or no control. It is an undertaking participated in jointly by your
federal government, your State government and your local com-
munity. It is, of course, too early to test the effect of this joint effort —
and particularly the federal government's vast Appalachian regional
program, which is only now getting underway — but already there
are small but highly significant signs of rejuvenation and rehabilita-
tion. For example, just recently the State Department of Health
supplied me with some population figures which I believe have mean-
ing in this regard. As you know, the population of Garrett County
declined in the decade 1940-1950 and again in the 1950-1960 census
span. But according to the Department of Health, which conducts
a continuing census-taking for its own purposes, the county in the
first part of this decade has more than regained the population loss
it suffered from 1950-1960. This, we believe, is one result of the
effort that has been made, by the county and the State, working with
federal agencies, to strengthen the economy of Garrett County and
bodes well for the future. But let us examine a little more closely
our plan for the redevelopment of the area.

In May, 1960, I called a meeting in Annapolis of the governors of
the eleven states that comprise the Appalachian region to recommend
that a regional effort be made to rehabilitate the economically de-
pressed area. Out of this Conference of Appalachian Governors grew
President Kennedy's Appalachian Regional Commission, the Ap-
palachian Regional Plan and the present Appalachian Regional De-
velopment Act which the Congress passed and President Johnson
signed earlier this year.

In my opening remarks at the Annapolis Conference in 1960, I
noted that in the examination of some of the problems of our Western
Maryland counties, it became obvious that these problems inevitably
were interlocked with economic and social conditions which were
common to the entire Appalachian region. In these circumstances, I
said it seemed logical to me "that nothing significant could be ac-
complished for our distressed counties of Maryland except as part
of a program whose aim would be to rebuild and revitalize the eco-
nomy of the entire Appalachian region. " I also stated that it was my
opinion that we would never arrive at a permanent solution of the
problems of the region "unless we stop thinking of the mountains as
a 'distressed area' and begin to think of them as an underdeveloped
region with vast untapped human and natural resources — a region
that can only find its rightful economic level through a plan of over-
all economic development, programmed for a period of five, ten or
even twenty years. "

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