In speaking of and working for the public safety, I would be remiss
if I did not include civil defense in my actions and thinking. This
fine structure would be but an empty shell if it did not have adequate
and trained personnel to use it in emergencies. Therefore, I am most
happy to say that the State's finances this year allowed us to grant
to the Maryland Civil Defense Agency the largest operating budget
in its history. Also, I am pleased to salute Sherley Ewing, its director,
who has won such high esteem among his colleagues that he now
has the great distinction to be serving as president of the National
Association of State and Territorial Civil Defense Directors. Mr.
Ewing heads a fine and professionally trained cadre of civil defense
leaders.

It gives me great satisfaction to read the monthly reports of the
State agency and to learn that its staff is carrying the civil defense
message out to the people of the State. Mr. Ewing told me that it is
his policy, and he has so instructed his staff, to be of all possible
assistance to the civil defense leaders of our counties and to Baltimore
City. This is a policy that I endorse enthusiastically. I want no civil
defense staff smug in its ivory towers of headquarters. They must, and
they are, getting their work done in the field.

It is obvious that communications must be one of the bases of emer-
gency operations and I can envisage no emergency so taxing on com-
munications as an enemy attack. You may recall that early in my
Administration I instructed the interested State agencies and the
staff of the Civil Defense Agency to pursue preliminary planning
vigorously for a statewide microwave communications system. This
they are doing, and we were fortunate that the General Assembly
granted us funds in the capital improvements program to start the
first phase of this system this year. In keeping with the policy of this
Administration to effect all possible economies, we are engineering
this system so that it will also serve the peacetime needs of all agencies
that are in need of emergency communications or electronic com-
munications on a daily basis.

I am happy to see that our ladies are now taking an even greater
interest in civil defense with the greater part of their energy being
devoted to civil defense home preparedness. I was extremely pleased
when Mrs. Tawes, cooperating with the Maryland Federation of
Women's Clubs, earned the Home Preparedness Award by preparing
Government House, our home in Annapolis. This program, incident-
ally, was one that was conceived by clubwomen of our own State and
then adopted as a national program.

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