in the last election
means to me that the American people not only have voted for each
of us individually—they also have voted for all of us together.

We are fortunate in having two great Democratic leaders in the
Congress, Sam Rayburn, in the House and Lyndon Johnson in the
Senate. They have given the Democratic Party an outstanding record
of achievement by the Congress, and they are being required today,
as they have for some time in the past and will be for the next two
years, to supply the leadership to completely lacking the in executive
branch of the government under the Eisenhower-Nixon Administra-
tion.

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