 Today, I took a trip which should be unnecessary. I took a trip which in our time should become impossible. Everywhere I have gone, I have met good people who wanted to do something about the problems that faced our country. Everywhere I have gone, I have seen men and women who wanted to leave this country a better place to live in than they found it. For the first time in our history, an America without hunger is a practical prospect. And it must, it just simply must become the urgent business of all men and women of every race and every religion and every region. We have declared unconditional war on poverty. Our objective is total victory. Sadly shaken by unemployment in December 1963, when Studebaker ended its United States auto production, is fighting its way back. At the Lulu V. Klein Trade School, President and Mrs. Johnson visit with South Bend residents who are training for new jobs. This is the president's first tour of economically distressed urban and rural areas, since he announced his War on Poverty campaign. Outside the school, the president and Mrs. Johnson tell their audience what a real inspiration it has been to see the people of South Bend. The young and old alike rolling up their sleeves and attacking their problems by learning new skills and finding new ways of life. Spurg, Pennsylvania, one of the country's most heavily industrialized areas and the capital of the nation's steel industry, is the next stop on the president's tour. Unemployment has become a major problem in Pittsburgh. By last year, more than 100,000 workers were without jobs, and many families had left the area in despair. In Pittsburgh, the president tells the National Convention of the League of Women Voters that the tempo of America's unprecedented prosperity must never be allowed to muffle the cries of those who are denied a fair share of it. President's motorcade makes an unscheduled stop, so he may tell the crowds along Carson Street that we must become united in our efforts if we are to bring unequal prosperity to all the people. He states that no president can be stronger than the people behind him. In an address to the steel workers, the president declares that he is here to fight an enemy, that he is here to start that fight and keep up that fight until the enemy is destroyed. That enemy is unemployment, and its ally is poverty. Continuing, he assures them that they will hear a lot more about poverty in this country because it is his intention to do something about it in every county of this land. On his way to the airport, the president points out to a young audience that they should stay in school, for America's future strength rests with them and the education they receive. In Huntington, West Virginia, the president and Mrs. Johnson board helicopters for a trip to the roots of appellation poverty in Martin County, Kentucky. In this south-central mountain country, over a third of the population is faced with chronic unemployment. Typical of this group is Tom Fletcher, his wife and eight children. Fletcher, an unemployed sawmill operator, earned only $400 last year and has been able to find little employment in the last two years. Joblessness in the INAS area is attributable primarily to a general lack of industrialization and losses in the coal mining industry. Median family income is slightly over $2,000 a year. The Mayo State Vocational School in Paintsville is a federally assisted institution which provides training for over 3,000 of the hardcore unemployed in this region. Training is offered in a variety of occupations, including service station attendants, draftsmen, clerk stenographers, and beauticians. While in Paintsville, the president points out that the people of America are not asking for handouts. They want a chance to support themselves. Before returning to Washington, the president meets in Huntington, West Virginia, with the governors of seven Appalachian states. He tells them, our challenge is clear. It is to cure what needs to be cured, correct what needs to be corrected, and set the people of this region out on a bright highway of hope as free men, living in dignity, and with a promise of opportunity. Swinging through six states in a second tour of Appalachia in two weeks, the president, accompanied by his daughter, Linda, is warmly greeted in Cumberland, Maryland, the first stop on his itinerary. The chief executive is here for another firsthand look at the problems of urban and rural poverty, and to publicly urge support for his anti-poverty program. Speaking from the courthouse steps in Cumberland, the president reflects on the vital role that Maryland has always played in building America since the days of the revolution. He asks his audience to help him in carrying forward a new American revolution to help free 30 million Americans imprisoned by poverty. A brief helicopter flight puts the president in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where he boards Air Force One for a flight to Lockborn Air Force Base near Columbus, Ohio. As President Johnson swings through the Appalachian regions, he tells the people who came to Appalachia to listen and to learn, and because he cares. He promises them a better break economically and reminds them of their responsibilities as Americans. Before leaving Ohio, the president sends his excellent helicopters to Athens to participate in Ohio University's 160th anniversary celebration. At McGee Tyson Field in Knoxville, Tennessee, it's a key to the city for the president, and for daughter Linda, an extra warm greeting from her Zeta-Taw Alpha sorority sisters from Tennessee University. As the motorcade nears Tennessee University, the chief executive again makes good use of the limousine trunk and a portable public address system to bring his message on poverty to a group of university students. To a capacity crowd in Knoxville's huge Coliseum, the president's message concerns vision and leadership. He appeals to them to enlist their hearts and volunteer their hands in fighting the war on poverty. Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Goldsboro, North Carolina, where the presidential party boards helicopters for a flight to the farm of sharecropper David Marlowe, located four miles outside of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Marlowe, a tobacco farmer, feeds and clothes his family of 10 on a meager $1,400 a year. In Rocky Mount, the president asks that economic opportunity be spread across the land, that all Americans, those on farms and those in cities, have a chance to drink from the cup of plenty. The next morning in Atlanta, Georgia, the president directs his plea for his poverty program to a group of state legislators and members of the Georgia congressional delegation. The president ends his second poverty tour in Gainesville's Town Square with a promise to his audience that we are going to keep on in our war on poverty until we drive it into the face of the earth and it no longer exists in our beloved America. May 21st, 1964, Mrs. Johnson continues the president's attack on poverty as she travels to the economically depressed areas of eastern Kentucky. The 45 counties making up this area present one of the nation's worst pictures of poverty. The principal causes are lack of education and training, unemployment, and limited opportunities to overcome these handicaps. Several times, Mrs. Johnson halts her motorcade to greet local school children who have gathered along the roadside. This area has been the focus of cooperative federal, state, and local efforts for some time. Some of the results are the school lunch program, accelerated rural housing, and manpower development and training programs. The first stop on the First Lady's schedule is the home of Albert Robertson at Warshall Branch. Robertson, a tobacco farmer who earned less than $300 last year, lives in a three-room, rough-bored home with his wife and seven children. During a tour of his property, Mr. Robertson points out to the First Lady some of the improvements he has been able to make with a $650 federal grant. Mrs. Johnson's next stop is a one-room county school house at Lick Branch. After freshening up a bit, the First Lady is the children's guest for a typical hot lunch served under a cooperative program between the government and the school neighbors. Later, she presents the school with a set of encyclopedias and a flag that is flown over the capital in Washington. At the new Brethit County High School Gymnasium in Jackson, Mrs. Johnson arrives for dedication ceremonies. The new building replaces one dedicated by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in 1938. Moving on to the University of Kentucky's Wood Utilization Center at Quicksand, the First Lady sees demonstrations of the way Kentuckians are learning to use the region's timber. The center is a joint effort of the Area Redevelopment Administration, University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Farm Bureau, and the United States Forest Service. In her remarks, Mrs. Johnson points out that this joint effort represents the kind of pulling together that will grow and grow, and succeed in bringing hope and economic vitality to this region. The First Lady, in an address to the annual convention of the Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs in Lexington, points out that there are pockets of despair all over this land, which cry out for attention. And she continues, I hope that you will join your president in his fight on poverty and join hands to make America's tomorrow a bright and gleaming legacy from today. The George American does not demand much, but we have a right to expect in this rich country if we're willing to work from daylight to dark. We have a right to expect a job to provide food for our family, a roof over their head, clothes for their body, an opportunity to have our children educated, and the right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience. Poverty not only strikes at the knees of the body, it attacks the spirit, and it undermines human dignity and dignity. It is not enough for the Congress to pass laws. We will not win our war against poverty until the conscience of the entire nation is aroused. We will not succeed until every citizen regards the suffering of neighbors as a call to action. We will not overcome until every child in every city, in every town, joins its parents and helps us to mobilize its resources. In a day and not in a year will these goals be reached. But if we begin the effort, if we approach the task with great enthusiasm and not with cynicism, these achievements will be the glory, the glory of your generation. So I have come here today to ask for your heart and your hand, to ask you to join us in a similar cause. Help us to build a better land. Help us to build a greater society. Help us to open wide the doors of opportunity and invite all to come in. For when we have done this, it will one day be said of America that she was a burning and shining light in man's journey on Earth. On August 20th, 1964, President Johnson signed the $947.5 million anti-poverty bill into law.