October 3, 1952
[1.] KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON (Rear platform, 9:05 a.m.)
I have had a warm welcome wherever I have gone in the Pacific Northwest. I am sorry that I had to go through Portland and Eugene, and most of your State by night. I wish I could have seen more of Oregon, and talked to more of its citizens.
As you may have heard by rumor, I am out here campaigning for the Democratic ticket. You have a good group of Democratic candidates this year.
I hope you will send John Jones to Congress as your Representative from this district. I think he will give this district excellent representation in Washington, which will be comparable to that you have received from that great Democrat, Walter Pierce.
And you have a good Democratic State ticket, too. I hope you will vote for all of them.
There is no reason why Oregon should not be a Democratic State. It would be, too--if all the people of Oregon remembered to register and vote. I am told that there were between 300,000 and 400,000 Oregonians who failed to register and vote in 1948. When you fail to exercise your rights as citizens, you have no right to complain about the Government you get. So remember-this Saturday is the last day you can register in Oregon.
Be sure to go and register now, because it is your duty. You are the Government. The people of these United States are the Government. That is where the power is situated. And when you don't exercise your right to vote, you are not doing the right thing for yourself or the country.
I have been greatly impressed by the progress of this northwest area. As I said at Tacoma last night, in this area private enterprise and public enterprise are working together for the public good. One of the big elements in your prosperity is the electric power that is being produced from the great public power projects of the Northwest.
These dams and transmission lines were built because you had a Democratic administration in Washington. The Democratic Party is not controlled by the power companies. It can look beyond the narrow horizons of private profit, and build great projects like these that no private company has the vision or the resources to undertake.
These great power projects are a fine investment for the taxpayer. They are more than paying back their cost to the Treasury, both directly through the power they sell, and indirectly, through the incomes and the prosperity they create. They are an asset because they bring taxpaying property into use that otherwise would not be in use, and they increase the assets of the Nation as a whole.
Now the Republican Party, dominated by the power lobby and the eastern Republicans, have fought these developments, tooth and toenail. They have fought virtually every dam, every forest access road, and every power transmission line in this area.
Of course, the Republican spokesmen are trying to cover up that bad record now--because this is an election year. But they cannot cover up the fact that whenever the time has come to vote, most of them have been against such things as public power.
And what is worse, some of them are planning to stop it, and take those projects away from the people and sell them back to private companies if they ever get elected.
The special interest lobbies that dominate the Republican Party can't bear to see anything owned by the public. They have a long, dark record of turning over the property of the people to private control.
I am told that, many years ago, a Republican State administration turned over the public school lands of the State of Oregon to private interests. Some of you may remember that way back in the Coolidge and Hoover days, the Republican Party tried to sell the Muscle Shoals Dam to the power trust. Some of you may recall how, in the days of Harding, they gave the oil reserves of Teapot Dome to the oil companies.
Don't think the special interests have reformed. They are smoother now, but their objectives haven't changed a bit. They have their eye on these great power projects. A bill has already been introduced into the Congress, by a Republican, to study all Federal projects and find out how many could be turned over to private firms and local governments. And a new plan has been devised to sell all the power plants of the Government to private investors.
Now what would that mean? It would mean that the great private companies would get a stranglehold on the economy of these areas. Private corporations would decide who should get Bonneville power and Grand Coulee power and TVA power and who should not. A few men would have control of the development of great chunks of the United States, and the public wouldn't have much to say about it.
If you want to know more about this interesting proposal, read the current issue of the magazine called "U.S. News and World Report." There's a great long article in that old conservative magazine telling just what they would like to do. to these public power projects. You had better read it and inform yourselves. There's an article in there that tells all about it. It says they are even planning to seize the Post Office. And that article says that these schemes to fleece the public "may get a try, if the Republicans control the White House and the Congress after next January 20." And you better think about that very carefully.
I don't vouch for the truth of that prediction, but I ask you, "Do you see anything in the history, or the record, or the platform of the Republican Party to suggest that that is not what they are planning to do?"
This is the kind of thing in the Republican Party that breaks the heart of every liberal Republican. There have been great liberals in the Republican Party, from Lincoln on down. But most of them have either been driven out or whipped into line. Go down the list. There was Theodore Roosevelt, and he became a Bull Moose. There was old Bob LaFollette, and he had to get out. There was George Norris, who fought harder for public power than any other man--and the special interests in his own party ganged up on him and beat him, and sent a double-dyed conservative to the Congress in his place.
On this trip I have been crossing some States where the tradition of Republican progressivism used to be strong. Now it is being driven to the wall by the Old Guard.
Senator Bill Langer of North Dakota rode on my train. I haven't always agreed with Bill, but I know he has always been on the side of the people. He told me he doesn't owe the Republican Party anything--they have tried to beat him three times, just because he is right on most of these questions. Then there is your own Senator Wayne Morse--one of the finest men and best liberals I have ever known. Up to this summer he had hopes that the Republican Party could be reformed. He worked for the man who is now the Republican candidate for President, thinking that he was a liberal.
