White House Press Release, Rear Platform Remarks of President Harry S. Truman at Everett, Washington

230 IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 9, 1948 Rear Platform Remarks of the President, Everett, Washington, June 9, 1948, 7.50 p.m., Everett Time. Thank you, Mon. I am not fooled a bit. This crowd turned out for the home town boy who is Governor of Washington. And that is just exactly what they should have done. Mr. Mayor, I can't tell you how very much I appreciated that cordial welcome. I am overwhelmed at the turn-out, even though Mon is on the train. I have been here before on two different occasions. I came here and spent the time with Mon Wallgren at his home, when his father and mother were living here. And I don't know when I have ever met a person I thought more of than I did of Mon's father. His mother is a grand person - she is just like my mother -- she raised a good son, and here he is. You know, a boy or a girl reflects his parents, and I think Mon is a shining example of a good beginning. I have been in this State all day - started at Spokane - NARA got in a car -- went up to the Grand Coulee Dam. I have been there twice before, but I have never seen as much water in my life. And I have seen the Missouri and the Mississippi in flood stage, and I have been to Niagara, and I have been up the Hudson. I have not seen the Yukon, but I have seen every other river in the United States. The Columbia is really on a rampage, and I am sorry. They tell me there has never been a flood like it since 1894. Well, in 1903 we had a flood on the Missouri River, and they said there never had been another like it since 1844. That's a long time, too. My grandmother saw both floods, and she said the 1903 one was worse than the 1844 flood. There were no houses or buildings there, and that is true here in 1894 - there wasn't anything on the Columbia River to wash away so nobody heard about it. Now that river has been developed - part;ly not completely. And I came out here at the suggestion of your Governor to see what could be done to complete the developme t of the Columbia River from a power, reclamation, irrigation and flood control standpoint. You know, the people on the Columbia River will appreciate what alood control means now. Since 1894 they haven't appreciated it because they didn't think it could happen to them. That's the way everybody feels, unless he has the experience. Now I think the Columbia Basin, and the Missouri Basin, and the Ohio Basin, and the Mississippi Basin can get together and really work for a good control and a proper development program. I hope that is the case. I am going to try to see that it is the case. And I think I know something about the situation here and at home and in the eastern side of the United States. I brought a lot of reporters with me on this trip, and I venture to say there isn't half of them ever saw anything west of the Applachian Mountains. Now they are going to find out where the country lies! And where the resources of the country come from. And I hope they will tell their eastern readers and constituents just exactly what they have seen in the last three or four days. If they do, we will have a united country for the