deeds — or our misdeeds — may affect the lives and the fortunes not
only of the people of our time but of generations to come.

This is especially true because of the tenor and the complexion of
the age in which we live. And what is it like — this age in which we
live? Well, quite clearly it is an age of change — of drastic, violent,
revolutionary change. It is an age of unparalleled population growth,
with attendant problems of urbanization and congestion. It is an age
of unprecedented advancement in science and technology, giving
mankind devices and insights unheard-of and unbelievable to persons
living only a few years ago. It is an age of upheaval, of ferment, of
instability, characterized by new, and ever renewing, social, economic
and political forces. These conditions have vastly altered the conduct
and the thinking of all people. And they have magnified and com-
plicated the problems of those of us who are entrusted with the
government of the people.

It is always difficult to deal with circumstances which have never
been experienced before. New problems require new solutions, and
in each new problem we face we find ourselves handicapped by lack
of experience in how to solve it. New social and political ideas call
for new rules and alterations in the structure of society. How do we
provide jobs for all in this age of automation? How do we educate
everyone at a time when the quality of our education may determine
whether in the future we survive or perish? How do we move people,
and the goods they produce, in an era in which immobility means
economic strangulation and social stagnation? How do we provide
rest and recreation for the people in areas where rest and recreational
facilities are rapidly vanishing? How do we protect the health and the
happiness of the people against the contamination of their air and
the pollution of their streams that are the products of the way they
live and make their living?

These are some of the challenges of our times. These are some of
the challenges that we face today as we meet here to enact laws and
establish policies for the government of our State and its people.

PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

I was deeply moved, as I think most Americans were, by the speech
in which President Johnson two weeks ago sketched for the Congress
and the nation a plan for our future—a plan envisioning a society
in which all of us may enlarge the meaning of our lives and elevate
the quality of our civilization. He spoke of a prosperous America,
with economic advantage and full employment opportunities for all.

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