And then what happened? Just a few weeks after the Republican convention the candidate surrendered to Senator Taft--and gave in to the Old Guard on every issue, from public power to national defense. He didn't stand up for a single liberal principle when the going got tough.
So Senator Morse has refused to work for him--and I respect the Senator for that. Wayne Morse can see through the five-star glitter to the sad fact underneath, that the Republican candidate is the captive of the Old Guard.
I ask you not to turn this country over to the reactionary wing of the Republican Party. I ask you to vote for the kind of Government that this country needs. I ask you to vote for the candidate of the Democratic Party for President. Vote for Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. He knows what these issues are about. He has fought corruption, he has fought special privilege. He is honest and courageous and he has always been on the side of the people. He is an unusual man, and the American people have seldom had the opportunity of choosing a better leader for their President.
Now it is up to you. It is up to you as individuals to vote in your own interests. As I said awhile ago, you are the Government-you must vote for your own welfare, vote for the welfare of the country, and vote for a government that is doing everything it possibly can to maintain peace in the world.
Thank you very much.
[2.] DUNSMUIR, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 11:55 a.m.)
This is a most wonderful country. I envy you for it. I wish I had Mount Shasta in my backyard--I'd have a much bigger backyard than I have now.
I don't want you to be laboring under any misapprehension as to why I am here today. I am out campaigning for the Democratic ticket, in case you don't know it. I have been traveling across the country telling the people some plain facts. What it all adds up to is that the Republican Party has a pretty sorry record. They have been against almost every kind of progressive measure that makes this country a better place in which to live.
You know, some strange things have been happening in the Republican Party. It is getting so hard to tell just what the letters GOP stand for.
Back in 1948, I said GOP stood for "Gluttons Of Privilege"--and there is a lot of truth in that, because the Republican Party was the party of special privilege in 1948; and it is, still, today.
Then the other day, Governor Stevenson said he had heard the GOP stands for "Grouchy Old Pessimists"--and there is a lot of truth in that, because the Republican Party made a political issue out of Governor Stevenson's sense of humor.
Now I have heard another one. They tell me that GOP stands for the "Generals' Own Party," or to put it another way, the "Party of the Generals." There's a lot of truth in that, too.
The Republicans have General MacArthur, and General Martin of Pennsylvania, and General Wedemeyer. Then, of course, they have their five-star general who is running for President, and I understand he carries some other generals around with him to help him with his political campaign.
Now I am perfectly willing and glad indeed that the Republicans have all the generals, if you will just give me the corporals and the privates.
Now that's a lot of generals, but I still haven't mentioned some of the biggest Republican generals of all, and that is: General Motors, General Electric, and General foods.
They have all the generals but one, and he is in our camp, and that is the general welfare of the people.
The Republicans are the party of the generals, and the Democrats are the party of the privates. With the Republicans, the big fellows come first. With the Democrats, we take care of the little fellows.
The only Democratic general I can think of is the one I told you about awhile ago, and his name is general welfare.
Now I will have to confess to you that I was a captain in World War I, but don't let that worry you. I found out the hard way that captains are a lot closer to the privates than they are to the generals. I have been a private, and a corporal, and a sergeant, too, so I know what the corporals and the privates and the sergeants think about, anyway.
Anyway, our candidate for President is a man who was an apprentice seaman in World War I, so he too knows how the privates in the ranks feel. He is Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. I hope you will vote for Governor Stevenson and Senator Sparkman. Governor Stevenson has given Illinois about the best and most progressive government that State ever had. That is the best possible training for the Presidency.
Senator Sparkman has one of the most progressive records in the Senate. He has been for small business and for the every-day man.
These are men you can trust.
Now it is your business to decide how your public officials serve you. You yourselves--the people--have the power of this Government. The Constitution says the power shall rest in the people, and when you exercise your right of franchise, that is how you exercise your right of power and control of the Government. And when you don't go out and vote on election day, you are not doing justice to yourself or to the country.
If you don't go out and vote, and you get bad government, you have nobody in the world to blame but yourselves.
Now, I hope every one of you will think this situation over. I hope you will study the issues. I hope you will read the record. I emphasize the fact that the record is made. It is in fine print in the Congressional Record, and it is hard to read. A lot of people don't like to read fine print, but this is of such importance you ought to inform yourselves as to which is the party of the people, which is the party of progress, and which party is not the party of progress.
And then you ought to go to the polls and vote for your best interests. Vote for the welfare of this great Nation of ours. Vote for the welfare of the world as a whole, and for the party that is making the strongest endeavor to get peace in the world.
If you do that, the country will be safe for another 4 years.
Thank you very much.
[3.] REDDING, CALIFORNIA (Shasta College Stadium, 3:40 p.m.)
I am very happy to be here this afternoon, and I am delighted that I had an opportunity today to take a good look at Shasta Dam.
