Ruth Bryan Owen 4th District Florida Member Committee on Foreign Affairs Mrs. Jessie R. Hill Secretary Congress of the United States House of Representatives Washington, D.C. April 24, 1930. Honorable Doyle E. Carlton, Tallahassee, Florida. Dear Governor Carlton: I am writing to let you know that the Pilgrimage to Washington of the thirty-six “Best Young Citizens” in my District, has in every detail worked out more successfully that I dared to hope that it would. The boys and girls were a credit to our State. They were selected by the vote of their schoolmates and the faculties as having lived up to the highest ideals of citizenship, the things I asked them to keep in mind in their selection are noted in the enclosed ballot, a copy of which was put in the hands of every high school student in the District. Although some of the children had never made a train trip before their entire bearing was splendid. The chaperones who came with them said afterwards that at no time was it even necessary to suggest a course of conduct. Florida has never had a better advertisement than these fine boys and girls to whom every official door was opened. The President received them and commended them and the Vice President presented one of their sets of medals with an individual message to each child. The Army Band of sixty-two pieces played for them one evening and the Marine Band Orchestra the next. The concluding service at Arlington, I wish you might have witnessed when Colonel Moss presented the Old Glory medals in the beautiful amphitheatre. One of the boys summed up the impression the trip had made, when we were returning to Florida on the train. He said, “I never before realized how many people were giving their time and effort in order that I might have a Government like this. There isn’t any way that [any one] citizen can do enough to deserve it, but I am going to do my best all the rest of my life.”