UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
' WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
October 20, 1975
Sibbison (202) 755-0344
O'Neill (202) 755-0344
Fitzwater (202) 755-0344
NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS:
As the Environmental Protection Agency approaches its
fifth anniversary, December 2, 1975, the enclosed speech
by EPA Administrator Russell E. Train made on October 6,
1975 may be of assistance to the public in evaluating prog-
ress made and problems encountered in the national effort
to control environmental pollution.
Some of the speech's highlights ares
-- EPA's success in carrying out the Clean Air Act and
Water and other laws will be determined "by our willingness
to work together with the -citizens of this country." (page 4)
-- A majority of the public is committed to environ-.
mental protection (pages 7-9).
— There are still some people who seek to hold environ-
mentalists responsible for every ill wind that blows. For
example: environmentalists are to blame for deaths from
encephalitis. (pages 11-12)
— If an EPA decision doesn't go as far as environ-
mentalists would like, it's a sell-out. If it goes against
industry, EPA gave in to environmental bias and emotionalist" -
(pages 13-14)
— EPA is even criticized for trying to reduce unneces-
sary regulations. (pages 15-18)
I think you'll find this a most interesting speech.
If we may be of any assistance in elaborating on this
material or other EPA programs, please call.
Marlin Fitzwate^
EPA Director of 7News Services
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REMARKS BY THE iOvORAKE RUSSELL E. TRAIN
STRATOR, U.S. ENVTRO^'TENTAL PROTECTION. AGENOT
PREPARED FOR DELIVERY BEFORE
THE CENTENNIAL METING OF THE AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION
AND TIE SIXTH AMERICAN FOREST CONGRESS
AT THE STATLER HILTON HOTEL
WASHINGTON, D.C., MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, ±975, 12:00 p.m.
To Conserve and To Create
Not long'after I received Eill Tc'.--ll's invite-Lien to speak £1;
this luncheon, I was sitting at hcna reading Catherine Drinker Eowen's
fine new book on Benjamin Franklin (written just before her death) when
I happened across this passage describing what Franklin saw as he
journeyed up the Hudson in 1754:
"Westward stretched the forest, endless, primeval,
reaching on and on. No one in the sloop would have
ventured to call the forest beautiful. Rather, it was
solemn, interminable, barbaric, harsh1; one meets the
adjectives often. Trees were man's enemy and must be
felled. Until they were gone there could be neither
crops nor fruit; no safety, no ease, no civilizatign,,." .
And for well over a century in the new land, the air, I suspect,
,offered to the human ear few sweeter sounds than the chop of an ax
and the crash of a falling tree. For as the trees fell, man flourished;
as the forest receded, civilization advanced.
So, at least, it seemed until, in 1875, a few farsighted citizens
decided that, by the time it's a hundred years old, even a country as
rich as we are ought to know better than to assume it could go on forever
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burning the resource candle at bath ends. Ihey saw that our vast
forests had already been dangerously decimated and that, if we
continued siirply to "cut" and run," we would sooner or later run out
of roan to run and forests to cut. They understood that, if we
were to achieve enduring growth in this country, we iriust learn to
conserve as we create — we most, indeed, learn that what we con-
serve is no small part of the life and world we create for ourselves
and for those who will follow us. As we celebrate our Bicentennial,
mindful both of our magnificent heritage from "Hie past and the
challenges of the future, we might well take as our theme — "To
Conserve and to Create."
We celebrate Earth Day in April, and say that it all started
five years ago. But I think that, in a very real sense, it is
Earth Day that we celebrate here today, and that — if we must
put an exact date on it — it began one hundred years ago, on the
day when a small group of concerned citizens founded the American
Forestry Association. If it took a hundred years for that first
formal conservation effort to take firm root throughout the
length and breadth of our society — as it now has in the form
of the environmental effort — that should core as no surprise
to you, who are accustomed to such long waits between planting
and harvesting. You can take great pride in all you have done
to make possible the strong environmental progress we have made
the past several years.
