But a Governor has no more important job, none, than education. And a Governor also has to be able to get people together to really get things done. What you want in a Governor is somebody who is smart, committed, with a good heart, who is passionate about what he or she believes but is not particularly partisan. And I can tell you, Bill and I-we all came out of State Government; he and I both did. We are both, frankly, mortified by how partisan that crowd is in Washington. I mean, I always tell him there is plenty of things for us to argue about in the next election, but the people give us a paycheck every 2 weeks to show up for work in the meanwhile. And we are not supposed to fight about everything; we are supposed to work out things and get things done. That is the sort of person he is. And he has a lot of friends in the Congress who are Republicans because they know that he has not responded in kind to the harsh partisanship of their leaders and that he is still willing to work with people of good will to get things done. You cannot be a good Governor unless you are both open to people in both parties but absolutely aggressive in what you believe and what you want to achieve. You need both an agenda and an ability to bring people together. He can do that. And I did this for 12 years; I am telling you, this is important, and he can do it superbly well. The other thing that has not been mentioned-Vic talked about his service in the legislature-he was twice voted, twice, the best member of the Louisiana Legislature. So he knows about this job. I want to thank Anne and Stan and Chris Rice for having us in this magnificent facility. But this facility used to be an orphanage, and I got to thinking, Hillary and I had a very moving event at the White House this week to celebrate our attempts to move people, kids from foster care into adoption, and all the work we have done over the last 7 years-one thing we have done, by the way, on a bipartisan basis-to speed up adoptions. And I got down here today, and when I was over at the school, a woman stopped me and said, Mr. President, thank you for helping to fix the adoption laws. I just adopted two children. So we have worked on this.


Now, I want to say that I want you to think about this as a place where children once lived who had no family. This man knows what it is like to have a difficult time. He knows what it is like to have the support of a good family. He knows what it is like to build a good family, and he and his wife have five magnificent daughters who have done superbly well because they have good parents and a good home. In the end, having now served 12 years as a Governor and 7 years as President, I can tell you, a lot of times you have to make decisions that nobody is smart enough to make. A lot of times decisions come to me that, no matter how smart I think I am, I cannot think my way through. And all you can do is pray to God to give you the wisdom to do it, and listen to your heart, not your head. So the last thing I will say is, remember everything-the man has proven he is had the courage to take a tough decision. He cast a decisive vote on the most important bill that brought us the prosperity we enjoy today. He has wide experience in State Government. He has the capacity to get people together. He clearly has the right agenda. There is no more important agenda for Louisiana's future than getting the education up to world-class levels. But when it is all said and done, what really counts is, do you have a good heart. Keep in mind, 50 years later I still remember my mother loved me enough to kneel down on those railroad tracks and cry when I had to go away. When it is all said and done, you do not remember first and foremost in the last moments of your life the honors you had, the riches you had; you remember who you liked and who you loved, how it felt when the seasons changed, and what it felt like to be really, really important, to matter in the lives of other people. The people of Louisiana will matter to Bill Jefferson if he is the Governor. You should only vote for him if you think he'd be the best Governor. But if you think he'd be the best Governor and you let him be defeated, it would be a terrible thing, because the children here, the children of this State deserve the very best person they can get in experience, in mind, and in heart. God bless you.

Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative William J. Jefferson in New Orleans


It is nice of you to come to meet me at this time of the morning. I believe you have some inkling of why I am here. I am out campaigning for a Democratic victory in November. I have been told that this city of yours is sometimes considered a suburb of New Haven. Well now, I live in a town in Missouri that Kansas City tries to call a suburb. But we were there first, just as you were, and the suburbs are around the other way New Haven is a suburb of this town, and Kansas City is a suburb of Independence. They do not like to be told that. You have a fine slate of Democratic candidates here in Connecticut. I think the world of Bill Benton and Abe Ribicoff. We need them both in the Senate. I do not like to say too much about the Senate because I served 10 years there myself, but if I were to express my opinion they would say I was throwing bouquets at myself. You need John McGuire and Stanley Pribyson in the House to give Connecticut good representation. I am working hard in this campaign because I think it is the most important election in many, many years. The choice the people make this year may decide whether we have prosperity or depression, war or peace. The whole future of our country is wrapped up in the decision next November the 4th. Peace is the most important of all. It is the thing I have been working for with all my heart these past 7 years. I am sure we are on the right road to attain the peace. I am sure we can attain that goal, provided we have the kind of government that will work calmly and steadily no matter what the obstacles may be in the years ahead. That is the kind of government we will have in this country if Adlai Stevenson is elected President next November. He is a man of peace. He is a civilian with much experience in government with a real understanding of our political system and the needs of the plain, everyday people in this country and all over the world. During the war, President Roosevelt sent him to Italy to find out how we could best help the people of that great country rebuild their economy and aid in the struggle against the Nazis. After the war, Adlai Stevenson helped greatly in the task of setting up the United Nations. And now for 4 years past he has been Governor of one of our great States-Illinois. He has given his State a real progressive government a government for the people.

Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire


If you have been listening to his speeches you know that he has met the great issues of our domestic policy and our foreign policy wisely and frankly. And I want to say this to you. He does not make one kind of policy speech up here in Connecticut and another kind of policy speech in Virginia or North Carolina or some other Southern State. His speeches are right down the line. What he says he means, and he means it for the whole 48 States and not just throwing out bait hooks to try and get votes. He is for the welfare and benefit of all of them. You had better watch this thing very carefully when you go to the polls on the 4th. Now, on the other side we have the Republican candidate for President. I believe he is a very great general because I appointed him to two of the most important military posts in the Government of the United States. But that does not necessarily qualify him to be a good President in the years ahead. Of course he wants peace as much as the rest of us. Nobody wants war. But in this struggle for peace we have to have more than good intentions. Military life is good training for war and preparation for war. It is not training in the ways of preventing a war. The President of the United States makes the policies of this country that can lead to either peace or war. We must be careful to get the right kind of man in that job. No man can promise you peace with absolute certainty, and I know what I am talking about, but I can say to you that I believe with all my heart, our best hopes for peace lie in the election of Adlai Stevenson to the Presidency. Now I want you to do a little thinking. I am going to ask you to use your head. You know, we have been shoved into world leadership we were shoved into a world leadership which we should have assumed back in 1920, and we did not have the nerve or the stability to do it. And now, whether we like it or not, we are the most powerful nation in the history of the world. And the most important office in the history of the world is the Presidency of the United States. I want you to think about your own welfare. Think about the welfare of the world as a whole, for that is our responsibility. The free world is looking to us to carry on for the welfare of all the people in the world. Every time the President makes a decision, it sometimes affects as many as a billion people.


That is a responsibility that is yours, because you are the Government of the United States. And when you go to the polls on November the 4th you either keep this country in the right groove or you may send it into the most disastrous war in the history of the world. This is a fine time of year to come to your great State of Connecticut. But, I guess that you know I am not here to look at the scenery beautiful as it is. I am here campaigning for the Democratic ticket. You have a wonderful group of Democrats running for office here in Connecticut, and I hope you will vote for all of them. He is one of the hardest fighters in America for your interests. He always is for what is right, and he never dodges tough questions. You know where Bill stands on everything. It will take a real man, a fellow with a big heart and a big understanding of this whole world, to fill the shoes of Brien McMahon. But Abe has shown by his fine, constructive record in Congress that he is the best qualified man for that place. Then for Congress you have John McGuire and Stanley Pribyson I see he has some friends here. Well, I hope you will not just be clapping for him, I wish you would go and vote for him. For our national ticket I think every day that passes makes it clearer that we must elect Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman. Governor Stevenson is demonstrating day after day that he has the qualities of integrity and courage and wisdom which we need in the Presidency. I understand that he went to school right here in Wallingford. Perhaps that is one of the reasons he has a real New England conscience and that is a tough conscience. I know, because I have been associated with a lot of them. And they have tough consciences those consciences make them do right. I must say I have rarely met a man who is so fair-minded and conscientious. He is really talking sense to the American people-in the best tradition of good, New England, town meeting democracy. I hope you have all been listening to Governor Stevenson's speeches. I hope you will be able to see him and hear him when he comes back here to Connecticut. If you do, you will get a real discussion of the facts and the issues involved in this campaign. And that is something you will never get from the other side. Adlai Stevenson has had just the right background of experience for this tremendous job.


