 This is one of the things I'm going to have a chance to greet all of you before I leave here. So, let me just say, if you didn't witness it just a few minutes ago, I'm out there in the Rose Garden. I met all the princesses for the Archery Blossom Festival here in Washington, including the Cherry Blossom Queen from Japan and our old quarry, Cherry Blossom Queen, 56 princesses from all our states and territories. Now I have the pleasure of coming in a meeting group like this. Mondays aren't supposed to be this nice. Well, anyway, on behalf of the United States, I welcome you and sincerely hope that your Eisenhower fellowship and America increases understanding between us. President Eisenhower realized that there was a real need for a program to bring business and professional people to America to increase communication on a person-to-person basis. I think he understood very much that most of the trouble in the world comes when we are talking about each other instead of when we're talking to each other. So, in today's troubled world, communication between us is of crucial importance. But knowing that I have a very limited time here, rather than me continuing to say anything other than I'm happy, we are a heavy over here, maybe at least for a minute or two until someone interrupts them, some of you might have a question to ask them. I'd be very happy to try and answer. Well, now, I'll just typically put an answer to your time, which is over there. Thank you for receiving us, Mr. President. We come from 22 different countries, as you probably know, in the world, and special fields of interest. We are very happy to be here and hope that our visit will be a contribution for better understanding and cooperation between the nations which we represent and the United States of America. Thank you again for seeing us, Mr. President. My pleasure. Of course, when you're coming, you realize that you're kind of visiting a little bit of your own country because we Americans are very well aware that we came here from every corner of the world, if not ourselves, my parents or my ancestors came here. I have discoveries inside, many of my own beginnings on my father's side, in Ireland. He had been an orphan when he was a small boy, so I knew very little about his family until I got this job, and then somebody saw up to it that I knew a great deal. In fact, it all began for the branch that came to America in Ballet-Paris, where I'm happy to say that, you know, sometimes holding this job, they name schools after you or bridges after you or airports. In Ballet-Paris, the pub is named the Ronald Reagan. Is there a question or two? I'm afraid a lot of Americans are not. I think one. Yes. I've got a few questions for them. Good. I guess some pictures, Mr. President, if you'd like to offer an opportunity. Would all right. I'll go over here to the doors. Good job in Boston. What a winner that was. Good morning. How are you, Jack? Thank you, Erin. You're welcome. You're welcome. I like that. I hope you'll like it. I hope so. Will, Mark, come in. Why don't you sit and cheer over there? I'm trying to decide. So, here we go. Private sector initiatives approach because the issue of the homeless, which is our subject, really came to me from private sector leadership, the only one Susan Baker and her Citizens Committee. The Citizens Committee had been working in a number of cities developing groups of people who would assist the homeless. But they wanted someone to help them on the federal side, cut through the red tape, and make federal facilities available and to provide whatever federal backup we could. And Susan asked me to do this, which I was delighted to do because I'd been worried about these bag ladies and really the people on the streets knowing that they are really a very, very disparate group of people. As a result of our meeting and the fact that she put her finger on and answered to what I knew was a problem, these homeless today, we've always had the homeless through the generations. They've, in the past, been alcohol-ex-drug users, but there's a new component in this group of homeless that is almost the most pathetic. These are the people who have been released from institutions, mental institutions, and have really not, they don't have the capacity to provide for their own shelter, they don't really know how to make federal programs work for them or use them, and they are simply out of the mainstream mentally. And, you know, I remember all of your speeches on urban renewal, and you were so right when the country was wrong. A lot of these people would have been able to sleep in facilities that were in the urban renewal area, the old foothouses, places like that, where they put their heads down, including the loss of urban renewal and the development of the institutionalization as a way to treat mentally ill people without follow-through and providing shelter for them. We have, our department in Adam Hunt, the alcohol-drug abuse and mental health institute, has said, and they've had a very extensive professional scientific approach to the issue of the homeless, and they have found that 50% at least are among those who are mentally ill and don't have their bearings. So this is the component of the group that we're dealing with, and the question is how to deal with it. Now, if we had gone through the usual, if it had been a different era and a different time, Congress would have responded past a pro-group, and it would have cost billions of dollars, they would have had all the red tape, EEOC, et cetera. But I think in your era, in your time with the way that you do things, with the private sector approach, we were able to put together a response that was immediate and began to be effective in certain cities. Sir, may I present student leaders? Hi, Mr. President. Glad to meet you. Good to be here. Good to be here. Good to be here. Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mr. General, I'm glad to meet you. Thank you very much. Mr. President, John Curley. Hi, Mr. President. Nice to meet you. Thank you for seeing us. Mr. President, Sister Mary Rock. Hello. Mr. President, Sister Marty McIntake. Delighted to be here. Nice to see you. Mr. President, Sister Ria. Hello. Mr. President, Dean McIntake. I'm here. Nice to see you. And Bill Cox. Pleasure, Mr. President. Nice to see you. And Judy Lindsay. Nice to meet you. Well, I'd like to please see you on the head. I'm sorry to be here, I'm waiting here, but I only say my way of doing things. The way of it. The creation of it. But we were having a meeting with regard to the homeless and what we were going to do about it. So, but I know the work that you do. Not in effect, I know some firsthand. Because for eight weeks, I laid in traction at St. John's Hospital in California, Santa Monica, there. I had a cognitive multiple fracture of my right back. I have a NASA fundraiser just recently for St. John's. As governor, I was on the board of trustees for a time there. I want to thank you for the help that you've been particularly with regard to the baby door regulations for my lady. We appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate your help. You know, I hope Mr. President, that you'll accept this as an expression of our gratitude to you. You really take an extraordinary leadership role in life issues that are very important to us. And I think that people in the United States in dealing with public policy issue of the allocation of resources and so on will increasingly and more and more become involved in the kinds of issues that you've represented and done in the last four years. So we're very, very grateful to you for your lifestreams of work. Leadership, I think, on issues that are often very difficult to bring out, very competing and unpleasant points of view. Can we have one more group? Everyone, look at this one. Thank you, sir. Could we do one with the two presidents? Two Californians? Just two Californians. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. Thank you. One of the things that I promised that we had going on here is this seeing if we can't meld with the private sector in approaches that are better handled that way than we've done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. Thank you, Mr. President. You can also know your discipline in this group. We're going to help assist all of you. I'll be able to follow up. I'll be able to follow up. I'll be able to follow up. I apologize for the lateness. I won't accept it. We won't rush much. We'll have all the time you need. You've got a press conference, sir. Yes. You've got a press conference, isn't it? Yeah. Y'all set? I think so. I have a hunch they're really out for blood, too. I think the lady told me tonight. Let me tell you a strange experience I had yesterday. Ah! You know what they wanted to discuss? Ed Meese. No discussion of the deficit. No discussion of what are we going to do about taxes. Nothing of that nature. And that press just day after day starts answering this.