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It seems a lot longer than ten years ago when I first ad-
dressed an annual meeting of this Association in Jackson Hole,
Wyoming. It was your 90th Annual Meeting held jointly with the
National Council of State Garden Clubs. I had just become
president of iha ConserveLio-.i I'vi^-i'-ion, r-,r.l Bill 7c<.:ell had
only recently joined the Forestry Association. We met to con-
sider ways of taking advantage of what I called the "truly extra-
ordinary opportunity for constructive conservation acccrrplisjnroent"
that had been created by such events as President Johnson's Message
on Natural Beauty, the White House Conference on Natural Beauty
chaired by Laurance Rockefeller and, particularly the inspired
effort that Lady Bird Johnson had set in notion to encourage citizens
themselves to play an active and effective role in building a healthy
environment.
We have, as you well know, taken good advantage of that
opportunity in the decade since. At all levels of government,
and throughout our society, we have made excellent progress toward
developing a strong institutional base for effective environmental
inanagement. I cannot think of another instance in which this or
any other society lias moved more rapidly or comprehensively to come
to grips with such a conplex set of problems.
Although our major environmental laws have -been on the books
for only a relatively short period of time, we are already seeing
very real irnprovemcnts in the quality of our air and waters,
Since 1970, for exanple, we have cut sulphur dioxide levels by
seme 25%, and fine particulate levels by about 15%. Many of our
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rivers and lakes, especially the Great Lakes, are perceptibly
cleaner. We still have a long way to go, but we have made genuine
progress that will help make our lives healthier and more enjoyable.
I have repeatedly stressed my view that EPA's success in
carrying out the Cleroi Air and V'atcr and other laws will be deter-
mined, not so much fcy our zest in issuing regulations or by our
zeal in enforcing them — though these are important, particularly
the latter — but by our willingness to work together with
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that |EPA has joined with the Forest Service and your Association
in holding seven forest practices and water quality workshops through-
out the country. As I have suggested, we share cannon concerns and we
stand on comron ground. .Good water pollution prevention practices
are also good" soil and water conservation practical And I cm
determined that we take full advantage of your ^expertise and ex-
perience in developing approaches to nonpoint source control in
the Nation's forests that enable us to achieve our .objectives'
under the lav at least cost and greatest benefit. I want to pay
special tribute to your president, Voit Gilmore, for the job he
did as Chairrran of the first workshop in Atlanta, and to the
Association for putting the workshop together. I think we all
learned a good deal from that workshop, and I look forward to
the results of the rest of the workshops over the coming months.
I know of your concern over the court order earlier this year
requiring us to apply the permit approach to water pollution sources that:
we had exempted from the permit requirements of the National Pollution
Discharge Elimination System. By February 10, 1976, we are required
by that court order to propose regulations to cover point sources
in silviculture. Before the court decision, as you know, we had
regarded all silviculture sources of water pollution as nonpoint.
Let me say, to begin with, that we have asked the Department of
Justice to appeal the decision. In the meantime, we are holding
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a series of "town hall" meetings across the country to seek
the advice of the citizens and groups most affected and in-
formed on the questions involved. We seek to learne not only
how we might best carry out the court order if, as it turns out, we
most do so, but whether there are specific char ^es we might want to
recorrmsnd in the Water Act that would help us % dealing with this
issue. My view is that it simply makes no sense to take the federal
regulatory permit approach to many of the sources of water pollution
— especially those in agriculture and silviculture — that the court
order would require us to take. By their very nature, they are best
dealt with primarily at the 'State and local level as part of an
overall, integrated approach to such sources based upon best
managerrent practices. later this month we will be holding "town
hall" meetings in Denver and Portland that concern themselves
with the implications of the court decision for silviculture^
I hope you will take advantage of them to give us your best
help and advice.
When I addressed your Association ten years ago, I stressed
the fact that, in asserting the need to make "conservation values"
and "ecological principles" an integral and ordinary part of the
way we make decisions and do our business, that did not rrean that
they "should become the overriding determinants of policy.™ "What
we. should aim for/' I suggested, "is to wake such values a respected
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part of the decision-making process, to have them weighed in the balance
along with economic and other criteria. At the present tire," I went
on to say, "they are largely overlooked so that alternatives supported
by ecological standards are simply not trade available to decision-makers."
I also stated my vie.; that: "tvhcn conservation values msan added costs,
we should acknowledge this frankly, estimate the costs as accurately as
possible, and provide the public and decision-makers with the facts
necessary to making intelligent choices among the available alternatives."
We have, in the years since, accomplished roach on both fronts.