The Presidential job now has become the greatest job in the history of the world, and you must have a man to fill it who has a conscience and who understands world affairs, who understands the affairs of the United States, and who has a heart in his breast that thinks of the people. The Governor has been Governor of Illinois, and that is wonderful experience for the Presidency, because he will have the same kind of problems to deal with as the President as he has had to deal with as Governor. They will be on a larger scale, of course. Governor Stevenson has also had wide experience in national and international affairs. During the war he was the right-hand man to the Secretary of the Navy. Then in 1943 President Roosevelt sent him to Italy to study conditions there and recommend the policies we should follow. Stevenson recommended a plan that would put Italy back on her feet and keep her out of the hands of the Communists. That plan he worked out was the forerunner of what later was turned into the Marshall plan that saved the free world in Europe. After the war was over, Governor Stevenson played a very important part in helping set up the United Nations. Twice he represented us at the General Assembly, and he did an outstanding job. I am sure you can see from what I have told you why the Democratic Party is proud of its candidate for President. He is a man of real principle, with the right kind of experience for the job. I wish I could say as much for the Republican candidate. But in all honesty, I cannot . He was a very good general, but unfortunately he has not had the proper experience for political office. He has been in the ENTITY 40 years, and that is a very different type of occupation. Now let me give you an analysis. Suppose, instead of appointing General Eisenhower, who at the time was our most experienced general, to command the forces which were being organized to keep the world free, I had appointed the mayor of my hometown to that job, it would have made just as much sense as for the Republicans to nominate a general to run this country. If you will study our history, you will find that we have never had but two regular professional generals for President, and neither one of them was able to handle the job. Every day the Republican candidate is giving us new proof of why that is true. The General is just no match for professional politicians. He has let the Old Guard Republicans take him into camp, and Senator Taft has become the real commander of the General's campaign.


Frankly, I am afraid of a professional soldier who lets Senator Taft run over him and then embraces all the worst elements in the reactionary and isolationist wing of the Republican Party. I think you people up here in New England should think that over carefully. The Taft brand of Republicanism will not do you any good up here, and it will not do the country any good, or the peace of the world, either. And I am talking from the heart, because I know what I am talking about. I have not been in the Congress, and I have not been in the Senate of the United States, and I have not been President of the United States for 7 years for nothing. I know what I am talking about. When you go to the polls in November, think of your own interests. Vote for the kind of government that will be in your interests, the kind of government that will be for the welfare of this the greatest Nation in all history, the kind of government that understands world affairs. If you do that, you cannot help but vote for Adlai Stevenson. I appreciate very much this most cordial welcome from this great Silver City. You know, in the West they have three things that they are most interested in, and that is sheep, sugar, and silver. I understand that the sheep you have here is in the form of a lamb chop, and the sugar you get from Cuba, but you are still a silver city, because you take all that silver and work it up. And I have got some of it, too. Frank Maloney, your former mayor and Senator was a great personal friend of mine, and I have been most happy to see Mrs. Maloney this morning, and Senator Maloney's son and grandson. The grandson had a ride with me, and I told his father if he did not look out, I would take him home with me. You people ought to be proud of frank Maloney. He was one of the great Senators of the United States. I served a long time with him in the Senate. I guess if you have not already found out, maybe I had better tell you why I am here today. I am out campaigning for a Democratic victory this November. I do not want to say it under any false pretenses, so I thought you had better know that I am working at one of my five jobs. I am working as the head of the Democratic Party, to see that we get a Democratic ticket elected this fall.


Now, Connecticut has a great ticket to offer you Abe Ribicoff and Bill Benton for the Senate, John McGuire for Congressman. You cannot do better than to send those people to Congress. That is the sort of people we need down there for the welfare of this country. As for our national ticket, Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, these two men are two of the best qualified candidates any party ever offered the country. They are good men, and on top of that, they are good Democrats. They understand the people's interests. You can trust them all the way. I have been traveling all across the country, trying to explain to the people the real issues in this election. One of the big issues is whether the Federal Government is going to assume any responsibility for the welfare of the working men and women of this country. Our party believes that the Government should assume some responsibility. The Republican Party, on the other hand, is inclined to leave everything to big business, and hope for the best and that hope never comes out. I do not know any better illustration than the way our two parties stand on the question of keeping full employment in this country. The Democrats are pledged to keep employment high. We have that pledge in our party platform, and our record shows that we mean it. We have got this country out of the worst depression in history, and for the first time in history we have kept the country out of a depression after a big war. That was in 1946. Then when times threatened to get tough, in 1949, we worked hard to reverse the trend and we did it. By 1950, before Korea, mind you, the whole country was coming back to boom times. And now we have more than 62 million jobs in this country, and that does not count any military at all. The Republican Party has a record of just the opposite of that. After World War I, they sat by and let us run up 7 million unemployed in 1921. Ten years later they did even worse, they doubled it to 14 million unemployed by 1932. If they get in again, you have a chance of having 28 million unemployed. And I am sure you do not want that. After World War II, the Democrats set out to pass a law that would put the full weight of the Government behind the task of keeping employment high. And what did the Republicans do? They fought it tooth and nail. The Republican Congressmen voted against the bill, 2 to 1.


If you want the full story of Republican opposition, to the whole idea of full employment, you ought to read a book called Congress Makes a Law. That book has a complete record of how they tried to scuttle the full employment bill. It was written by a near neighbor of yours, Steve Bailey, the young man who has just been elected mayor of Middletown. It shows the Republicans have not learned a thing since Herbert Hoover's time. I know a lot of people were hoping last July that the Republicans had reformed when they nominated a general for President. But the General could not make the Republicans change their ways. The Old Guard politicians were just too smart for him. In fact, the General seems to like the Old Guard. He sat down at breakfast with Senator Taft the other day, and then let Taft explain that they agreed on all domestic issues. He came out after the Republican Convention in Chicago and said he was going to have a great crusade. Then he sat down, as generals always do, and waited for higher authority to tell him what to do. And Taft did it. You can imagine what that will mean to your jobs in the future. I cannot think of anything worse in the White House than a professional soldier who does not understand the complicated problems we have in this country. He is just a babe in the woods, and Senator Taft controls the woods. I want to urge you to use your judgment. You yourselves have the power in this great Republic of ours to control the Government. Now your interest is in this election-one of the most important elections since the Civil War. If you study the issues, do not listen to all the foolishness that goes on, but study the issues at stake in this campaign. That is what I am out trying to do to call your attention to the issues. We have the greatest responsibility that any nation has had in the history of the world. That whole thing is at stake in this election. Now, if you do those things, if you think of your own interests, if you think of the welfare of the greatest Republic in the history of the world, if you think of the welfare and peace of the world, you will go to the polls on November the 4th, and vote the Democratic ticket. I appreciate this cordial welcome you are extending to me now.


In case you do not know it, I am out campaigning for the Democratic ticket, because this is the most important election for the peace and prosperity of the country and the world that has happened since the Civil War. You have some fine candidates here in Connecticut. William M. Citron and Stanley Pribyson both fine men. If you send that group to the Congress, you certainly will be well represented down there. The Democratic Party is fortunate in having a great candidate at the head of its ticket this year Adlai Stevenson, the Governor of Illinois. As Governor he has proved his great administrative ability. He will make a great President. He is a man who can be trusted with the great burdens of civilian leadership over the next 4 years. I am particularly happy to be able to stop here in Middletown, because it is the birthplace of our great Secretary of State, Dean Acheson. Dean Acheson has contributed more than almost anybody in this country to the developing of our positive program to stop world communism. I have no doubt about the great place in history that will be accorded Dean Acheson as one of the chief architects of our foreign policy in these critical times. We have developed a sound foreign policy, and it has stopped Communist aggression in its tracks. We have not just stood around and yelled communism, and pointed the finger of shame and lie on people. We have stopped communism by direct action. There was a time when we could count on the enlightened support of enough Republicans to assure the continuation of this policy for holding down communism. That was when Senator Vandenberg was alive and vigorous and in the Senate. But now our foreign programs are under continual attack from the Republican Old Guard-the isolationist Republicans. They have captured the leadership of their party, and the result is plain to read in the Republican record in the Congress. Now a new type of Republican isolationism has come to life an isolationism that says it is all right to recognize our world responsibilities and the responsibilities of the United States, provided it does not cost anything. The saddening thing about this election campaign is that the Republican candidate for President has become a front for isolationism. He has swallowed Senator Taft's foreign policy hook, line, and sinker, in the guise of a budget cut. The General has worked with me, and with General Marshall, and with Dean Acheson, in carrying out our foreign programs, and I had thought he would continue to support them, because he helped to make them.


Instead, we have been treated to the spectacle of a great military figure throwing his reputation and his record to the winds, sidestepping or repudiating all the things that we thought he stood for. The people of this country cannot entrust the great decisions in the years ahead to a man who has surrendered to the Old Guard Republicans. But unfortunately I am sorry to have to say these things because I have been very fond of Ike. I think he is a great general, and it hurts me to see him it hurts me to see him throw all the principles which I gave hill credit for to the winds. But, my friends, it is fortunate for this country that the Democratic Party has a candidate who will stand up and be counted for the things he believes in. He supports our foreign policy, and he will be true to our responsibilities for leadership in the cause of world peace. That is why I am confident that on November the 4th the American people will look after their interests. Now I am out here telling you just exactly what the country and the world is faced with. I am out here asking you to do a little thinking and studying. Study the record, and when you have done that, take your own interests into consideration. Remember that world peace in the free world depends absolutely on the leadership of this great country. We must have a man in the White House 'who understands those things and that man is Adlai Stevenson. I am out campaigning for a Democratic victory in November. I appreciate most highly the courtesies which are extended to me here today. I have been intrigued and overwhelmed by John L. Sullivan. You know, you have a slate of candidates here whom you just met that are certainly an asset to the Democratic ticket this fall. Your candidates for Senators are beyond compare. I hope you are as proud of him as I am. He has been a tower of strength in the House of Representatives and will be a fine successor to Brien McMahon. Bill Benton is my kind of Senator. He is a fighter, and he is always on the right side of the questions where the people's interests are concerned. I want to say that if Tom Dodd can really do to John Sullivan what he says he can, you certainly ought to have him in the Congress. Your Congressman at Large, Stanley Pribyson, is without compare. Now, if you will send a group of people like that down to the Congress, the interests of Connecticut will be well protected in the Government of the United States.