It is a wonderful thing to see. It shows what the people of this country can do, through their own Government, to take what nature offers and put it to work for everybody's benefit.
That is what we've done with this water that nature has provided in these mountains.
The water stored at Shasta Dam is being used for irrigation--helping farmers grow good crops along the Central Valley. It flows south, 500 miles to Bakersfield, and halfway back again.
The water stored at Shasta Dam is also being used to turn great generators--creating power for farms and homes, and cities and factories of this region.
Water and power--in the right amounts, at the right places, and for the right price-these are the keys to development of the West, from the Rocky Mountains to the coast.
All over the West, now, we are checking floods and turning water into storage places, where it can be used to make power and to irrigate the land. That is what we are doing here at Shasta. That's what will be done soon at Folsom Dam. We are doing the same thing at Bonneville and Grand Coulee, at Hungry Horse Dam in Montana where I stopped the other day, at the Tennessee Valley dams back East, and at Boulder Dam in the Southwest.
I call it Boulder Dam, but the Republicans prefer the title Hoover Dam. They changed the name, back in the 80th Congress--and that's the only contribution to the power field that the 80th Congress made.
You know the Republicans puzzle me sometimes. They are always saying that when we build these dams to produce public power, that's socialism. But they still wanted to name that dam for President Hoover. So there it stands on the Colorado River, a magnificent monument to "creeping socialism," and the name of it is Hoover Dam. Now, I think that's kind of funny.
All these great projects are public projects, developed by your Government. They are public projects because the water resources they use belong to all the people.
They are public projects because they are enterprises of tremendous size and scope, involving the coordinated development of whole river systems for many purposes. They are expensive to build and require much time to pay for themselves.
These are the reasons why the American people have turned to their Government to do these things. And the Government has been doing them--and doing a great many other things the people want and need and are entitled to.
It is the firm belief of the Democratic Party that our Government exists to serve the people of the country. That is what my administration has tried faithfully to do--and Franklin Roosevelt did the same thing before me.
In 20 years, under Federal programs carried out by Democratic administrations, water has been brought to 3½ million acres of rich western farmland. That's an amount of acreage in crops equal to the cultivated land in New England and New Jersey combined.
In those 20 years, the Government has appropriated about $2 1/2 billion for western reclamation projects--more than seven times the total in all the years previous to that.
And one of our proudest accomplishments--one of the most successful--is Shasta Dam, and the whole great reclamation and irrigation project in the Central Valley of California.
My friends, it may be hard for you to understand why I should interrupt a campaign trip in this election year to come and sing the praises of Shasta Dam and the Central Valley project. It may appear to you that their usefulness and value are self-evident. You may believe that projects of this kind need no defense from me speaking as a partisan campaigner.
But if you have any notions of that sort, you had better get them out of your heads. For in this election, there are few issues more clearly at stake than the future of these projects-and the policies which brought them into being.
It is not the Democratic Party which has made these things the issue. Our party platform accepts them all, and pledges to continue to improve them. It is not the Democratic candidate for President who has made an issue of public power, or reclamation, or flood control. On the contrary, he made it perfectly plain in Seattle a few weeks ago, that he stood fair and square on the Democratic platform.
No, it is not the Democrats, it is the Republicans who have made the issues here. It is an issue because the Republicans are threatening to wipe out the progress we have made and to reverse our policies, however and wherever they can.
The Republican platform hints at this intent.
Their candidate for President has now confirmed it. And their record in Congress bears him out.
Now, as for the Republican candidate, I do not know what view he may have formed upon these questions before he entered into politics this summer. It may be, that in his life of Army service, he never had occasion to form any views at all on this subject.
But one thing I do know. Since he became a candidate he seems to have embraced most of the prejudices of the Republican Old Guard. He has surrendered to them and he speaks their language now.
Now, my friends, I feel sorry for that little band of liberal Republicans who dreamed that the General would become their champion. Men like Earl Warren, men like Wayne Morse, must find it hard to listen to what he has to say these days.
When the General spoke in Boise, Idaho, a few short weeks ago, he left no doubt that he was now the spokesman for the Old Guard GOP. He made it plain he does not understand, and does not sympathize with, Federal action to harness our rivers and provide the water and the power that you need so badly here. He does not think the Federal Government should do these things.
Many people have been wondering what kind of a President the Republican candidate would make, if he were elected. Many of you may have wondered just what he would do about public power and reclamation.
He has not been specific, up to now but I do not think the answer's hard to find.
I think it can be found in the record of the Republicans in Congress. It is a record written by the same Old Guard Republicans who now surround the five-star general.
These are the people who voted against creating the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933.
These are the people who voted in 1946 to block the great transmission line from Shasta Dam to Sacramento.
These are the people who voted in 1947 to cut out half the money for the Central Valley project.
These are the people who voted five separate times, in the Republican 80th Congress, to cripple rural electrification.
These are the people who voted just last year, to sabotage our national power policy and give the power companies a rake-off on public power sales.
