This is Chicago. This is the week of the International Live Stock Exposition. And the 4-H champions are in town for their National Congress. It is an annual custom by the Central Church of Chicago to welcome them to Sunday Service… in the Hilton Hotel. At the invitation of Pastor Kenneth Hildebrand, it's also been an annual custom for Paul Harvey to read the scriptures at this service. So I was there this morning. 4-H winners from every state and every territory. And they get better looking every year. Whooeee, we're raising a fine crop of young folks on our farms! Sometimes because the headlines get preoccupied with the weeds we forget to give thanks for the harvest.

We can get rid of most of those weeds, with a good threshing.
But more important, we mustn't let them discourage or dishearten us.
For every young hoodlum hiding a switch-blade knife, I can show you ten ridin' tall on the tractor.
For every young rascal sowing wild oats, I can name ten planting the tame kind.
For every one who makes of himself an enemy of men…
Ten make friends with them… and with the God of the sun and the soil.
As the big live stock show displays the best animals our farms have produced…
So we here display the best young men and women our farms have produced, too.
And I tell you, we're going to be all right.
After this morning's service I stood talking to young Rodney
Henderson, Hereford farmer from Jackson, Mississippi.
I'm six feet two, but I had to look up to this towering lad. Both ways.
And he can advise you on whitefaces, but he can talk to you about anything.
It's a fine crop of youngsters our farms are turning out.
One of the things I miss most about the automatic washer and
drier in the basement is the way a pillow case used to smell when it had been sun dried.
And talking to these future leaders of the croplands, you recall that sun-washed freshness in the way they talk and the way they look and act and easy way they laugh.
All of us who participate in that annual church service for the 4-H'ers figure it'll inspire them…
And every year it's we who end up getting inspired.
Recent years the farmer has been getting the short end of the stick, you know.
He's had to dig and scratch and plow close to the hedgerows.
Because it wasn't easy, he had to be strong.
He had no choice.
He had to get smart.
Well, sir, every nation and every generation has made the greatest advances when it had to.
And in order to hold our agricultural family together in recent years the farmer has needed strong sons and capable daughters…
Well, he has them.
I spent the morning peeking over a pulpit at the finest cash crop this country has EVER produced.
I mean ever!
So if you read of some misfit young product of our big city prosperity shooting up a tavern for kicks…
It's just because his one gunshot made more noise than two thousand prayers.
But it wasn't really more important. Not really.
Paul Harvey.
Good day.