Our national ticket this year is one of the best ever offered to the voters of the United States. You have already been visited by our candidate for President, Adlai Stevenson. You can count on him to measure up to the tough job of President for the next 4 years. One thing about Governor Stevenson that I want to stress to you he really understands and really believes in the basic principles of equality that make our country great. He believes in equal treatment for everybody, no matter who they are or where they come from. Now, that kind of understanding, my friends, is important for a lot of reasons. There is one in particular that I want to stress here this morning. I want to talk to you about the sad fact that the immigration laws of our country do not recognize these basic principles of equality and fair play. These laws, passed by a Republican Congress and a Republican President in the 1920's, say that the Polish, Ukrainian, and Italian people who want to move to this country are less desirable than the people from northern Europe. So each year our doors are closed to all but a few people from southern and eastern Europe. This year we tried to get rid of this unfair law, but the Republicans in Congress with the help of some Democrats passed over my veto that awful McCarran Act. This new act makes our immigration laws even more unfair than ever to the Poles and the Italians and the people of Slavic countries. Men like your own Bill Benton fought hard against this unfair law. I am glad to say he was supported by our vice-presidential candidate. But the Republican candidate for Vice President voted wrong, just as you would expect-and he has voted wrong every time he has had a chance to vote in the Senate, when the affairs of the people were at stake. Now it is true that this new bill bears the name of a Democrat. But he is not my kind of a Democrat at all. I like a Democrat who votes with the interests of the people. The Democrat for whom this bill is named cannot speak for the party. I speak for the party, and he I say is not my kind of a Democrat. I wish we could get some other people to point the scoundrels out in their own party and read them out of it; it would be mighty good for this campaign.


The Democratic Party platform written this past July contains a promise to get rid of unfair restrictions on immigration, and if it is written on the Democratic ticket this fall, that will be done, because our platforms are not pieces of paper. We write them to put them into effect for the welfare of the people. You will not find anything about the subject in the Republican Party platform. You have heard nothing about it from the Republican candidate for the Presidency, and I will tell you why you do not hear anything about this immigration program from the Republicans. The Republican Party just does not understand the basic principles which have made our country great. Twenty years ago the Republicans adopted this policy of discrimination in our immigration laws, and now 20 years later they voted for it again. They just cannot learn anything. The Republican Party is just as blind when it comes to understanding the economic programs that have pulled this country out of the depression and given us the most prosperous period in the history of the country, or the world. For 20 years the Old Guard Republicans have been fighting the Democratic Party every inch of the way as we developed social security, unemployment compensation, minimum wage laws, and guarantees of collective bargaining. And these Republicans are the men who have now captured the Republican candidate Dock, stock, and barrel. Like a good military man, the General is now taking his marching orders from the Old Guard Republicans headed by Senator Taft. But the people of this country for 20 years now have refused to turn their welfare into the hands of these shortsighted men. Instead, they have placed their trust in the Democratic Party the party of the people, the party that has never let them down. Now, I have urged everybody everywhere I have been to do a little thinking. That is where you will find what they stand for. Study your own interests and find out just how they have been protected over the last 20 years, and who has protected them. Then, when you go to the polls, you will vote in your own interests, you will vote for the welfare of this great Nation, you will vote for the welfare of the free countries in this whole world, you will vote for the most powerful office in the history of the world. You should do some thinking, and you should do some praying, before you go to the polls on November the 4th and remember the welfare of this country. If you do that, I have not a doubt in the world that you will send Adlai Stevenson to the White House for the next 4 years.


I am more than happy to be with you this afternoon. I have had a wonderful morning across Connecticut, and you know the beautiful part about it is I have to tell everybody I am not running for office. The crowds have been bigger than they were in 1948 when I was out asking you to vote for me. Now I am asking you to vote for somebody else. I guess you have heard a rumor as to why I am here. I am out campaigning for the Democratic ticket, if anybody does not know. You have a fine slate of candidates here. You have just seen them. I am very fond of Bill Benton. Abe Ribicoff has made a wonderful Representative, and he will make you a Senator that you will be proud Tom Dodd impresses me as being a man who knows what ought to be done for the welfare of the people, as does Stanley Pribyson. If you send a delegation like that from Connecticut to the Congress, you will get the things in which Connecticut is interested before that body, and get fair treatment, I am sure. As for our national ticket, Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman are two of the finest and most progressive men who have ever run for office. They both have good records of constructive service for the people. They are men who really understand the problems of the everyday man. You can trust them all the way. I have been enjoying the ride along the Connecticut River. This is beautiful country, and a grand time of the year to be here. And I like your river. I am always interested in rivers and what we have done with them and how we have made use of them. The New England pioneers developed the navigation and waterpower of this river for the common good. They built a productive industry along its banks. They made it a channel of commerce and of trade. Then in the 19th century, your river and your valley were exploited mercilessly for private profit. Waste was dumped into the river and it became polluted. And here, of all places, where waterpower was first used for industry, the electricity that could be harnessed from your river is either undeveloped, or being sold to you at about the highest rates in the whole United States. There are great things to be done along this river, to make it perform full service once again for the people of the Connecticut valley. With proper conservation, floods can be stopped.


Pollution can be checked, navigation can be improved, and new sources of cheaper power can be developed, for your factories and farms and homes. These are all things that you the people of this valley can do with the right kind of cooperation from your towns and cities, and your States and the Federal Government. Now the Democratic Party has always believed that the Government exists to help the people do the things they cannot get done by themselves. We want to give the people of this valley and all New England whatever help you yourselves desire in building up the resources of this great countryside. That is what we have done in other river basins, helping people make the most of their fine rivers. The Republican Party has exactly the opposite philosophy. They believe it is the purpose of Government to help special private interests exploit our national resources for their own private profit. If the Republicans take control in Washington, they will not help you with your navigation problems, or stream pollution, or power-for that might interfere with the enrichment of the manufacturers and the utilities who like things to stay as they are. Do not be fooled by scare stories that somebody in Washington wants to come up here and take this river away from you, or take control of it. They are just afraid you might stand up someday and take control of your resources yourselves. The truth is you can develop and control this river yourselves, and a Democratic government will cooperate with your local and State authorities to help you do it. Then you will really own the river, and be able to enjoy it the way you should, and make it work for you, in your interest, and not in the interests of private power. Now election day comes in November, as you know, on the 4th, and election day is the time when the people of the United States exercise the control of their Government. If you do not take an interest, if you do not get yourselves registered, if you do not go to the polls on the 4th of November, and you have bad government, you have nobody in the world to blame but yourselves. So, if you are going to do right by yourselves, if you are going to do right by your country, if you are going to help the world situation to come out without a third world war, you will go to the polls on November the 4th and you will vote for Stevenson and Sparkman, and we will have 4 more years of good government. I am more than happy to see you again. When I was here in 1948, I was trying to get myself elected President.


Now I am back working for somebody else. I am working for the whole Democratic ticket, and I hope you will vote for all of them. You have a very, very fine slate of Democratic candidates here in Connecticut. For the Senate you have Abe Ribicoff and Bill Benton, two very able and decent persons. For Congress you have Tom Dodd. He did a fine job in Nuremberg, prosecuting the Nazi war criminals, and a very good job back home in the Justice Department. I know he will be a good prosecutor for your interests if you send him to Washington. You have a very, very fine gentleman running for Congressman at Large in Stanley Pribyson. Now, on our national ticket, Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman are very fine men, with great progressive records of public service. They both have shown that they care about the problems of the plain everyday people of this country. I hope you have been listening to Governor Stevenson's speeches. I hope you will go and hear him speak when he comes back to New England. He is talking sense to the American people, telling everybody where he stands on all the issues. Now there is a little thing I want to mention to you just quietly and under the cover I hope the Enfield Society for the Detection of Horse Thieves and Robbers is still in operation. I know the Society was keeping up its headquarters in Enfield a few years ago. And I hope the Society is all set for some emergencies just in case something happens next November that we do not expect. Because now I am going to give you some quotations now these are not my remarks at all, these are quotes because if the Republicans should win this election, the Society is going to have lots of business after November the 4th. And this is what they said themselves. At least that is what they say about each other, in Chicago, and you would not find me to be one that would deny it. At the Republican Convention last July, there were two groups that had a whale of a fight with one another. One side was the so-called liberal wing of the party, with a lot of New Englanders in it. Now you may remember the so-called liberals spent their time calling the Taft men a bunch of rustlers. And the Taft men returned the compliment with interest, I will say. The so-called liberals were successful so Taft said in stealing the big prize at Chicago. They took the nomination away from Taft and gave it to a very famous general.