Environmental concerns are being taken into account, with increasing
frequency and effectiveness, throughout our society. And EPA has
consistently demonstrated its determination to do whatever it reason-
ably and responsibly can to minimize the adverse impacts of its regu-
lations — on particular industries as on particular cities, on the
nation's economy as on the nation's energy or food supply.
Late this surnrer, one of the most respected of the national
survey organizations, Opinion Research Corporation, sent to its
irenagement clients an in-depth survey and analysis of "public attitudes
toward environmental tradeoffs." Its results represent, I think, an
accurate and instructive reflection of the public's ccmuitment to
environmental protection and progress and its feelings on some of
the tradeoffs involved in achieving it. Let me cite just some of its
results and conclusions:
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— Given a choice, six. people in ten say that they believe it
is irore important to pay the costs involved in protecting the environ-
ment than to keep prices and taxes down and run the risk of more
pollution.
— Nearly nine cut of ten say that vre are paying nov/ for the
pollution that v;a have caused for irany years.
— INine out of ten say they believe that, if we don't start
cleaning up the environment now, it will cost us more money in the
long run.
-r- During the past year, a majority of the public have said
that they believe it is likely the U.S. will run out of its supply
of clean air (64%) and pure water (54%) within the next 50 years.
— Clean air and pure water topped a list of 11 resources the
public was asked to rate in terns of those the U.S. is most likely
to run out of in that period — including oil, natural gas, coal,
fish, copper, aluminum, meat, wheat, and iron. This ranking, moreover,
was made almost a year after the Arab oil embargo and subsequent
energy shortage.
One last item: in the detailed results of the survey, public
responses to specific propositions are broken down by various
categories such as sex, age, education, family income. There is
one category called "Environmental Activists," which is broken
down by regions of the country. In response to the statement —
"Cleaning up the environment is iirportantf but it should be
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balanced with the need to keep people working" — 95 percent of the
"Environmental Activists" in every region agreed, almost precisely
the sane percentage that agreed in every other category and in the
public as a v.-hole. tost environmentalists, in othor words, are
willing to seek a reasonable balance between environmental pro-
tection and other vital human needs.
What all of this adds up to is, I think, two things: First,
that the environmental movement and the pollution control effort
is going strong and here to stay. And second, important and vital
as that effort is, it's not all there is. We need clean air and
water. But we also need jobs and profits, we need industry and
houses, we need food and factories, we need energy and minerals,
we need products and irachines. And I am determined that we at EPA
do everything we can to meet our responsibilities in ways that
won't put people out of business or out of work and that won't
impose excessive and unreasonable costs.
I regard the need to minimize the social and economic iirpacts
of EPA's efforts as one of the Agency's most important responsibilities.
EPA has, in fact, been preparing economic analyses on its standards
and regulations years before the President's requirements for in-
flationary impact statements. By the time our standards and regu-
lations reach final form, they have received — and they reflect —
the scrutiny of other Federal agencies, industry, environmental
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groups, and the general public. While I cannot claim the process
is perfect — as no process is perfect — -it is the most open and
rigorous process of economic impact analysis performed by any agency
of the Federal government. And we will do all we can 'to continue
to improve thc.t process.
I must, at the sair.3 time, irake it clear that when I talk of-
"balancing" environmental and other concerns I do not mean —
as sore others do — that we should permit the sacrifice of "essential
environmental values and public health needs for short-term energy
.and economic gains. We cannot forget when we talk about "balance"
and "tradeoffs" that environmental concerns are-nowhere near taken
into account as amply and effectively as they should be. Ihe
"environment" is a relatively new concern, and we have barely
begun to achieve the full inclusion of environmental costs and
benefits in the Nation's balance sheets. Because environment is
5» new concern and — at least in the explicit sense — a new cost,,
it runs the risk, every time a new crisis cores along, of falling
prey to the "last hired, first fired" principle.
Now, having said' that, let us be perfectly clear that the
costs of meeting environmental regulations ore not new costs at
all. They have been there all the time. When a power plant spews
out uncontrolled sulfur oxides, the costs are real in terms of in-
creased respiratory disease, medical bills, even increased mortality.
