864 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

Governor Agnew: I hadn't really noticed that he had done that.
I think when I refer to the leadership that Dick Nixon has been put-
ting forth that so impresses me recently — and I want to emphasize
when I speak in favor of Mr. Nixon, I haven't any strong commitment,
or any commitment made to Mr. Nixon at this moment, and I may
very well be persuaded by the conduct of Governor Rockefeller's
campaign that I am wrong in my analysis that he has waited too long
for the convention. It is conceivable that I could support him. I have
made this clear on many occasions.

But returning to Mr. Nixon and what he said that has been
so impressive. I think the analysis of what needs to be done in
the urban areas and particularly in what is commonly referred to as
the ghetto, is most impressive. I have likened Mr. Rockefeller's fa-
miliarity with this problem and his ability to deal with it, the pro-
grams he has implemented in New York City, as a tactical solution.
He is actually the professional that is into the solution of the problem
on a basis of local need and local use, and this is very important and
it is what impressed me when I supported him. But Mr. Nixon has
now identified something that I think is an overriding strategic need,
and that is the need to continue to do something about, or to begin
doing something about reversing the flow of the rural poor to the
urban areas.

I liken it to a situation where, even if a surgeon has the techniques
to cure a hemorrhage, he can't operate until he clamps off the arteries,
and I think no matter how much we go in there and try to operate,
until somebody clamps off the arteries, which in this case is the flow
of the urban poor to the cities, no amount of money or programming
or specific technical processes-
Mr. Broder: Governor, under a government like ours, how do you
clamp off the arteries, how do you prevent people from moving where
they want to move?

Governor Agnew: I had two specific things very much in mind.
You don't prevent them, Mr. Broder, but what you do is take a couple
of steps that are going to encourage this. For example, I think — and
I have said this on many occasions — welfare should be a national
program. I think that benefits should be standardized, particularly in
view of the fact that no longer will residence prohibitions for appli-
cants stand up. It is not feasible to expect that a person receiving $9
a month in Mississippi, who could get $53 or f 60 a month in New York
City, is going to stay in Mississippi if he is impoverished. What we