The General kicked out the people who had got him nominated, and he surrendered, lock, stock, and barrel to the Taft crowd the rustlers they had been all so mad about. He surrendered to Taft. He embraced Jenner. He brought McCarthy on the train, and now they are running his campaign for him. It is hard to say who won the battle at Chicago. A vote for the Republicans this year is a vote for Taft, for Taft's foreign policy, for Taft's labor policy, for Taft's domestic policies in general. He has said so, and the General has backed him up. Now that would be a terrible thing for this country, just as those liberal New England Republicans agreed that it would when they fought Taft at Chicago. It would be bad for the country and the peace of the world, and it would be very bad for you. If you will use your judgment, if you will do a little thinking, if you will look at the record, if you compare the men at the head of each ticket, you will vote for yourselves. You are the Government, and if you vote for your own interests, if you vote for the welfare of this great Nation of ours, which is the most powerful Nation in the history of the world, if you will vote for the welfare of this great Nation, and vote for the welfare of the free countries of the world, you will vote the Democratic ticket on November the 4th, and the Government will be safe another 4 years . I certainly am highly pleased to be here again, and I am more than highly pleased at the warmth of this reception. I did not think you would be out looking for a has-been, to see what he would took like, and I feel highly complimented that you were willing to come out and hear me discuss the issues. I am trying to put before the people just exactly what the issues are, and when they know what they are, they will know what to do. You have shown by your voting record that you know the Democratic Party is the party that really works for the people. Maybe I had better tell you, though. I am campaigning for the Democratic ticket. I am working in one of my five jobs as the head of the Democratic Party. You have an excellent slate of Democrats here in Massachusetts. For Congress, Edward P. Boland I am sure he will do the same kind of first-class job for you in Washington that Foster Furcolo has done.


Now, I understand you are going to elect Mr. Furcolo State treasurer this year. From what he has shown us in Washington, I know he will be a good one. We also have a candidate for Congress in the first District with us on this train, William H. Burns. I know he will make a good Representative of that district, for the Senate. You have a fine young man in the candidate for the Senate, and we certainly do need some young blood in that Senate. Young John Kennedy is a man who has already rendered great service to this State in the House of Representatives, and will keep up the good work in the Senate. For Governor you do not need my telling you anything about Paul Defer for Governor. He is as fine a Democratic leader who will continue his excellent work in the State capital. I want to say a word about the national ticket now, if I may. Here in Springfield you have already had a chance to see Governor Stevenson and listen to what he has to say. He is one of the outstanding men in public service in our generation. When he speaks to the people, he gives them the straight story. Stevenson is a man of great integrity and real feeling for the everyday people of this country. He is a man you can trust in the Office of the President. That is also true of John Sparkman. He is one of our most progressive leaders in the Congress. He has proved by his record of 15 years in the House and Senate that he can be trusted to work for all the people. While I am here this happens to be Roger Putnam's hometown, and while I am talking about men who have given great service to the American people, I want to pay tribute to this hometown's man of yours the former mayor of Springfield, Roger Putnam. Roger Putnam has been down in Washington for over a year now, handling the tough job of Economic Stabilizer. He took over that assignment just after the Republicans had finished their first hatchet job on our price and wage controls. He has since lived through another attempted slaughter by the Republicans, and he has done a grand job in helping to stabilize our economy in spite of all the Republican obstruction. I suppose you know that the Republican candidate for President has been going around the country moaning about the high prices we are paying today, and blaming it all on the Democratic administration. Of course, he does not dare mention the voting record of the Republican Party.


Maybe nobody's told him that his party in Congress has a long, unbroken record of trying to kill or cripple price and wage and rent controls at every chance they have. Back in 1946 when we needed controls, until our civilian production got back to normal, the Republicans voted almost to a man to kill controls. They finally succeeded, and the cost of living went up 15 percent in 6 months, just as I predicted it would. I am sure you all remember that period, the worst inflationary rise in the history of the country. In 1947 and 1948 I tried to get price control authority back on the statute books, but the Republican good-for-nothing 80th Congress just laughed at my efforts. Then the Korean emergency came along, and by the time we got a controls bill passed and the stabilization agencies established, the cost of living had gone up almost 8 percent in 6 months. Then in early November 1951, we got a general price freeze put on. And what did the Republicans do, once we put a lid on prices? They began a vicious attack on the basic price control legislation. In 1951 they put across the Capehart amendment which by now has added a billion dollars in higher prices to the American people. Last year the Republican Senators voted 7 to 1 to curtail price rollbacks, and 12 to 1 to prevent effective control of black marketing in meat. This year the Republican Congressmen voted 4 to 1 to scuttle all price controls, and 6 to 1 to end all rent controls. And then to top it all off, in 1951, and again this year, the Republicans ganged up with a few Democrats to slash appropriations so that the remaining control authority could not be properly enforced against the chiselers and the profiteers. Despite these Republican attempts to wreck controls, we have been doing a pretty good job to keep inflation down. In the past 20 months, the cost of living has risen less than 4 percent. Prices are higher than they ought to be, and I told you why. But in spite of high prices, most people are better off than they ever were before. The dollar does not buy as much as it once did, but people have a lot more dollars to buy with. The income has gone up a lot faster than prices in these last 20 years twice as fast, in fact. The Hoover dollars were worth a lot, all right, but it took many people an entire day's labor to earn one of them.


And 14 million of our fellow citizens who were unemployed were not able to earn anything at all. So the Hoover dollar did not do them a bit of good. The Republicans have given this country two terrible demonstrations of how they can drive prices down. In 1921 they got prices down 20 percent in a big hurry and there were 7 million people out of work. In 1931 they got prices down 25 percent in 2 years-and it took 14 million unemployed to do that. Any time you hear their candidate talk about cutting prices, and bringing back that Hoover dollar, you had better stop and think how the Republicans go about those things. In the first effort they made 7 million unemployed. In the next effort they made 14 million unemployed, and if you give them another chance, you will probably have 18 million. You will not get steady prices from an outfit like that boom and bust is their stock in trade. Their record speaks for itself. They will not look out for your jobs, your income, or the prices you have to pay. The Constitution provides that the power of government rests in the people, and when the people exercise their right to vote, they exercise the power that controls the Government. Now I am going around the country trying to get the people to think, trying to get people to read the record. I am trying to get them to remember that the record made in the Congress by the Republicans in Congress is the record on which they have to run. They do not want to run on that record. I want you also to study the record of the Democrats in Congress. The majority of the Democrats in Congress have always been for the people, and they always will be for the people. Now, if you want to look out for your own interests, if you want to look out for the welfare of this great Nation of ours, if you want to look out for the welfare of the free nations of the world, and to keep the world free, and to keep communism from this country, the way to do that is to vote for the party that has always been against communism, that has always fought them and convicted them. We have taken action-we have not just talked about it and smeared people just for the benefit of a few headlines. Vote the Democratic ticket and the country will be safe another 4 years. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this most cordial welcome. I was here 4 years ago when I was campaigning for myself.


I am campaigning this time just as hard as I was then, because this is one of the most important elections we ever had, and if it is at all possible, I am more anxious that we win this election than I was in 1948 and that is saying a lot. The reason I feel that way, I think this is the most important election this country has had since the War Between the States. Now, you have a wonderful slate of Democrats running for office here in Massachusetts. You have Jack Kennedy for the Senate. I know him very well. I knew his father before him. He has made a wonderful public servant in the House of Representatives, and he will give you the right kind of representation in the Senate. Then for Congress you have Harold Donohue, who has a record that does not need me to tell you about. Your Governor has made a record on which you should endorse him overwhelmingly, and I know you will. And I understand that we are in the hometown of your Lieutenant Governor and you know more about him than I do, so use your judgment, and I know you will send him back. Now the Democratic Party is exceedingly fortunate in having two great men to head its ticket this year Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman. They can stand on their records of long service in the public interest. They are men of integrity and conscience, and they will work in the great tradition of the Democratic Party. I have been all across the country from coast to coast in the last 3 weeks, and I have seen a very prosperous country. This prosperity we have seems to be driving the Republicans crazy. They just cannot understand how the country can be prosperous with Democrats in office. The Republican candidate for President has been doing his best to prove that this prosperity does not exist, that it is all done with mirrors. Now if you can beat that, I will pay it on the line. But he knows people will not believe that. So he has been trying to get across the notion that the Democrats do not know how to keep the country prosperous except by spending money on national defense. It is just one more Republican falsehood to scare you and confuse you in this campaign. I am out here to tell you the truth. Everywhere I go I see signs or people yelling Give 'em hell, Harry.