The Old Guard Republicans of today are a far cry from men like Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot--men who did so much for conservation in this country. But those were different days and they were a different breed of Republicans than the ones who run the GOP today. Today's Republican leaders have but one thought in mind--to serve the interests of the big corporations that finance the Republican Party and control its policies from top to bottom. My friends, the power companies own a great deal of stock in the Republican Party--and that party's policies on public power will be the policies these private interests want--not what you want.
The plain people of this country do not count with the GOP. And the resources of this country will no longer be developed for the people, if the Republicans succeed in grabbing off the White House and the Congress next November.
Remember that. Give it some thought. It is a matter of very great importance to you and to this whole wonderful western country.
A vote for the Republicans in this election is a vote against your own interests.
A vote for them is a vote against the future. It is a vote against the growth, the prosperity, and progress of California and the whole West.
I urge upon you, do not turn this country over to the special interest lobbies.
Cast your vote for a President who understands your problems, cares about your needs, and will work for your progress and the country's progress. Vote for Adlai Stevenson of Illinois.
You, yourselves, are responsible for the sort of government we will have in the next 4 years. You are responsible if your own interests are not protected. You--the people--are the Government of the United States. And if you don't exercise your privilege at the polls next November, and you get bad government, and you get these great things wiped out which we have been building in the last 20 years, you won't have anybody to blame but yourselves.
So do your duty on election day, and then you will be all right, and we will have 4 more years of good government.
[4.] RED BLUFF, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 4:55 p.m.)
It is a real pleasure, I can assure you, to receive a welcome like that here in the home of my good old friend Clair Engle. I'm sorry he can't be here. I have a telegram from Clair Engle and I would like to read it to you: "I regret that a long-standing engagement in Los Angeles which could not be changed without serious inconvenience to other people prevents my being present to welcome you into my district, and especially to Shasta Dam, the key unit of the Central Valley project which is so successful that the California State engineer has issued a formal report that it could be purchased by the State with interest-bearing revenue bonds and pay out in 50 years with a profit of $368 million. If that is, quote, Democratic bungling, end of quote, we should have more of it. I welcome you to my district and wish you a pleasant and successful journey. Congressman Clair Engle."
I have come here on this trip for a special purpose. I guess maybe you have guessed it. I am on a campaign for Democratic victory in November, and I am doing everything I can to help put Adlai Stevenson in the White House on the 20th of January. If that comes about, you can be sure I will pack up my bags and head home to Missouri the happiest man alive. For I'll know that my place has been taken by a very great and very able new leader. I will know that all of you will have a friend to look out for your interests.
I have been on this train for 6 days now, stopping to talk to people all along the way. It has been my job to tell them some plain facts and hard truths about the Republican Party, and even about the Republican candidate. Now that is not very pleasant, because the facts aren't very pleasant in this particular case. And this time I want to take a vacation from it and talk to you about some pleasant things, like the growth of this great State of yours, which is one of the wonders of our time.
Your growth out here has been phenomenal and I am proud to say your Government has helped you--worked in partnership with you. That is what government is for, and that is how the Democratic Party has been running it for these 20 years.
Here we have built great dams like Shasta that have controlled water and made power available to farms and cities. Here we are carrying out the great Central Valley project, adding abundance to California's already rich agricultural economy.
Through State and Federal measures we are managing to save the last of your great forests, some of the greatest and oldest left in the whole world. And in our national parks, we have preserved your natural wonderlands and secured them for future generations.
Our Federal road program has helped you crisscross your mountains and your valleys with good highways--highways your State Government, with the aid of Federal funds, is constantly improving. You have some of the best in the world.
All these things add up to splendid accomplishments. California is richer, its land is more productive, and you have a better life because of it.
Did you ever stop to think that in the last analysis these are the two big assets that we have: our land and our people? If we take care of both the people and the land, we will continue to grow strong, and we will remain the greatest nation on earth.
That is my prescription for America-and I know it is yours.
There is a lot of talk about big government. But our Government is big only because our land is big, and our people are many. You know, those people who talk about big government, and the dangers of big government, forget that the government they are thinking about was the government of a very few people comparatively. They want to go back and think about the government when there were 30 million people in this country, or when there were 70 million people in this country. Now there are 157 million people in this country, and instead of being an isolated country, which is bound by the two oceans and by Canada and Mexico, it has become the free leader of all the world.
And the government that is the free leader of all the world has to have a government in compensation to the size of the job that it has to do. Nobody in the world is going to roll this country back. We have to go forward.
You people here in California are a demonstration of what happens when a country is properly developed. And you are properly developed because you have a government with the will to do for you what our Government should do for its people. Now, I want you to bear that in mind.
When you go to the polls in November, remember that you are the Government, that it is you that is to profit by the welfare of this Nation, if you have good government.
And when you don't have good government, it is your own fault, because you don't vote for the right people, and you don't deserve any sympathy.
