October 2, 1952
I THANK you most sincerely for that cordial welcome.
All day long, as I have come across your beautiful State, I have seen the evidence of your progress and your increasing prosperity.
All this is good to see, and it makes me conscious of the progress our whole Nation has made in the last 20 years.
I am out campaigning for the Democratic Party, in case you don't know why I am here. You see, the President has five jobs. Each one of the five is an all-time job. The one I am occupying now is the head of the Democratic Party, and I haven't had so much fun since 1948.
The great State of Washington has an all-star team running on the Democratic ticket this fall.
Now I want to talk to you about a very serious subject, and that is our defense program and our leadership in the fight for world peace. Here in Seattle, with its nearby Navy yards and Army bases, you are aware--as few other cities are--of the magnitude of our defense effort. You know the sacrifices that are being made by the men and women in our Armed forces to keep aggression away from our own shores, and to check the Communist menace against the free nations. You see the ships leave for Korea, and you see them return.
I do not have to emphasize to you that the menace of aggression is real. I do not have to explain to you that the Kremlin is armed, and that it will use force, even to the extent of bringing on war, if that will serve its ends. You know why we have to have a defense program.
But I would like to talk to you about that program, about the progress we have made in it, and the cost of it. Because, like everything else, it is being dragged into politics this year. I want to put the record straight, because I know the facts, and I will not tell you anything but the facts.
I have called our defense program a great national achievement--and that's exactly what it is. Of course, it's not perfect and it's not finished. We have a long way to go, but never before have we done so well in preparing our defenses to meet the threat of aggression. By preparing beforehand, we are trying to prevent a third world war--and I pray we shall succeed. Certainly, it is the only way we can succeed.
In the 2 years since Korea, we have made America much stronger and safer than it was before.
Before Korea, we had 48 air wings. We now have 95.
We have made the same sort of progress in the Army and the Navy. We had 10 divisions in the Army before Korea. Now we have 20. We had 645 ships in the Navy. Now we have 1,140, almost twice as many.
We have pushed our rate of production of military "hard goods"--that is, aircraft, tanks, guns, ships, and so on--to seven times the rate before Korea.
Our scientists and engineers have brought us tremendous progress in the development of better weapons. The increase in the power of the jet engine has been in itself almost a military revolution. We have made tremendous advancements in the development of atomic weapons, and in the use of atomic energy for power. Guided missiles are now on the assembly line of production, and despite many technical difficulties will soon be in the hands of tactical units.
We have made great progress, also, in building the industrial strength that underlies our military strength. We have built new plants and factories that will give us more steel, more power, more gasoline, and more weapons.
We have also made great progress in strengthening our allies. It is not our policy to go it alone. We believe in having allies to help us with the burdens of defense--in the common cause. For that reason we are supplying arms and other aid to the free nations.
While we can take pride in these achievements, I regret to say we cannot rest on them. I wish it were otherwise. But all the reports we get from behind the Iron Curtain tell us that the Soviets are still frantically building a military machine that can threaten the whole free world. They tell us that we have not yet reached that superiority in military strength that is necessary to achieve and maintain peace.
So we have to get on with the job. It costs money and effort, but our national survival depends upon it.
It is not a choice between keeping our country safe, and keeping our pocketbooks safe. If the country isn't safe, we'll have no pocketbooks at all--safe or otherwise.
There are lots of people who don't agree with me. They are people who never believe there is a danger of foreign aggression until the blow falls. They are the people who voted to kill the draft back in 1941, just 2 months before Pearl Harbor. They are the people who vote to cut aid to our allies every year in Congress. They are the isolationist Republicans, and their leader is Senator Taft.
Now, my friends, they are as wrong as they can be, but at least they are consistent. They say what they believe. And Senator Taft has written a whole book to explain their position.
We are used to the Republican isolationists. We have had them with us for a long time. But the most dangerous thing is that they have now made a captive of the Republican candidate for President--and that's too bad.
Just a little while ago, Senator Taft and the Republican candidate had breakfast together. Up to that point, I had never guessed that the Republican candidate was on the isolationist side. But after that breakfast, the Senator came out and said that the General agreed emphatically with him that there ought to be tremendous cuts in our expenditures for defense. They had agreed to cut $10 billion off the budget in the fiscal year 1954, and about $20 billion in the following fiscal year. Neither one of them knows a thing about a budget.
A few days later, the General made a speech--on his own time--making it plain that the largest part of these budget cuts had to come out of the defense program. And he had been helping to build up that defense program.
Now, my friends, this is very serious business. In a time of crisis like this, a general, even one who is running for office, should not promise such cuts in the defense budget without telling us where they are to be made.