Well now, that is an awful reputation for a good Baptist to get, and I am telling you what I am doing I am telling the truth and giving you the issues, and that is a lot worse than giving the Republicans hell, because they cannot stand the truth. Right now we have a total national production of about $340 billion. Defense accounts for less than one-sixth of that output. Now in 1945, after the Japanese folded up, I organized a commission to look into the return to civil affairs after World War II; and I sent that committee-two of them, one of them was Senator Benton of Connecticut to see Senator Taft, who was then the Republican leader in the Senate. I had them ask him what his remedy was we had decided that we needed a $140 billion income if we were going to keep people at work. Taft said that was impossible, we would never reach $100 billion income, and the best thing to do was to take all the women out of work and let the men do the work, and then this country could go along and everybody would have jobs. Now, if that is not one for the book, I do not know what is. And he is running their present nominee for President. Now, defense accounts for less than one sixth of that $340 billion output. If it were not for the defense effort, we would be even more prosperous than we are now. The defense effort is making us postpone and put off a lot of things we need, things that will make our country greater and stronger. Our population is growing fast, our cities are growing that means lots of things to do. We need a lot of redevelopment in our cities. We need more houses, better and cheaper houses, more roads, more schools, more hospitals. Out West where I have been, we need a lot more dams and irrigation works, and all those things. We need more food, and more consumers goods of every kind. Thousands of businessmen are ready now to expand their plants or build new ones. They see bigger markets ahead. In the city of Worcester, where you make all kinds of things, and know how to adapt your production fast, there will surely be a lot of good work for you, when defense tapers off. This means there need be no depression in this country, and there will not be, if you keep the kind of government in Washington that understands these things and will help get new production going in the right places at the right time.


That is one thing that the Democratic Party knows how to do. They have shown it. Remember 1949 when things started to slide back, we took quick action then, and by the spring of 1950 we were in boom times again. The defense buildup had nothing whatever to do with it. But the Republicans are right about one thing. They are experts in depression organization. The last time they held office, we had two depressions in 12 years. They do not seem to have any notion of how to get prosperity and growth. For 20 years the Republicans have been voting against almost everything the Democrats have done to help build this country up. Unfortunately, their candidate for President could not change them if he wanted to. He has been a fine general, but the ENTITY is all he has ever known in his whole life. You do not learn much in the ENTITY about what workers and farmers need, or what it takes to keep the country going. If you have never milked a cow, or ploughed a corn row, if you have never worked with your hands, you never can tell what the country needs. And a man who has had social security all his life in the United States ENTITY, does not know what it means to meet a payroll. And he does not know any more about politics than a babe in the woods. He is in the woods and Taft has got the woods under control. The General is surrounded by the Republican Old Guard, and they have taken him to town. I do not think you can take a chance on turning your country over to an outfit like that. You are responsible for what sort of government we have. The Constitution provides that the power of the Government in this Republic rests in the people in you. Now, if you will study the issues and that is what I am out to get you to do I want you to satisfy yourselves, I am not trying to convert you to something unusual, I am trying to get you to look after your own interests. I am trying to get you to think about things. I want you to read the record. I want you to study the record of the Republicans in Congress, which is what their policy will be. They have shown it by their votes. And I want you to study the Democratic record in the Congress. That is what the Democrats have done. That is what they will continue to do. And then I want you to go to the polls on November the 4th and vote for yourselves.


And when you do that, you will put Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman in the Presidency and the Vice Presidency, and this country will be safe for another 4 years. I am very, very glad indeed to be in Clinton here this evening. This is the home of one of my very good friends, about whom I will speak in a minute. You people in Massachusetts have a most wonderful slate of candidates running. For Senator, you have that able young Congressman, Jack Kennedy. He will make you a great Senator, and I want you to elect him. For Congress, you have had presented to you an able and distinguished Congressman, Phil Philbin. You could not have a better one. And for Governor, you have Paul Dever. You know him by experience. He will make you a good Governor, and you cannot do anything else but elect him. We have a great candidate for President this year, Adlai Stevenson. He will give this country good government and real leadership. Adlai Stevenson has served as Governor of a great State, and has proved his talents as a civilian administrator. He knows the problems of the people, and his experience in Illinois shows that he knows how to make the Government work for the people. Now I have been in politics for 40 years. I have had every reward that the people of the greatest Nation in the world can give to a man. I started in elective public office just 30 years ago next month I was elected to my first elective public office. For 30 years I have been in county government, I have been a United States Senator, I have been Vice President and for the last 7 years I have been President of the United States. And my ability, if I have any, to make that office function, has been, I think, a talent for picking the right man for the right place. Now one of my three secretaries comes from this city right here. You know him. You know what kind of man he is. He is able, efficient, honest, and he has been a tower of strength to the President of the United States. His name is Matt Connelly-I do not need to tell you. Now, just for your welfare and information, and for the information of the country at large, I think I shall elaborate a little bit on the personnel of the Government of the United States in the administrative branch.


There have been a great many misstatements made about the people who constitute the part of your Government that makes the Government work, and that is the administrative end of the Government. Now I have a Secretary of State, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who was Under Secretary of State, who was the Vice Chairman of the Commission that wrote up the recommendations for the reorganization of the Government. He has made one of the greatest Secretaries of State that the country has ever had. I never was acquainted with him until I came to Washington. Dean Acheson. I have a Secretary of the Treasury who was the Director of the Defense Plants Corporation in World War II. He spent $20 billion building the defense plants of this country, and every dollar of that $20 billion went where it should go. And we won the war as a result of the effectiveness of that Defense Plants Corporation under John W. Snyder. My Secretary of Defense was an Assistant Secretary of War under Stimson. He was an assistant in the reorganization of Germany. He has been Assistant Secretary of State. He is one of the ablest men that the Government has ever had; and his name is Bob Lovett. And I never saw him until I picked him on account of his ability and efficiency. My Attorney General was the Assistant Attorney General of the United States under two Attorneys General. He was Assistant to the Attorney General. I made him a Federal judge in Philadelphia. And when the office of the Attorney General became vacant, I asked him to forego his lifetime job as a Federal judge and come back and become my Attorney General, and he did Judge McGranery. Then I have a Postmaster General who is unique in the history of the United States. He started as a letter carrier more than 30 years ago. He has come up the line every step of the way. He was Assistant Postmaster General when there was a vacancy in the Post Office Department, and on account of his ability and efficiency, I made him Postmaster General the first career man ever to be made Postmaster General in the history of the country. Then I have a Secretary of the Interior, who was Under Secretary of the Interior under Mr. Ickes. And when Mr. Ickes quit, I made Oscar Chapman Secretary of the Interior. He knows more about the Interior Department than any other man who has ever been in that job, and he does an excellent job for the Government. Then I have a Secretary of Agriculture. He was in the Agricultural Department for the last 20 years.


He knows the Agriculture Department from top to bottom. He is the ablest Secretary of Agriculture that has ever been there, and I know something about it, because I started on the farm and I have known all the Secretaries of Agriculture for 40 years and this is the best one we ever had. The Secretary of Commerce is an able and distinguished lawyer and businessman from Ohio, with whom I was not acquainted until I went to Potsdam, and at that time he was Ambassador to Belgium. He was one of my advisers at Potsdam, and on account of his ability I made him Secretary of Commerce-and he is a good one. Now in 1948, I had an able and distinguished former Senator and former Federal judge for Secretary of Labor Lew Schwellenbach. He suddenly passed away in the middle of 1948, a very crucial year. Now you have a very able and distinguished citizen up here in Massachusetts who had been the mayor of Boston, who had been Governor of the great State of Massachusetts. And I asked him to come to see me, and I said to him, I want to place you in my Cabinet as Secretary of Labor. You are taking a chance. I may not be here except to the end of this term, but I would like very much for you to take the Labor Department for me. And Maurice Tobin took it. And he has run it ever since. Now I have two Presidential assistants. These are the Cabinet members that sit around the Cabinet table with me once or twice a week and discuss world affairs and national affairs. And we know where we are going, and what we are doing do not let anybody tell you anything else. One of them was Ambassador at Large and in charge of the revival of Europe. He was Ambassador to Russia for 3 years. He was Ambassador to Great Britain for 2 or 3 years, and when I had a vacancy as Secretary of Commerce, I telephoned him in London and brought him back here and made him Secretary of Commerce. And when this European recovery program Marshall plan came up, I made him the civilian in charge of it. And he is now my assistant and Ambassador at Large to see that that plan comes to its final conclusion. And it has been a great success because we have kept all of Western Europe from going Communist by that Marshall plan. I have another assistant who has been with me nearly ever since I have been President of the United States. He is a coordinator of the difficulties that arise in the administrative end of the Government.


