It gives me pleasure to join the millions of our citizens paying tribute to the immortal memory of Dante Alighieri on the 700th anniversary of his birth.

I have concluded that it is of sufficient urgency to justify action by this session of the Congress.

The National Teacher Corps draws on that spirit of dedication of Americans which has been demonstrated time and again in peace and war, by young and old, at home and abroad.

For those who are charged with administering their nation's affairs, his provocative political ideas, expressed in his other literary masterpieces, have enduring meaning and significance.

I am both proud and happy to express at this time my congratulations to our entire Italian American community for sustaining in their new home the revered ideals and traditions of the old.

Poet, philosopher, musician, political scientist and psychologist, Dante's renowned accomplishments are a lasting testament to his fully and richly rewarding life.

The National Teacher Corps can help improve the quality of teaching where quality is most needed and most often in short supply--in city slums and in areas of rural poverty.

Improperly used, drugs can cause great injury and do great harm.

This is another step forward in the attack that we are making on crime and delinquency throughout the United States.

The development of safe and effective drugs has brought more progress in the past few decades than in all the centuries before on reducing human suffering and on conquering human disease.

I particularly want to express my sympathy to his family and dear ones, and to the countless citizens of Arkansas who have lost in his passing a distinguished leader, and a native son whose devotion to constitutional principles and human…

We know all too well that racketeers in this field are making easy victims of many of our finest young people.

So I want all of you to remember that the work you do is work that is being watched here in the White House.

Drugs can, if properly used, protect our health, prolong our life, reduce much pain and suffering.

His life has left for his State and nation a rich legacy of accomplishment.

I HAVE ASKED you to meet with me this morning because I am very deeply concerned about our budgetary outlook for the next year.

There are a number of principles that I think you ought to follow in your deliberations: First, hold no program sacred.

But I also want you to know that I don't want a penny more than is necessary spent to do this, and I am absolutely certain that a growth in budget expenditures at the rate indicated is neither necessary nor inevitable.