County are actively engaged in planning the revitalization of the Port
of Cambridge. We are hopeful that federal agencies will play a major
role in the development.

I think one of the important things for all of us here to recognize and
recognize clearly, is that these programs to assist labor surplus areas are
not temporary, stopgap measures, which will disappear if our national
production figures continue to rise. Our responsibility towards all our
communities does not end when some of our communities become pros-
perous again; our obligations to our unemployed does not cease when
they number only 5 out of 100 instead of 10. We must face the fact that
the underlying causes of much of our unemployment will probably be
with us for a long time. The latest figures released by the U. S. Depart-
ment of Labor show that while employment is at an all time high,
unemployment also reached a 20 year high for the month of June. This
is getting to be the usual picture—jobs increase, but the need for jobs
increases even faster. This is the fundamentally important problem we
are confronted with, and to me it seems very unlikely that we will com-
pletely solve it in the near future. The factors involved are too massive
and too complex to yield to easy or rapid solutions. While American
industry is increasing its efficiency, the American population is growing
at an equal—or perhaps greater—pace. While the number of manhours
per unit of production is decreasing, the number of workers available is
increasing. These two all-important factors in our economy are moving
in opposite directions, and until the gap is closed, unemployment will
continue to be a problem.

There are, of course, a number of counter forces at work which will
eventually combine to produce a level of prosperity that will amaze even
the most optimistic of us. Our productive efficiency will open up new
markets, both domestic and foreign; new industries will be created by
further technological achievements. Work weeks will be shortened as
labor skills are upgraded; the need for advanced training will delay the
entrance of young people into the labor market; retirement benefits will
be greater and more widespread and will come earlier in life; increased
incomes will tend to remove more women from the labor market; pro-
fessional and service jobs will absorb a greater percentage of our labor
force. These, and many related economic tends, will assert themselves
during the years to come, and a new American standard of living will
emerge which will make our present way of life seem primitive by com-
parison. But we cannot take this for granted.... We all have work to do.
Our jobs are to see that the communities we are responsible for are given
every opportunity to fully participate in this new American prosperity.

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