He is a career man, and he has a Ph.D. He knows what he is doing, and he does an excellent job. Now, my friends, the reason I am rehashing this for you is because there never has been an organization about which so much misrepresentation and so many lies have been told as have been told about my Presidential family that runs the Government of the United States. Now I have three Secretaries. I have a number of Executive assistants and every one of whom is as efficient and able as any group of men that could be gotten together. Dean Acheson was the Deputy Chairman of the organization known as the Hoover Commission, which wrote and recommended the plans for the efficient reorganization of the Government. I have set the administrative end of our Government on a more efficient basis than it has been since the Government was launched. I am not bragging, I am merely telling you facts. And I have sent more reorganization plans to the Congress of the United States than all the other Presidents put together; and I have had more of them turned down by the Republicans and a coalition of Democrats who did not believe in the things that I want to do, than any other President has done. I am telling you all this so you will know the facts, and I am out here now for a specific purpose. I did not have to come out here and work for the election of a candidate for President. But with all the effort that has been put forth in the last 20 years to give you a government of the people, and by the people, and for the people, I felt that it was my duty to come out here and put the issues in this campaign before you, the people. The Republicans cannot discuss the issues because they do not dare. They have been wrong on every program that has come before the Congress of the United States where the interests of all the people are at stake. They will not talk about it. They want to go off on some side issue. The Republican candidate said he was going out on a crusade. He said that at Chicago. But he did not know what the crusade was about until Senator Taft told him. I feel terribly bad about having to say these things, because I was very fond of Eisenhower. I made him Chief of Staff of the United States ENTITY. I sent him to Europe in command of the greatest organization that we are now making to keep the Communists from taking the world. If I had not had that confidence in him, of course I would not have done that.


But he has come back here and he has thrown every principle that he is supposed to stand for out the window in the hope of buying votes he has thrown those principles away. I cannot stand for that, so I am out here to tell you the truth, and that is the only reason in the world that I am going around the country and putting these facts out. I was there, and I can tell you what those facts are; and I know that the people of this United States know me, and they believe me when I tell them the truth. And I want you to do some thinking. I want you to take the situation with which we are faced right now. I want you to study the facts. I want you to look at the record. I want you to find out just exactly the record in Congress of these Republican Congressmen, and the record in Congress of the Democratic Congressmen. That is the policy on which you can base your vote. Then when you have done that, I am going to ask you to go home and pray over it think about the welfare of this Nation, think about your own welfare, think about the welfare of the free nations of the world, and think of the peace of the world. All I have worked for for 7 years has been peace, and to prevent a third world war. And every policy I have pursued has been with that end in view. I want that policy continued, and in order to get that policy continued, I want you to send Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman to Washington as President and Vice President of the United States. It has been a most wonderful day coming through New England. I have enjoyed the scenery, but as you may have heard, I did not come on this trip to look at scenery. I am out here on a campaign trip, working as hard as I can for a Democratic victory in November. You have a very, very fine slate of Democratic candidates running for office here in Massachusetts. You have just been introduced to them. Now you should, for your own welfare and benefit, send Jack Kennedy to the Senate, Helen Cullen to the House, and Paul Dever to the Governor's chair again. Now I hope I hope most sincerely that you are getting acquainted with the Democratic candidate for President, Adlai Stevenson. Governor Stevenson is coming back to New England in a few days now, and I hope you will see him and hear him as often as you possibly can.


He is the finest new leader to come along since franklin Roosevelt back in 1932. He is talking sense to the American people. And when you hear him, you will know as I do that he is a man you can trust. I want to tell you some things you ought to know about Adlai Stevenson's fine record as Governor of Illinois, but before I do that, I would like to read you an article someone sent me the other day from your local paper, the Sunday Sun for October 5th. I see you have the same opinion of the Sunday Sun that I have of the Kansas City Star. But sometimes, my friends, sometimes these awful newspapers have to print the truth, and this is one time it did. 307 thousand in social security checks were mailed to Lowell last week. Then the article goes on to say, This week will bring increased social security checks to about 800,000 people in greater Lowell. About 8,000, not 800,000 monthly benefit checks mailed during the first week of October will amount to about $307,000. Increases of from $5 to $8.60 each month will go to most retired workers who receive old-age insurance payments. Now I am glad these insurance benefits are being paid, but there is a story behind them I think you ought to know. For it is a good example of exactly what this election is all about. All the people who are getting these benefits have of course been paying premiums into the Treasury for years. And the amounts they and their employers paid in, turned out to be larger than were needed to finance the benefits paid out at the old rate. So extra money was piling up in the Treasury's insurance account. And last spring, I asked the Congress to raise the benefit rates and give this money back to the people who were receiving insurance benefits. It seemed to me that this was only fair-and a good way to help compensate for increases in the cost of living. The Democrats in Congress thought so, too. Our great Majority Leader, John W. McCormack, was one of those who helped to get action. And in May a social security bill, including this change and some other improvements, came up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. The great majority of Democrats voted for it, of course, but twothirds of the Republicans voted against it, and the bill failed to pass. Well, John McCormack and some others, would not take No for an answer.


They brought the bill up again a month later. And they turned the spotlight on the Republicans, who got a lot of heat, I am glad to say. Some of those Republicans got scared and enough of them changed their votes to let the bill go through this second time. The Senate passed it, too. I signed it with great pleasure. And 8,000 people here in Lowell are now getting the benefit. But they would never have gotten a thing if the Republicans had had their way and do not you forget it. Now I tell you the story because the Republican candidate for President spoke in Los Angeles a few days ago and claimed that his party was in favor of improving and extending social security. He asserted, and I quote him directly, The social security law was a bipartisan law to meet a need which had become urgent in the depression. You see, he is starting to say me too it is pretty late in this campaign, though, to start that, and I do not want you to believe it. In the first place, the social security law was not a bipartisan law. The Republicans fought tooth and toenail against the original social security law in 1935, and I was in the Senate and I know what I am talking about. They voted 95 to 1 to recommit the bill in the House of Representatives. That was the real test in the House. Of course, when we licked them on that, they strung along and voted to pass the bill. So now they claim they helped to start social security. They did not do anything of the kind. In 1936 the Republican candidate for President you remember him, All Landon campaigned against social security. He called it a cruel hoax. In the 80th, good-for-nothing Congress, the Republicans took social security protection away from nearly a million people. And in 1949 when the Democrats put through a great expansion of the social security program, most of the Republicans hampered and obstructed and fought against the very improvements their candidate now hints he might be for. You cannot afford to be fooled by this me too line. The Republican Party in Congress has a solid record of opposition to social security. Not so long ago, their candidate did not have much use for it, either. About 3 or 4 years ago, before he became a Republican politician, he was going around the country saying, If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison.


They will have enough to eat, they will have a bed to sleep on, they will have a roof over their heads. When you hear the Republicans make promises at campaign time, you had better look at their record, and you had better find out how that General feels deep down in his heart. Look into these things, not just on social security but on all the things you want and need, and are entitled to. Do that, my friends, and I am out here to try and get you to think. I am out here trying to get you to look at the record. I am out here to get you to look at the record of the Republicans in Congress, and the Democrats in Congress, and then make up your mind on what is best for you, and what is best for this great Republic of ours, and what is best for the free world. And all I ask you to do is to inform yourselves and vote intelligently. You know, the power of this great Republic rests with you, and that power is exercised on election day. When you neglect to do that, when you neglect to register, when you neglect to vote, and you get bad government, you have got nobody to blame but yourselves, and you get just what you ought to get. I am begging you I am praying with you to use your best judgment for your own welfare, for the welfare of the greatest Nation in the history of the world, and for peace in the world to come. I am asking you to vote to see the greatest age in the history of the world, if you have the right kind of government. And in order to do that, you have got to put forward-looking people in office. And I want to say to you young people that we are faced with the greatest opportunity, we are faced with the greatest age in the history of the world. And we have to have forward-looking people to make that age work for your benefit, and for the benefit of all the people of this great Nation. And you cannot do that if you put people in charge of the Federal government who want to turn the clock back to 1896. Now to do this, after you have satisfied yourselves that it is right for you, and right for the Republic, go to the polls on November the 4th, and vote the Democratic ticket, and you will have 4 more years of good government and forward-looking government.