If you do the right thing, you will go down there on November the 4th and you will vote for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, and you will have 4 more years of good government, and 4 more years of good growth for California.
[5.] GERBER, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 5:20 p.m.)
I am certainly glad to be here this afternoon in Gerber. You are certainly most cordial in your welcome, and I appreciate it very much.
By now there is no secret about why I am out here. I am campaigning for the Democratic ticket, and it is giving a lot of people the jitters, too.
The President has five jobs, any one of which is a full-time job for most people. I am out here in my job as leader of the Democratic Party because I believe that the future peace and prosperity of this great country depend on the election of Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman and the whole Democratic ticket.
Now one of the newspapermen along on this trip has heard so much about my five jobs, as President, that I hear he wrote a little piece for his paper saying: "President Truman keeps talking about jobs all the time--five for himself and 62 million jobs for the rest of the American people." I like that description, because that is just what the Democrats have done for the last 20 years-we have brought jobs to 62 million people.
In the past 7 years the Democratic administration has brought more prosperity to the average man than in any period in the history of the country. Take railroad workers, for example--in 1945 the average straight-time hourly rate of railroad employees was about 93 cents. Under an increase effective October 1st, 1952, that income will be about $1.86, or an increase of exactly 100 percent.
The gains which railroad workers have made, and the gains which all the people have made, did not come about by accident. They came about because you had a government that worked for the welfare of the people. And you could *lose them if you get a government that did not care anything about the people.
I have here a copy of the Wall Street Journal-which I don't read very often, but I just happened to see this--and it has something in it which you will be interested in. It is dated May 26, 1952, and it has a headline which says: "Mr. Taft has some ideas." I expect he has. And they'll wreck the country if you give him a chance to carry them out, I can tell you that.
This article in the Wall Street Journal tells about Senator Taft's plans to crack down on labor unions if the Republicans get into power. The article talks about how Senator Taft wants to put more teeth into the Taft-Hartley Act.
You may not think this will affect you, but I will say this to you--if the Republicans get into power, they will crack down on everybody except the special interests that put them into power.
Keep these things in mind when you go to the polls next November. Weigh the record carefully. Vote for the party that is the party of the people, the party that has made the country prosperous over the last 20 years, the party that pulled us out of the greatest depression in the history of the world, the party that has kept the thing on an even keel. The economy of this country was never in a more balanced condition. The farmer is prosperous, the laboring man is receiving good wages, and the small businessman and the big businessman are making fantastic profits. And they squawk to beat the band about taxes, but how in the world could they squawk about them when 20 years ago they didn't even have the income to pay the taxes? Now when they have the income to pay the taxes, they want to quarrel about it. They still have more money left than they ever had in the history of the world.
Now you go to the polls on the 4th of November, and vote for your own interests. Vote the Democratic ticket and put Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman in the White House, and the country will be safe for another 4 years.
Thank you a lot.
[6.] DAVIS, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 7:28 p.m.)
I want to say to you that I think you have one of the greatest Governors in the United States. He has always been my friend, and I have always been his--and I shall always be.
I thank you most sincerely for the reception which you have given me. I appreciate it very much. You remember that I stopped here in June 1948. I was on a nonpolitical trip then, on my way down to Berkeley to get a degree from the University of California. I understand that the Agricultural College of the University is located here, and that you do some very fine experimental work here. I know you are contributing a great deal to the welfare and prosperity of the farmers of California, and I want to compliment you for that.
I wish I had time to get off the train and go and look at the farm where you carry on your experiments, because I am still interested in farm programs.
Now you photographers, don't do any shooting until I get through, then you can do all the shooting you like. I get so I can't see when you flash those things in my face. Maybe you like to do that--I don't know.
If I could stay here awhile, maybe we could work out some experiments on how to get the Republican Party to bring its policies on agriculture up to date.
The Republican candidate for President made a speech a few weeks ago and said his farm activities belonged to the day of the Percheron and the mule. I am sure General Eisenhower is right about that, and his thinking on agricultural problems does not seem to have developed very much since that date. In fact, I don't believe that he or the Republican Party have had a constructive idea on farm policy in 30 years, and I know what I am talking about.
The Republican candidate said something else in that speech that amazed me completely. He said that our Government agricultural programs were brought into being on a nonpartisan basis.
Now I just want to read you a part of the record, so you can see what this nonpartisan contribution by the Republicans was like.
In 1933--you remember 1933, it was pretty tough on the farmers--House Republicans voted against the Agricultural Adjustment Act in a ratio of 2 to 1. That same year they voted against TVA 8 to 1.
In 1936--and I was in the Senate at that time--they voted against the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act 3 to 1.
In 1938 they voted against the Triple-A, which is still our basic price support legislation, they voted against it 5 to 1
In 1939 they voted against parity payments 7 to 1.
In 1943 they voted to kill crop insurance 16 to 1. You remember that old ratio, don't you? California was interested in that at one time.