Where can you cut $10 to $20 billion off our defense budget? You can't do it without endangering the security of the United States. I'll tell you that is a fact. It is a hard, cold fact--and nothing else.
Now nobody knows more about the budgets than does the President of the United States. While I was in the United States Senate I was on the Appropriations Committee and for 10 years I went over the budgets of the United States Government. I have made seven budgets and I am on the eighth one right now. I know every figure in the budget, what it stands for, why it is there. I'll bet you there's nobody else in this United States that knows that.
There are three principal parts of the defense budget.
The first of these is aid to friendly countries. This year all that aid, military and economic, amounts to about $7 billion. If the Republican candidate could cut it all out, he would still not have made the saving he promises so freely.
But if he cut it all out--or if he even cut out a half or a third of it--what would happen? He would be abandoning allies all over the world--allies who want to help us-allies who have bases and raw materials we need and need badly. My friends, this is exactly what Senator Taft has always wanted to do.
Of course, the Republican candidate has a right to advocate Senator Taft's foreign policy, if he believes in it--but he ought to make it clear that that is exactly what he is doing.
Now, the second major part of the defense budget is the cost of paying and maintaining the men and women in the Armed forces. That is about $20 billion this year. If the candidate cut that by 10 billions--or even by 5--it would mean demobilizing a large part of our armed strength.
The third principal item in the defense budget is the procurement of major weapons-planes, tanks, guns--which runs at about $18 billion this year. Any great slash in this item would mean cutting back production right now. It would mean eliminating much of the future buildup. Among other things, we would have to scrap the idea of a 143-wing air force.
Aside from those three major parts of the defense budget, there are a number of other items of expenditure, including such essentials as the atomic energy program, the research and development program in guided missiles and atomic artillery. But all these things together do not come to $10 billion-it would be lunacy to cut down our research programs.
No matter how you distribute it among the various parts of the defense program, any $30 billion cuts, over the next 2 years, means a major blow at our national security--and we can't stand it.
Now, the Republican candidate says he can make great economies in the operation of the armed services by eliminating waste and inefficiency. Perhaps he can, but he didn't do anything very spectacular along that line when he was Chief of Staff. He was always asking for more money.
The most outstanding thing that he did was to eliminate the armed services forces combined procurement agency that had been so successful during the war--and reestablished the old system of letting each branch of the Army do its own buying. We have been struggling ever since to get some sort of combined control over Army and defense procurement, and are at last succeeding.
But whether he is an expert on efficiency or not, even the General doesn't claim that waste in the Armed forces amounts to $10 or $20 billion a year.
This whole proposition is irresponsible, petty politics. No such cuts are possible without impairing our security--without, in fact, wrecking it. Any such savings would have to come out of the bone and sinew of the Army, Navy, and Air force. Cuts like these would reduce our whole effort to keep the peace. And that is all in the world we have to rearm for, is to keep the peace and to keep ourselves out of another world war.
These fantastic political cuts would be shear folly in the face of the known dangers of Soviet aggression.
Why has the Republican candidate, who knows. something about the problems and the cost of national defense, come before the American people with this irresponsible bid for votes ?
I'll tell you why. Because he wants the support of Senator Taft in this campaign. That's the only reason. And to get the support of Senator Taft, he had to swallow the Taft foreign policy hook, line, and sinker and then disguise it in the budget.
Now, my friends, I will tell you frankly, I am dismayed and disheartened that a man whom we all once respected and a man whom I trusted implicitly should thus turn his back upon the things we thought he stood for, particularly, what I thought he stood for.
In contrast, we can be proud of the Democratic candidate--Governor Stevenson of Illinois. Now, the Governor has been too honest to make any easy promises about drastically cutting our military strength.
Governor Stevenson has said that there is no cheap and painless way to peace and security. He is right--and any politician who says there is such a thing as a cutrate, bargain-basement defense program is not worthy of your vote.
The Democratic candidate and the Democratic Party stand squarely behind the maintenance and strengthening of our military establishment. They stand for a firm defense policy which in the last 2 years has held the Communists in check.
They stand for building strength to prevent war, not for the reckless cutting of strength which would risk our very survival as a Nation.
I am confident as to the choice you will make, in the interests of safety, in the interests of civilization, in the interests of the welfare of this country, in the interests of your own welfare. You must, on November the 4th, vote the Democratic ticket, and for every candidate on it.
NOTE: The President spoke at 5:35 p.m. in the auditorium of the fraternal Order of Eagles in the Senate Hotel at Seattle. The meeting was sponsored by the King County Democratic Central Committee.