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lt is society as a whole that is bearing those costs. When we
require the power plant to clean up its pollution, to install
and operate flue gas desulfurization technology, we are siraply
shifting the cost from society as a whole- to the plant and its
customers. Thus, the question is .not "should v:e pay these costs?"
because we are already paying then. The only real question is v;l'.r>
should be paying them, toreover, it usually turns out that the
cost of cleaning up pollution at the source is a good deal cheaper
than the costs of adverse health effects and other damage otherwise
borne by society as a whole.
There are still some who refuse to believe .-that the American
people are deadly serious in their demand for environmental progress
and protection and cling to the hope that somehow there will core
along a crisis so caipelling that they can employ it to deceive the
American people into believing that environmentalists are to blame
and that the answer is an environmental retreat of one sort or
another. Ihere are still some who seek to hold environmentalists
responsible for every ill wind that blows.
For example, I ha^e recently read several newspaper editorials
which directly suggest that EPA and its 1972 ban on DDT bear major
responsibility for the current outbreak of encephalitis — that we
environmentalists are somehow to blame for the tragic deaths frcm
this, disease. One of these papers, the Dallas Time Herald is due
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credit for its honesty in subsequently stating: "The editorial
condemning the EPA for banning DDT -was based on information which
later proved incorrect. We regret the error." The facts have
not, however, de^jprred some re^Tiers of Congress frcn making ths
same baseless charge on the floor of thi House of rvipressntP.tivci.
or indeed, the Secretary of Agriculture hijrself from spreading
the! same story on repeated occasions. What are the facts of the
natter? First, DDT had largely been abandoned for mosquito -control
in the U.S. before the 1972 ban on DDT because mosquitos had become
DDT-resistant. Second, EPA's 1972 DDT ban specifically excluded
public health uses from the ban. Indeed^ EPA has in recent months
given permission for such use on several occasions (for example,
on rabid bats) where requested by responsible health officials.
We can act rapidly in such cases. Third, at least ten products
are registered and available for use against adult mosquitos,
particularly iralathion, and a good many more are registered for
use against mosquito larvae. Against adult mosquitos, malathion
is the product preferred by health agencies because of its
superior knockdown paver. Fourth, not a single health agency in
the nation has requested the use of DDT in combatting encephalitis.
Those are the facts.
It strikes me that there is far too much paranoia and
suspicion, far too much of a "we're-the good guys and you're the
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bad guys" attitude, far too much defending of turf and displaying
of muscle, far too much of a tendency to see every difference in
perspective and point of view as a "do-or-die" issue — far too
much of this sort of high-decibel, surface noise surrounding
the effort to carry on a constructive conversation 'about hew
best to get on with the job of incorporating er.vircnnental
concerns into the day-to-day business of this country. There is,
I think, far too much of an inclination, in dealing with the very
difficult judgments involved in so many environmental decisions,
for too many people to behave as if everything were being acted
out against sore absolute and irrmutable sky, as if the issues and
the outcomes were always "either-or" and "all-or-nothing," forever
and for keeps. I must say- that environmentalists themselves can
be just as susceptible to this kind of thing as anybody else.
Let me say here that most of the easy problems have long
since been dealt with. Vlhat we have before us now and for the
long term are highly complex issues whose resolution will seldom
please everyone and all too often will probably please no one.
But I must admit to some weariness with the constant flow of in-
flated charge and countercharge. If a decision does not go as
far as our environmental friends would like, it is immediately
characterized as a "sellout," patently made under political
pressure. If the decision goes against industry, it can only
be because EPA gave in to environmental bias and emotionalism
— or so I read. If we develop preliminary data on a new
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problem, such as a suspect chemical in drinking water, and
postpone calling an instant press conference an the subject
until at least the scientific data has been'^^^ed7 vre are
cbvi6usly conducting a "cover up,8' hiding the facts frcm the
public. If, on the other hand, we do try to provide such
information, we are, of course, being unscientific and indulg-
ing in scare tactics.
Now, I am not so naive as to believe that somehow the
competition for media attention will go away etc that we will
all become irrraune to the lure of a headline or of a 30-second
spot on the evening news. And I know that EPA itself is not
entirely innocent in these natters. But let us at least try
to deal with the issues on their merits (of course, running
the risk in so doing that the media may ignore us) and let us try
to accept as a v.orking hypothesis until the evidence builds up
to the contrary that the other fellow, whoever he may be —
industrialist, farmer, forester, worker, environmentalist, or
even bureaucrat — while perhaps wrong in any given case is
operating in good faith, trying to deal with cdtplex issues
objectively, calling the facts as he sees them as best he can,
and not engaging in a conspiracy against the public interest.
