ports, improving their facilities and defending their rate structures.
To finance the new agency, the General Assembly granted $15 million
in an initial bond issue and turned over to the Authority one-half
of one per cent of the State's corporate income tax. The Authority
was also granted freedom from submitting its annual budget to the
Legislature and was allowed the right to retain surplus funds from
year to year. For a public agency in Maryland, this was a precedent
breaking move. But it followed in the tradition of other public
agencies that were administering other port areas. And it recognized
the need for freedom of action in a highly competitive field. Over the
years, the Authority has been singularly free from political pressure
or influence.

I do not contend, however, that the creation of this Authority com-
prised an automatic solution to the ills of the port or the industry.
It was a good start, though, and the Authority, working with the
private businessmen of the port, has been able to make great progress
in the revitalization of the port and its facilities. The problems facing
you gentlemen, however, are necessarily broader in scope, taking in,
as they do, the entire range of maritime activities in this port and in
all of the ports of the nation. The point I want to stress is that we
must work together to find the answers to our problems and this work
must be accomplished in an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual
interest.

I wish you well in your meetings, then, and I extend the warm wel-
come of all Marylanders. We are delighted that you have chosen our
State as the site of your convention, and we trust that your efforts
and deliberations here will lead to a more healthy and flourishing
merchant marine.

ADDRESS, VETERANS DAY PROGRAM
SALISBURY

November 10, 1963

I am pleased and honored to have this opportunity to join with
my friends of Salisbury and Wicomico County today to pay our re-
spects and our tribute to the brave men who fought in the great wars
of our nation to safeguard our American freedoms and our American
way of life.

I am told that in North Assam, a state in the Northern part of
India, there is an allied cemetery in which lie the bodies of four

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