The same year they voted against expanding rural electric power facilities 3 to 1.
In 1947 they voted to kill the farm ownership program 8 to 1. That same year they voted to kill the agricultural conservation program 12 to 1.
In 1948 they voted to cripple the grain storage program, and they succeeded, until the Democratic 81st Congress rescinded that action.
In 1949 the majority of House Republicans voted against rural telephone programs--and they called it socialistic--a threat to free enterprise. That same year they voted against price supports on perishables 40 to 1.
In 1951 they voted to cripple crop insurance 2 to 1 That same year they voted against expanding rural electric power 9 to 1; and they also voted to cripple the conservation program.
And only last July a majority of House Republicans voted against the amendment assuring price supports at 90 percent of parity for 1953 and 1954.
Now they are claiming credit for that, although they voted against them. In the face of a record like that, how in the world can the Republican Party or its wonderful candidate claim credit for the farm programs we have today? That's what I call trying to rewrite history for political purposes.
I hate to think that the General was being deliberately dishonest. I don't think he was. I think it is more likely that he just didn't know what he was talking about. After all, why should he? He has spent all his life in the Army. He doesn't know anything about farming at all. No reason why he should. But when he has a bunch of political snollygosters around him giving him bad advice, he can't tell whether they are deceiving him or not. And I will tell you that is a mighty dangerous situation for the candidate to be in.
I am afraid it is true with respect to a lot of other subjects, as well as farm problems.
I don't believe you want to turn the country over to a combination like that. The thing for you to do, if you want a President who understands your problem, and a government that is interested in your welfare, is to vote the Democratic ticket. And I think that is exactly what you are going to do--just like you did in 1948.
for your own interests, for your own welfare and benefit, vote to send John Moss to Congress. He is a good Democrat. He will give you the kind of representation you ought to have.
Then, to top the thing off, in your own interest--now, you are the Government-you are the Government. I have been going over the record, and if you will go over the record, you will find just exactly who has been the friend of the people--and it hasn't been the Republican Party at all. They never were the friend of the common people.
You vote for yourselves. You vote for yourselves when you vote to continue good government. Vote for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, and the country will be in safe hands for the next 4 years.
NOTE: In the course of his remarks on October 3, the President referred to John G. Jones, Democratic candidate for Representative, Walter Pierce, former Governor and former Representative, and Senator Wayne Morse, all of Oregon, Senator William Langer of North Dakota, Representative Clair Engle of California, Governor Earl Warren of California who introduced the President at Davis, Calif., and John Moss, Democratic candidate for Representative from California.
[1.] KLAMATH FALLS, OREGON (Rear platform, 9:05 a.m.)
I have had a warm welcome wherever I have gone in the Pacific Northwest. I am sorry that I had to go through Portland and Eugene, and most of your State by night. I wish I could have seen more of Oregon, and talked to more of its citizens.
As you may have heard by rumor, I am out here campaigning for the Democratic ticket. You have a good group of Democratic candidates this year.
I hope you will send John Jones to Congress as your Representative from this district. I think he will give this district excellent representation in Washington, which will be comparable to that you have received from that great Democrat, Walter Pierce.
And you have a good Democratic State ticket, too. I hope you will vote for all of them.
There is no reason why Oregon should not be a Democratic State. It would be, too--if all the people of Oregon remembered to register and vote. I am told that there were between 300,000 and 400,000 Oregonians who failed to register and vote in 1948. When you fail to exercise your rights as citizens, you have no right to complain about the Government you get. So remember-this Saturday is the last day you can register in Oregon.
Be sure to go and register now, because it is your duty. You are the Government. The people of these United States are the Government. That is where the power is situated. And when you don't exercise your right to vote, you are not doing the right thing for yourself or the country.
I have been greatly impressed by the progress of this northwest area. As I said at Tacoma last night, in this area private enterprise and public enterprise are working together for the public good. One of the big elements in your prosperity is the electric power that is being produced from the great public power projects of the Northwest.
These dams and transmission lines were built because you had a Democratic administration in Washington. The Democratic Party is not controlled by the power companies. It can look beyond the narrow horizons of private profit, and build great projects like these that no private company has the vision or the resources to undertake.
These great power projects are a fine investment for the taxpayer. They are more than paying back their cost to the Treasury, both directly through the power they sell, and indirectly, through the incomes and the prosperity they create. They are an asset because they bring taxpaying property into use that otherwise would not be in use, and they increase the assets of the Nation as a whole.
Now the Republican Party, dominated by the power lobby and the eastern Republicans, have fought these developments, tooth and toenail. They have fought virtually every dam, every forest access road, and every power transmission line in this area.
Of course, the Republican spokesmen are trying to cover up that bad record now--because this is an election year. But they cannot cover up the fact that whenever the time has come to vote, most of them have been against such things as public power.
And what is worse, some of them are planning to stop it, and take those projects away from the people and sell them back to private companies if they ever get elected.