I am very happy to stop here in Hillsboro County tonight, because I am told that this county has voted Democratic in presidential elections ever since 1928. That shows that you are a very sensible people, and I am always happy to be among good Democrats. I do not know whether you know it or not, or whether you have suspected it, but I am out campaigning to elect a Democratic ticket this fall. I have enjoyed meeting your candidates here in New Hampshire. I am glad you have a good Democrat running for Governor this year, because I expect poor Sherman Adams will be a nervous wreck after he gets off that campaign train he is on now. This year the Democratic Party has a candidate for President, one of the finest men to serve in public life in this generation-Adlai Stevenson. He is a man of integrity and conviction, and as Governor of Illinois he has proved his abilities as a civilian administrator, and he will make a great President. I have been traveling all across this country and back, from coast to coast, explaining to the people the main issues in this campaign. When you come right down to it, the big issue shows up in the basic differences between our two parties. The Democratic Party has always been the party with a heart for the people. With us the people come first. With the Republican Party, property and profits come first, and come ahead of the people. You people in this city have had firsthand experience with the way this Republican approach works against the people. You have been losing some of your textile mills, and one of the reasons is the Taft-Hartley law passed by the Republican 80th Congress. That act has almost stopped the growth of unions. It has made it easy for employers in non-unionized parts of the country to use every trick in the book to keep workers from organizing and obtaining better wages. That way, wages in other places have been kept down below what you have had to pay here, and this has made is very attractive for the textile companies to move out of New England. Now you might as well make up your minds that the Taft-Hartley Act and all the trouble it has caused is just small change alongside of the damage the Republicans would bring about if they got control of both the White House and the Congress. They have been talking about giving you a change, but it would not be the kind of change you want or would like to have.


Social security, farm price supports, rural electrification, and other New Deal and fair Deal programs for the benefit of the workers and the farmer would be sabotaged one way or another. That may sound like a pretty strong statement, but it can be backed up by the record the voting record of the Republicans in Congress. That is what the Republicans did in the Both Congress when they had control. In the last 4 years, they have not reformed. In fact, in their platform this year in their platform they endorsed that good-for-nothing, do-nothing 80th Congress that I talked so much about in 1948. They endorsed all it did. For over 20 years now they have been fighting these forward-looking programs that the Democrats stand for, and they want to put the Democrats out of the White House so they can undo most of what the New Deal and fair Deal has done for the people. This year they thought they had their chance by putting up as their candidate for President a great military hero. They figured his popularity would cover up the black record of the Old Guard Republicans. But the General has made it clear that he is taking orders from the same old bunch of Old Guard Republicans. I do not think the people of this country are going to be tricked or fooled into voting for a five-star general who is just fronting for the worst elements in the Republican Party. I came out here on this trip and the other one which I took West to try and inform everybody exactly what this election means. This is one of the most important elections in the history of the country. This election will decide whether we are going to go forward into the greatest age in the history of the world, or whether we are going to try to turn the clock back to 1896. Now you you people make up the Government. You control the Government. It is your privilege to exercise that control on election day. The Constitution of the United States provides that the power of government in this Republic rests with the people-with you. I want you to do some thinking. I want you to think these things over. I want you to study the record. I want you to study the record of the Republicans in Congress. I want you to study the record of the Democrats in Congress, and then when you have done that, I want you to make up your minds in your own interests. I want you to make up your minds for the welfare of the greatest Republic in the history of the world.


Secretary Shalala has just briefed me on the National Cancer Institute's new recommendations on mammography. These recommendations, based on the latest and best medical evidence, give clear, consistent guidance to women in our national fight against breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women. It affects one in eight women in their lifetimes and has touched the families of nearly every American, including my own. We may not yet have a cure for breast cancer, but we do know that early detection and early treatment are our most potent weapons against this dread disease and we know that mammography can save lives. That is why it is important to send a clear, consistent message to women and to their families about when to start getting mammograms and how often to repeat them. After careful study of the science, the National Cancer Advisory Board has now concluded that women between the ages of 40 and 49 should get a mammography examination for breast cancer every 1 or 2 years, in consultation with their doctors. The National Cancer Institute has now accepted these recommendations. Now women in their forties will have clear guidance based on the best science, and action to match it. Today I am taking action to bring Medicare, Medicaid, and the Federal employee health plans in line with the National Cancer Institute's recommendations. First, in the Medicare budget I am sending to Congress today I am making annual screening mammography exams, beginning at age 40, a covered expense without coinsurance or deductibles. Second, Secretary Shalala is sending a letter to State Medicaid directors urging them to also cover annual mammograms beginning at 40 and assuring them that the Federal Government will pay its matching share if they do so. And today I am directing the Office of Personnel Management to require all Federal health benefit plans to comply with the National Cancer Advisory Board's recommendations on mammogram screenings, beginning next year. The Federal Government is doing its part to make sure women have both coverage and access to this potentially lifesaving test. I want to challenge private health insurance plans to do the same. They, too, should cover regular screening mammograms for women 40 and over. Finally, we know there has been much discussion on this issue and a lot of confusion. That is why we are launching a major public education campaign to make sure every woman and every health care professional in America, that all of them are aware of these new recommendations.

Remarks on National Cancer Institute Recommendations on Mammography and an Exchange With Reporters


This dinner of the White House Correspondents' Association is unique. It is the first one at which I have made a speech in all these eight years. It differs from the press conferences that you and I hold twice a week, for you cannot ask me any questions tonight; and everything that I have to say is word for word on the record. For eight years you and I have been helping each other. I have been trying to keep you informed of the news of Washington, of the Nation, and of the world, from the point of view of the Presidency. You, more than you realize, have been giving me a great deal of information about what the people of this country are thinking and saying. In our press conferences, as at this dinner tonight, we include reporters representing papers and news agencies of many other lands. To most of them it is a matter of constant amazement that press conferences such as ours can exist in any Nation in the world. That is especially true in those lands where freedoms do not exist- where the purposes of our democracy and the characteristics of our country and of our people have been seriously distorted. I remember that, a quarter of a century ago, in the early days of the first World War, the German Government received solemn assurances from their representatives in the United States that the people of America were disunited; that they cared more for peace at any price than for the preservation of ideals and freedom; that there would even be riots and revolutions in the United States if this Nation ever asserted its own interests. Let not dictators of Europe or Asia doubt our unanimity now. Before the present war broke out on September 1, 1939, I was more worried about the future than many people indeed, than most people. That, however, is water over the dam. Do not let us waste time in reviewing the past, or fixing or dodging the blame for it. History cannot be rewritten by wishful thinking. We, the American people, are writing new history today. The world has been told that we, as a united Nation, realize the danger that confronts us and that to meet that danger our democracy has gone into action. We know that although Prussian autocracy was bad enough in the first war, Nazism is far worse in this. Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries.

Address at the Annual Dinner of White House Correspondents' Association


They openly seek the destruction of all elective systems of government on every continent including our own; they seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers who have seized power by force. Yes, these men and their hypnotized followers call this a new order. For order among Nations presupposes something enduring some system of justice under which individuals, over a long period of time, are willing to live. Humanity will never permanently accept a system imposed by conquest and based on slavery. These modern tyrants find it necessary to their plans to eliminate all democracies--eliminate them one by one. The Nations of Europe, and indeed we ourselves, did not appreciate that purpose. The process of the elimination of the European Nations proceeded according to plan through 1939 and well into 1940, until the schedule was shot to pieces by the unbeatable defenders of Britain. The enemies of democracy were wrong in their calculations for a very simple reason. They were wrong because they believed that democracy could not adjust itself to the terrible reality of a world at war. They believed that democracy, because of its profound respect for the rights of man, would never arm itself to fight. They believed that democracy, because of its will to live at peace with its neighbors, could not mobilize its energies even in its own defense. They know now that democracy can still remain democracy, and speak, and reach conclusions, and arm itself adequately for defense. From the bureaus of propaganda of the Axis powers came the confident prophecy that the conquest of our country would be an inside job a job accomplished not by overpowering invasion from without, but by disrupting confusion and disunion and moral disintegration from within. Those who believed that knew little of our history. America is not a country which can be confounded by the appeasers, the defeatists, the backstairs manufacturers of panic. It is a country that talks out its problems in the open, where any man can hear them. We have just now engaged in a great debate. It was not limited to the halls of Congress. It was argued in every newspaper, on every wave length, over every cracker barrel in all the land; and it was finally settled and decided by the American people themselves. Yes, the decisions of our democracy may be slowly arrived at. But when that decision is made, it is proclaimed not with the voice of any one man but with the voice of one hundred and thirty millions.


It is binding on us all. And the world is no longer left in doubt. This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement in our land; the end of urging us to get along with dictators; the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of oppression. We believe firmly that when our production output is in full swing, the democracies of the world will be able to prove that dictatorships cannot win. But, now, now, the time element is of supreme importance. Every plane, every other instrument of war, old and new, every instrument that we can spare now, we will send overseas because that is the common sense of strategy. The great task of this day, the deep duty that rests upon each and every one of us is to move products from the assembly lines of our factories to the battle lines of democracy Now! We can have speed, we can have effectiveness, if we maintain our existing unity. We do not have and never will have the false unity of a people browbeaten by threats, misled by propaganda. Ours is a unity that is possible only among free men and women who recognize the truth and face reality with intelligence and courage. It is a total effort and that is the only way to guarantee ultimate safety. Beginning a year ago , we started the erection of hundreds of plants; we started the training of millions of men. Then, at the moment that the aid-to-democracies bill was passed, this week, we were ready to recommend the seven-billion-dollar appropriation on the basis of capacity production as now planned. The articles themselves cover the whole range of munitions of war and of the facilities for transporting them across the seas. The aid-to-democracies bill was agreed on by both houses of the Congress last Tuesday afternoon. I signed it one half hour later. Five minutes after that I approved a list of articles for immediate shipment; and today Saturday night many of them are on their way. On Wednesday, I recommended an appropriation for new material to the extent of seven billion dollars; and the Congress is making patriotic speed in making the money available. Here in Washington, we are thinking in terms of speed and speed now. And I hope that that watchword Speed, and speed now - will find its way into every home in the Nation. We shall have to make sacrifices- every one of us. The final extent of those sacrifices will depend on the speed with which we act Now!