A conspiratorial view of the vjorld is romantic and often
attention-getting but it is often destructive, particularly of
the very institutions we really need to promote the public interest.
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1 hope that we environmentalists can rally together to fight
for the real essentials because these are under serious attack fron
nary quarters today. Just last Friday, the House of Representatives
narrowly defeated by just 8 votes (175 to 167) an effort to give the
Secret ary of Agriculture veto authority over E~A's 'pesticide regu-
latory authority, an authority given EPA in 1?\D to protect public
health and the environment. Hie ostensible purpose of the amend-
ment is to insure balance to our regulatory program. In my mind
that would give us about as much balance as you would get by put-
ting the coyote in charge of the sheep pen* This issue may well
come up again in the House later this week, and "we need your help
BOW'
Recently,, the Mew York Times, which has over the years been
a major and an effective force for environmental progress, carried
on its Sunday front page a story whose two-column headJLine .screamed:
"Conservationists Assail EPA Rules Cutback." From the virulence
of the headline, you might have assumed that EPA had just granted
a ten-year delay in meeting clean air standards to the steel in-
dustry or to power plants. Actually, if you went on to read
the story, you would have discovered that I had put in motion
within EPA an effort to reduce unnecessary regulations and to
make irore understandable those regulations we do publish. Ihe
scory then went on to say thai: some environmentalists (who turned
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out to be two) regarded the Q*A effort to try to .Sinplify and
streamline its regulations as a signal that — and I quote —•
"the Ford Administration has abandoned the national ccnroitmsnt
for clean air and water." Well, let me say this: There nay
be effcrtr, in sons parts of the Administration, in the Congress,
in industry, and in the public to pull bs.dc on environsantal
programs but my effort to reduce and simplify our regulations
and our paperwork has absolutely nothing to do with those efforts.
The truth is that, far from abandoning our effort to clean up**
air and water pollution, we are simply doing what any good
bureaucracy should be doing -- especially one in the pollution
control business —- and that is to try, as best we can, to
clear up sore of the paper pollution that we have generated a
great deal of over the past few years. I realize that we can-
not make everybody happy. The paper industry, for one, will
be upset. But I suspect that all the citizens and groups —
environmentalists included — all the industries, all the local
and state governments. --- everybody, in fact, with the possible
exception of the legal conrnunity —- will be delighted to dis-
cover that we are making a very serious effort to put seme
order and economy and efficiency into the vast volume of regu-
lations that we issue. In all of this effort, there is not
the slightest suggestion that we fail to carry out our statutory
responsibilities or relax our environmental efforts.
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!Ehe latest figures I was able, to obtain show that as of July 1,
3.974 — well over a year ago — EPA»s share of the Code of Federal
Regulations added up to scne 2000 pages, was alrtost 3 1/2 inches
thick and weighed rore than 5 pcunds. I cm sure it has grcvm con-
siderably sir.ce then. I thir.k it is hiejh tire we vent on a diet —
not by cutting c.c-..n en essentials, cr in any sense abandoning
or impairing our effort to carry out our environmental laws —
but by trying to write our regulations in clear and concise ^English,
by trying to cut down unnecessary overlapping and duplication and,
in general, by doing all we could to reduce red tape and get rid
of gobbledygcok. If we can succeed in doing that, then I think we
will be performing no srrall service to any and all who are required
to read or corrply with our regulations. I do not believe our
success will be measured by the quantity and complexity of the
regulations ve issue; it will be ireasured by haw clean the air
and \v-ater beoore. And I want to be absolutely sure th'afi'bur'
regulations help speed and smooth the way to making them clean.
"Best Kanageirent Practices," like some other things, must begin
at hccne.
I am not in the slightest bit apologetic about this effort.