I THANK you most sincerely for that cordial welcome.
All day long, as I have come across your beautiful State, I have seen the evidence of your progress and your increasing prosperity.
All this is good to see, and it makes me conscious of the progress our whole Nation has made in the last 20 years.
I am out campaigning for the Democratic Party, in case you don't know why I am here. You see, the President has five jobs. Each one of the five is an all-time job. The one I am occupying now is the head of the Democratic Party, and I haven't had so much fun since 1948.
The great State of Washington has an all-star team running on the Democratic ticket this fall.
Now I want to talk to you about a very serious subject, and that is our defense program and our leadership in the fight for world peace. Here in Seattle, with its nearby Navy yards and Army bases, you are aware--as few other cities are--of the magnitude of our defense effort. You know the sacrifices that are being made by the men and women in our Armed forces to keep aggression away from our own shores, and to check the Communist menace against the free nations. You see the ships leave for Korea, and you see them return.
I do not have to emphasize to you that the menace of aggression is real. I do not have to explain to you that the Kremlin is armed, and that it will use force, even to the extent of bringing on war, if that will serve its ends. You know why we have to have a defense program.
But I would like to talk to you about that program, about the progress we have made in it, and the cost of it. Because, like everything else, it is being dragged into politics this year. I want to put the record straight, because I know the facts, and I will not tell you anything but the facts.
I have called our defense program a great national achievement--and that's exactly what it is. Of course, it's not perfect and it's not finished. We have a long way to go, but never before have we done so well in preparing our defenses to meet the threat of aggression. By preparing beforehand, we are trying to prevent a third world war--and I pray we shall succeed. Certainly, it is the only way we can succeed.
In the 2 years since Korea, we have made America much stronger and safer than it was before.
Before Korea, we had 48 air wings. We now have 95.
We have made the same sort of progress in the Army and the Navy. We had 10 divisions in the Army before Korea. Now we have 20. We had 645 ships in the Navy. Now we have 1,140, almost twice as many.
We have pushed our rate of production of military "hard goods"--that is, aircraft, tanks, guns, ships, and so on--to seven times the rate before Korea.
Our scientists and engineers have brought us tremendous progress in the development of better weapons. The increase in the power of the jet engine has been in itself almost a military revolution. We have made tremendous advancements in the development of atomic weapons, and in the use of atomic energy for power. Guided missiles are now on the assembly line of production, and despite many technical difficulties will soon be in the hands of tactical units.
We have made great progress, also, in building the industrial strength that underlies our military strength. We have built new plants and factories that will give us more steel, more power, more gasoline, and more weapons.
We have also made great progress in strengthening our allies. It is not our policy to go it alone. We believe in having allies to help us with the burdens of defense--in the common cause. For that reason we are supplying arms and other aid to the free nations.
While we can take pride in these achievements, I regret to say we cannot rest on them. I wish it were otherwise. But all the reports we get from behind the Iron Curtain tell us that the Soviets are still frantically building a military machine that can threaten the whole free world. They tell us that we have not yet reached that superiority in military strength that is necessary to achieve and maintain peace.
So we have to get on with the job. It costs money and effort, but our national survival depends upon it.
It is not a choice between keeping our country safe, and keeping our pocketbooks safe. If the country isn't safe, we'll have no pocketbooks at all--safe or otherwise.
There are lots of people who don't agree with me. They are people who never believe there is a danger of foreign aggression until the blow falls. They are the people who voted to kill the draft back in 1941, just 2 months before Pearl Harbor. They are the people who vote to cut aid to our allies every year in Congress. They are the isolationist Republicans, and their leader is Senator Taft.
Now, my friends, they are as wrong as they can be, but at least they are consistent. They say what they believe. And Senator Taft has written a whole book to explain their position.
We are used to the Republican isolationists. We have had them with us for a long time. But the most dangerous thing is that they have now made a captive of the Republican candidate for President--and that's too bad.
Just a little while ago, Senator Taft and the Republican candidate had breakfast together. Up to that point, I had never guessed that the Republican candidate was on the isolationist side. But after that breakfast, the Senator came out and said that the General agreed emphatically with him that there ought to be tremendous cuts in our expenditures for defense. They had agreed to cut $10 billion off the budget in the fiscal year 1954, and about $20 billion in the following fiscal year. Neither one of them knows a thing about a budget.
A few days later, the General made a speech--on his own time--making it plain that the largest part of these budget cuts had to come out of the defense program. And he had been helping to build up that defense program.
Now, my friends, this is very serious business. In a time of crisis like this, a general, even one who is running for office, should not promise such cuts in the defense budget without telling us where they are to be made.