I must tell you tonight in plain language what this undertaking means to you- to you in your daily life. Whether you are in the armed services; whether you are a steel worker or a stevedore; a machinist or a housewife; a farmer or a banker; a storekeeper or a manufacturer- to all of you it will mean sacrifice in behalf of your country and your liberties. Yes, you will feel the impact of this gigantic effort in your daily lives. You will feel it in a way that will cause, to you, many inconveniences. You will have to be content with lower profits, lower profits from business because obviously your taxes will be higher. You will have to work longer at your bench, or your plow, or your machine, or your desk. Let me make it clear that the Nation is calling for the sacrifice of some privileges, not for the sacrifice of fundamental rights. And most of us will do it willingly. That kind of sacrifice is for the common national protection and welfare; for our defense against the most ruthless brutality in all history; for the ultimate victory of a way of life now so violently menaced. A halfhearted effort on our part will lead to failure. The concepts of business as usual, of normalcy, must be forgotten until the task is finished. Yes, it is an all-out effort and nothing short of an all-out effort will win. Therefore, we are dedicated, from here on, to a constantly increasing tempo of production a production greater than we now know or have ever known before- a production that does not stop and should not pause. Tonight, I am appealing to the heart and to the mind of every man and every woman within our borders who loves liberty. I ask you to consider the needs of our Nation and this hour, to put aside all personal differences until the victory is won. The light of democracy must be kept burning. To the perpetuation of this light, each of us must do his own share. The single effort of one individual may seem very small. It is not enough for us merely to trim the wick, or polish the glass. The time has come when we must provide the fuel in ever-increasing amounts to keep that flame alight. There is not one among us who does not have a stake in the outcome of the effort in which we are now engaged.


A few weeks ago I spoke of four freedoms freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, freedom from want, freedom from fear. They may not be immediately attainable throughout the world but humanity does move toward those glorious ideals through democratic processes. And if we fail- if democracy is superseded by slavery- then those four freedoms, or even the mention of them, will become forbidden things. By winning now, we strengthen the meaning of those freedoms, we increase the stature of mankind, we establish the dignity of human life. I have often thought that there is a vast difference between the 'word loyalty and the word obedience. Obedience can be obtained and enforced in a dictatorship by the use of threat or extortion or blackmail or it can be obtained by a failure on the part of government to tell the truth to its citizens. It springs from the mind that is given the facts, that retains ancient ideals and proceeds without coercion to give support to its own government. That is true in England and in Greece and in China and in the United States, today. And in many other countries millions of men and women are praying for the return of a day when they can give that kind of loyalty. Dollars alone will not win this war. Let us not delude ourselves as to that. Today, nearly a million and a half American citizens are hard at work in our armed forces. The spirit the determination of these men of our ENTITY and Navy are worthy of the highest traditions of our country. No better men ever served under Washington or John Paul Jones or Grant or Lee or Pershing. Upon the national will to sacrifice and to work depends the output of our industry and our agriculture. Upon that will depends the survival of the vital bridge across the ocean the bridge of ships that carry the arms and the food for those who are fighting the good fight. Upon that will depends our ability to aid other Nations which may determine to offer resistance. Upon that will may depend practical assistance to people now living in Nations that have been overrun, should they find the opportunity to strike back in an effort to regain their liberties and may that day come soon! This will of the American people will not be frustrated, either by threats from powerful enemies abroad or by small, selfish groups or individuals at home. The determination of America must not and will not be obstructed by war profiteering.


It must not be obstructed by unnecessary strikes of workers, by shortsighted management, or by the third danger deliberate sabotage. For, unless we win there will be no freedom for either management or labor. Wise labor leaders and wise business managers will realize how necessary it is to their own existence to make common sacrifice for this great common cause. There is no longer the slightest question or doubt that the American people recognize the extreme seriousness of the present situation. That is why they have demanded, and got, a policy of unqualified, immediate, all-out aid for Britain, for Greece, for China, and for all the Governments in exile whose homelands are temporarily occupied by the aggressors. The British are stronger than ever in the magnificent morale that has enabled them to endure all the dark days and the shattered nights of the past ten months. They have the full support and help of Canada, of the other Dominions, of the rest of their Empire, and the full aid and support of non-British people throughout the world who still think in terms of the great freedoms. The British people are braced for invasion whenever such attempt may come tomorrow next week next month. In this historic crisis, Britain is blessed with a brilliant and great leader in Winston Churchill. But, knowing him, no one knows better than Mr. Churchill himself that it is not alone his stirring words and valiant deeds that give the British their superb morale. The essence of that morale is in the masses of plain people who are completely clear in their minds about the one essential fact- that they would rather die as free men than live as slaves. they are fighting in the front line of civilization at this moment, and they are holding that line with a fortitude that will forever be the pride and the inspiration of all free men on every continent, on every isle of the sea. The British people and their Grecian allies need ships. From America, they will get ships. They need planes. From America, they will get planes. From America they need food. From America, they will get food. They need tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds. From America, they will get tanks and guns and ammunition and supplies of all kinds. China likewise expresses the magnificent will of millions of plain people to resist the dismemberment of their historic Nation. China, through the Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, asks our help. America has said that China shall have our help.


Let me say in all sincerity, Mr. Davis, that you have expressed far better than I could express what I hold to be essential in American citizenship. It was a privilege, sir, to be greeted by you as you have greeted me tonight. No one can too strongly insist upon the elementary fact that you cannot build the superstructure of public virtue save on private virtue. The sum of the parts is the whole, and if we wish to make that whole, the State, decent, the representative and exponent and symbol of decency, it must be so made through the decency, public and private, of the average citizen. Davis was quite safe in saying he hoped I had enjoyed my stay in San Francisco. I should indeed be ungrateful, unappreciative, if I were not deeply touched and moved by the way in which the people of San Francisco have received me; and I have enjoyed to the full the two days and a half I have spent here. I have enjoyed it all and I have enjoyed no part more, General MacArthur, than my ride down the line, reviewing the troops with you. Californians are good Americans, and therefore it is not necessary to appeal to them on behalf of the army and the navy. I shall not detain you long this evening. I am promised by Colonel Pippy the chance, after my speech, of meeting and shaking hands with each of you, in the rooms of the Club. I have just got two thoughts, not connected together, to which I want to give utterance tonight; one suggested by something that Mr. Davis said. It is absolutely essential, if we are to have the proper standard of public life, that promise shall be square with performance. A lie is no more to be excused in politics than out of politics. A promise is as binding on the stump as off the stump, and there are two facets to that crystal. In the first place, the man who makes a promise which he does not intend to keep and does not try to keep should rightly be adjudged to have forfeited in some degree what should be every man's most precious possession-his honor. On the other hand, the public that exacts a promise which ought not to be kept, or which cannot be kept, is by just so much forfeiting its right to self-government.

Theodore Roosevelt Address at the Banquet Tendered Him by the Union League Club of San Francisco, California


No man fit to be a public man will promise either the impossible or the improper; and if the demand is made that he shall do so it means putting a premium upon the unfit in public life. There is the same sound reason for distrusting the man who promises too much in public that there is for distrusting the man who promises too much in private business. If you meet a doctor who asserts that he as a specific remedy that will cure all the ills to which human flesh is heir, distrust him, He has not got it. If you meet the business man who vociferates that he is always selling everything to you at a loss, and you continue to deal with him I am glad if you suffer for it. Any man who promises as a result of legislation or administration the millennium is making a promise which he will find difficulty in keeping. Any man who asserts that by any law it will be possible, out of hand, to make all humanity good and wise, is again promising what he cannot perform. It is indispensable that we should have good laws and upright and honest and fearless administration of the laws; and we are not to be excused if we fail to hold our public men to a rigid accountability if they fail, in their turn, to see that we have proper legislation and proper administration. No public man worth his salt will be other than glad to be held accountable in that fashion. But important though the law is, though the administration of the law is, we can never escape having to face the fundamental truth that neither begins to be of the decisive importance that the average individual's character is. In the last analysis it is the man's own character which is and must ever be the determining factor in his success or failure in life , and therefore in the last analysis it is the average character of the average citizenship of a nation which will in the long run determine whether that nation is to go up or down. The one indispensable thing for us to keep is a high standard of character for the average American citizen. Now for my unrelated second thought, and that is to reiterate something that I said this morning. I had the very great pleasure of dedicating the monument to Dewey's fleet for its victory at Manila.