The special interest lobbies that dominate the Republican Party can't bear to see anything owned by the public. They have a long, dark record of turning over the property of the people to private control.
I am told that, many years ago, a Republican State administration turned over the public school lands of the State of Oregon to private interests. Some of you may remember that way back in the Coolidge and Hoover days, the Republican Party tried to sell the Muscle Shoals Dam to the power trust. Some of you may recall how, in the days of Harding, they gave the oil reserves of Teapot Dome to the oil companies.
Don't think the special interests have reformed. They are smoother now, but their objectives haven't changed a bit. They have their eye on these great power projects. A bill has already been introduced into the Congress, by a Republican, to study all Federal projects and find out how many could be turned over to private firms and local governments. And a new plan has been devised to sell all the power plants of the Government to private investors.
Now what would that mean? It would mean that the great private companies would get a stranglehold on the economy of these areas. Private corporations would decide who should get Bonneville power and Grand Coulee power and TVA power and who should not. A few men would have control of the development of great chunks of the United States, and the public wouldn't have much to say about it.
If you want to know more about this interesting proposal, read the current issue of the magazine called "U.S. News and World Report." There's a great long article in that old conservative magazine telling just what they would like to do. to these public power projects. You had better read it and inform yourselves. There's an article in there that tells all about it. It says they are even planning to seize the Post Office. And that article says that these schemes to fleece the public "may get a try, if the Republicans control the White House and the Congress after next January 20." And you better think about that very carefully.
I don't vouch for the truth of that prediction, but I ask you, "Do you see anything in the history, or the record, or the platform of the Republican Party to suggest that that is not what they are planning to do?"
This is the kind of thing in the Republican Party that breaks the heart of every liberal Republican. There have been great liberals in the Republican Party, from Lincoln on down. But most of them have either been driven out or whipped into line. Go down the list. There was Theodore Roosevelt, and he became a Bull Moose. There was old Bob LaFollette, and he had to get out. There was George Norris, who fought harder for public power than any other man--and the special interests in his own party ganged up on him and beat him, and sent a double-dyed conservative to the Congress in his place.
On this trip I have been crossing some States where the tradition of Republican progressivism used to be strong. Now it is being driven to the wall by the Old Guard.
Senator Bill Langer of North Dakota rode on my train. I haven't always agreed with Bill, but I know he has always been on the side of the people. He told me he doesn't owe the Republican Party anything--they have tried to beat him three times, just because he is right on most of these questions. Then there is your own Senator Wayne Morse--one of the finest men and best liberals I have ever known. Up to this summer he had hopes that the Republican Party could be reformed. He worked for the man who is now the Republican candidate for President, thinking that he was a liberal.
And then what happened? Just a few weeks after the Republican convention the candidate surrendered to Senator Taft--and gave in to the Old Guard on every issue, from public power to national defense. He didn't stand up for a single liberal principle when the going got tough.
So Senator Morse has refused to work for him--and I respect the Senator for that. Wayne Morse can see through the five-star glitter to the sad fact underneath, that the Republican candidate is the captive of the Old Guard.
I ask you not to turn this country over to the reactionary wing of the Republican Party. I ask you to vote for the kind of Government that this country needs. I ask you to vote for the candidate of the Democratic Party for President. Vote for Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. He knows what these issues are about. He has fought corruption, he has fought special privilege. He is honest and courageous and he has always been on the side of the people. He is an unusual man, and the American people have seldom had the opportunity of choosing a better leader for their President.
Now it is up to you. It is up to you as individuals to vote in your own interests. As I said awhile ago, you are the Government-you must vote for your own welfare, vote for the welfare of the country, and vote for a government that is doing everything it possibly can to maintain peace in the world.
Thank you very much.
[2.] DUNSMUIR, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 11:55 a.m.)
This is a most wonderful country. I envy you for it. I wish I had Mount Shasta in my backyard--I'd have a much bigger backyard than I have now.
I don't want you to be laboring under any misapprehension as to why I am here today. I am out campaigning for the Democratic ticket, in case you don't know it. I have been traveling across the country telling the people some plain facts. What it all adds up to is that the Republican Party has a pretty sorry record. They have been against almost every kind of progressive measure that makes this country a better place in which to live.
You know, some strange things have been happening in the Republican Party. It is getting so hard to tell just what the letters GOP stand for.
Back in 1948, I said GOP stood for "Gluttons Of Privilege"--and there is a lot of truth in that, because the Republican Party was the party of special privilege in 1948; and it is, still, today.
Then the other day, Governor Stevenson said he had heard the GOP stands for "Grouchy Old Pessimists"--and there is a lot of truth in that, because the Republican Party made a political issue out of Governor Stevenson's sense of humor.
Now I have heard another one. They tell me that GOP stands for the "Generals' Own Party," or to put it another way, the "Party of the Generals." There's a lot of truth in that, too.
The Republicans have General MacArthur, and General Martin of Pennsylvania, and General Wedemeyer. Then, of course, they have their five-star general who is running for President, and I understand he carries some other generals around with him to help him with his political campaign.