EPA has been slow in some areas in getting out needed regulations
and by reducing the nonessentials we should be able to put nore
resources to work on real priority needs. By and large, given
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the fantastic demands put tpon the agency by Congress and given
our lirxited resources, I believe EPA has done an extraordinary
job in the regulatory field, and I am proud of the dedicated men
and women who nave made this possible. I have travelled all over
the country in the past vreaJis, ar.d I h~vo talked \d.th individuals
and groups of all Jiir.c.s. L^eryv^re 1 fincl strong support for
environmental prograris but everywhere I find also a growing
impatience and resentrent at interference by the Federal govern-
ment. Only last week, I visited a state environmental protection
agency official who told ne that he had had to pull a number of
his limited staff out of field enforcement and monitoring to put
them to v.ork dealing with EPA reports and forms. If that is true,
you can be sure there are going to be some changes made. I am
setting up a task force, with state agency representation, to see
where we can reduce and sirrplify EPA forms and reports.
At the same tiire, while I am committed to a continued _ gtrcng
leadership role for the Federal government in environmental matters
as contenplated by our statutes, I am also firmly ccmitted to
delegation of authority to State and local governments wherever
this can be done. It is essential that they have the resources that
will enable them to exercise these responsibilities effectively.
To surrmarize, therefore, you can say I am committed in principle
to giving as much responsibility as possible to those levels of
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governments which are closest to the people and to streamlining and
snaking more fully responsive those responsibilities which must
continue to be exercised at the Federal level.
I have suggested that we stand on octillion ground and share a
corrmon goal: the efficient use and protection of our Icr.d, water
and all of our natural resources. Indeed, th2 wise use end pro-
tection of these resources during the rest of this century is tha
underlying and overriding concern of this meeting and this Congress.
It is, in my judgment, the needless and heedless waste of our natural
resources that lies at the root of our energy, our economic and our
environmental problems. These are simply symptoms of the fact that,
in one way or another, we are living beyond our means.
The energy crisis, material shortages, and world agricultural
shortages all demonstrate that we as a society have not been aware
of the factors and forces that affect the availability of resources
until we are facing imminent crises. Thus, we have begun a ""crash"
research and development program on energy sources and are just
caning to grips with the inflationary' impacts of material shortages.
The next decade will be crucial in determining. our ability to feed
the world's population. We desperately need an institution to analyze
the factors and forces that affect the availability of resources and
to set forth strategic alternatives that will be necessary to avert
problems of this magnitude in the future. That institution should
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be (able, as veil, to assess not siitply the availability of
XBsources ~ not siirply their supply — but the various uses_
of those resources as veil as their environmental and other
When I first spoke to this Association ten years' ago, I
proposed the crc-rticn of r. President's Council of FcologiarJ.
Advisers. Five years later, under a different n^r.ie, such a Council
was established. I vould today recormand the creation of a similar
institution responsible for evaluating long-term trends in resource
use and availability both in the United States and throughout the
vorld, and for assessing alternatives in the use of scarce materials
and in the development of new techniques or materials to extend their
use. Indeed, perhaps the current Council on Environmental Quality
should be reconstructed into something like a Council on Environment
and Natural Fesources, which vould deal with the whole broad spectrum
of critical issues involving the availability and use of our natural
resources .
As you have long understood, the really critical issues before
this country are not -the iimrediate and isolated ones, but the
interrelated and long-range ones — indeed, the day-to-day "crises"
that seem to capture all our attention and consume all our energies
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are, for the most part, sirrply manifestations of far deeper problems.
that vxi never seem to get around to acknowledging, much less addrcss-
iiKf. Our economic health and growth, our patterns of settlerrent and
physical development, our social stability and strength — these
both determine and cc-jx=r.d upon a V2£t and intricate system of rrc.tcri ?.2,
energy rr.d envircr-'ontal resources. Under these ccnditicns, v:o c-;-.-
not hope to cere to grips 'with the issues before us unless we
strengthen our ability to assess problems and programs, not sirtply
in isolation, but in relation to each other; not sirrply over the
short term, but over the longer span of 10, 20 or 30 years.
John Kennedy often told the story of a great French I-Jar shall
— I always conveniently forget his name because I can never rerrcrrber
how to pronounce it •— v,ho once asked his gardener to plant a tree.
The gardener objected that the tree was slew-growing and v,ould not
reach maturity for a hundred years. The Marshall replied, "In
that case, there is no time to lose. Plant it this afternoon."
' »...j». -.
In terms of the critical issues before this country — the
longer-range, interrelated issues that I have described -— the
afternoon is already upon us.
We need to start planting — now.
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