<--PREV Doc #1578  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1580 Document #1579; September 9, 1955 To Arthur Frank Burns Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XVI - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part VIII: Toward "statesmanship of a high order"; June 1955 to November 1955 Chapter 17: "Stern edicts" from the Doctors   Dear Arthur: Thank you for your note of September second, which reached my desk this morning.1 As a flash reaction, the idea of establishing a unit to be known as the Area Development Agency (or something similar) seems like a good one. I shall await further information from you, as your plan develops.2 I hope your vacation is giving you that rest and relaxation you so badly need. With warm regard, Sincerely 1 On September 2 Burns had written Eisenhower concerning the political and economic importance of addressing pockets of persistent high unemployment (AWF/A; for background see no. 872). He outlined a plan to establish within the Department of Commerce an Area Development Agency to: a) mobilize and coordinate available federal facilities for the reduction of local unemployment; and b) supplement federal facilities by providing technical assistance in self-help and loans of up to one-quarter of the cost of local revitalization projects. 2 Burns would visit Eisenhower in the hospital in Denver on October 24 to report Cabinet approval of a plan to establish an Area Assistance Administration in the Department of Commerce (Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 553, and New York Times, Oct. 25, 1955). Congress would consider the legislation in the summer of 1956 and would expand Eisenhower's original plan to include rural as well as urban areas and to lower the threshold for qualification for aid (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. XII, 1956, p. 517). This bill passed the Senate but failed to clear the House in July 1956. Although Eisenhower would continue to press for aid to depressed areas, Congress would fail in 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960 to find a formula on which all sides could agree. No specific area development legislation would be enacted (Saulnier, Constructive Years, pp. 182-87). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Arthur Frank Burns, 9 September 1955. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1579. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/1579.cfm <--PREV Doc #1578  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1580

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