Where can you cut $10 to $20 billion off our defense budget? You can't do it without endangering the security of the United States. I'll tell you that is a fact. It is a hard, cold fact--and nothing else.
Now nobody knows more about the budgets than does the President of the United States. While I was in the United States Senate I was on the Appropriations Committee and for 10 years I went over the budgets of the United States Government. I have made seven budgets and I am on the eighth one right now. I know every figure in the budget, what it stands for, why it is there. I'll bet you there's nobody else in this United States that knows that.
There are three principal parts of the defense budget.
The first of these is aid to friendly countries. This year all that aid, military and economic, amounts to about $7 billion. If the Republican candidate could cut it all out, he would still not have made the saving he promises so freely.
But if he cut it all out--or if he even cut out a half or a third of it--what would happen? He would be abandoning allies all over the world--allies who want to help us-allies who have bases and raw materials we need and need badly. My friends, this is exactly what Senator Taft has always wanted to do.
Of course, the Republican candidate has a right to advocate Senator Taft's foreign policy, if he believes in it--but he ought to make it clear that that is exactly what he is doing.
Now, the second major part of the defense budget is the cost of paying and maintaining the men and women in the Armed forces. That is about $20 billion this year. If the candidate cut that by 10 billions--or even by 5--it would mean demobilizing a large part of our armed strength.
The third principal item in the defense budget is the procurement of major weapons-planes, tanks, guns--which runs at about $18 billion this year. Any great slash in this item would mean cutting back production right now. It would mean eliminating much of the future buildup. Among other things, we would have to scrap the idea of a 143-wing air force.
Aside from those three major parts of the defense budget, there are a number of other items of expenditure, including such essentials as the atomic energy program, the research and development program in guided missiles and atomic artillery. But all these things together do not come to $10 billion-it would be lunacy to cut down our research programs.
No matter how you distribute it among the various parts of the defense program, any $30 billion cuts, over the next 2 years, means a major blow at our national security--and we can't stand it.
Now, the Republican candidate says he can make great economies in the operation of the armed services by eliminating waste and inefficiency. Perhaps he can, but he didn't do anything very spectacular along that line when he was Chief of Staff. He was always asking for more money.
The most outstanding thing that he did was to eliminate the armed services forces combined procurement agency that had been so successful during the war--and reestablished the old system of letting each branch of the Army do its own buying. We have been struggling ever since to get some sort of combined control over Army and defense procurement, and are at last succeeding.
But whether he is an expert on efficiency or not, even the General doesn't claim that waste in the Armed forces amounts to $10 or $20 billion a year.
This whole proposition is irresponsible, petty politics. No such cuts are possible without impairing our security--without, in fact, wrecking it. Any such savings would have to come out of the bone and sinew of the Army, Navy, and Air force. Cuts like these would reduce our whole effort to keep the peace. And that is all in the world we have to rearm for, is to keep the peace and to keep ourselves out of another world war.
These fantastic political cuts would be shear folly in the face of the known dangers of Soviet aggression.
Why has the Republican candidate, who knows. something about the problems and the cost of national defense, come before the American people with this irresponsible bid for votes ?
I'll tell you why. Because he wants the support of Senator Taft in this campaign. That's the only reason. And to get the support of Senator Taft, he had to swallow the Taft foreign policy hook, line, and sinker and then disguise it in the budget.
Now, my friends, I will tell you frankly, I am dismayed and disheartened that a man whom we all once respected and a man whom I trusted implicitly should thus turn his back upon the things we thought he stood for, particularly, what I thought he stood for.
In contrast, we can be proud of the Democratic candidate--Governor Stevenson of Illinois. Now, the Governor has been too honest to make any easy promises about drastically cutting our military strength.
Governor Stevenson has said that there is no cheap and painless way to peace and security. He is right--and any politician who says there is such a thing as a cutrate, bargain-basement defense program is not worthy of your vote.
The Democratic candidate and the Democratic Party stand squarely behind the maintenance and strengthening of our military establishment. They stand for a firm defense policy which in the last 2 years has held the Communists in check.
They stand for building strength to prevent war, not for the reckless cutting of strength which would risk our very survival as a Nation.
I am confident as to the choice you will make, in the interests of safety, in the interests of civilization, in the interests of the welfare of this country, in the interests of your own welfare. You must, on November the 4th, vote the Democratic ticket, and for every candidate on it.
NOTE: The President spoke at 5:35 p.m. in the auditorium of the fraternal Order of Eagles in the Senate Hotel at Seattle. The meeting was sponsored by the King County Democratic Central Committee.