Now I am perfectly willing and glad indeed that the Republicans have all the generals, if you will just give me the corporals and the privates.
Now that's a lot of generals, but I still haven't mentioned some of the biggest Republican generals of all, and that is: General Motors, General Electric, and General foods.
They have all the generals but one, and he is in our camp, and that is the general welfare of the people.
The Republicans are the party of the generals, and the Democrats are the party of the privates. With the Republicans, the big fellows come first. With the Democrats, we take care of the little fellows.
The only Democratic general I can think of is the one I told you about awhile ago, and his name is general welfare.
Now I will have to confess to you that I was a captain in World War I, but don't let that worry you. I found out the hard way that captains are a lot closer to the privates than they are to the generals. I have been a private, and a corporal, and a sergeant, too, so I know what the corporals and the privates and the sergeants think about, anyway.
Anyway, our candidate for President is a man who was an apprentice seaman in World War I, so he too knows how the privates in the ranks feel. He is Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. I hope you will vote for Governor Stevenson and Senator Sparkman. Governor Stevenson has given Illinois about the best and most progressive government that State ever had. That is the best possible training for the Presidency.
Senator Sparkman has one of the most progressive records in the Senate. He has been for small business and for the every-day man.
These are men you can trust.
Now it is your business to decide how your public officials serve you. You yourselves--the people--have the power of this Government. The Constitution says the power shall rest in the people, and when you exercise your right of franchise, that is how you exercise your right of power and control of the Government. And when you don't go out and vote on election day, you are not doing justice to yourself or to the country.
If you don't go out and vote, and you get bad government, you have nobody in the world to blame but yourselves.
Now, I hope every one of you will think this situation over. I hope you will study the issues. I hope you will read the record. I emphasize the fact that the record is made. It is in fine print in the Congressional Record, and it is hard to read. A lot of people don't like to read fine print, but this is of such importance you ought to inform yourselves as to which is the party of the people, which is the party of progress, and which party is not the party of progress.
And then you ought to go to the polls and vote for your best interests. Vote for the welfare of this great Nation of ours. Vote for the welfare of the world as a whole, and for the party that is making the strongest endeavor to get peace in the world.
If you do that, the country will be safe for another 4 years.
Thank you very much.
[3.] REDDING, CALIFORNIA (Shasta College Stadium, 3:40 p.m.)
I am very happy to be here this afternoon, and I am delighted that I had an opportunity today to take a good look at Shasta Dam.
It is a wonderful thing to see. It shows what the people of this country can do, through their own Government, to take what nature offers and put it to work for everybody's benefit.
That is what we've done with this water that nature has provided in these mountains.
The water stored at Shasta Dam is being used for irrigation--helping farmers grow good crops along the Central Valley. It flows south, 500 miles to Bakersfield, and halfway back again.
The water stored at Shasta Dam is also being used to turn great generators--creating power for farms and homes, and cities and factories of this region.
Water and power--in the right amounts, at the right places, and for the right price-these are the keys to development of the West, from the Rocky Mountains to the coast.
All over the West, now, we are checking floods and turning water into storage places, where it can be used to make power and to irrigate the land. That is what we are doing here at Shasta. That's what will be done soon at Folsom Dam. We are doing the same thing at Bonneville and Grand Coulee, at Hungry Horse Dam in Montana where I stopped the other day, at the Tennessee Valley dams back East, and at Boulder Dam in the Southwest.
I call it Boulder Dam, but the Republicans prefer the title Hoover Dam. They changed the name, back in the 80th Congress--and that's the only contribution to the power field that the 80th Congress made.
You know the Republicans puzzle me sometimes. They are always saying that when we build these dams to produce public power, that's socialism. But they still wanted to name that dam for President Hoover. So there it stands on the Colorado River, a magnificent monument to "creeping socialism," and the name of it is Hoover Dam. Now, I think that's kind of funny.
All these great projects are public projects, developed by your Government. They are public projects because the water resources they use belong to all the people.
They are public projects because they are enterprises of tremendous size and scope, involving the coordinated development of whole river systems for many purposes. They are expensive to build and require much time to pay for themselves.
These are the reasons why the American people have turned to their Government to do these things. And the Government has been doing them--and doing a great many other things the people want and need and are entitled to.
It is the firm belief of the Democratic Party that our Government exists to serve the people of the country. That is what my administration has tried faithfully to do--and Franklin Roosevelt did the same thing before me.
In 20 years, under Federal programs carried out by Democratic administrations, water has been brought to 3½ million acres of rich western farmland. That's an amount of acreage in crops equal to the cultivated land in New England and New Jersey combined.
In those 20 years, the Government has appropriated about $2 1/2 billion for western reclamation projects--more than seven times the total in all the years previous to that.
And one of our proudest accomplishments--one of the most successful--is Shasta Dam, and the whole great reclamation and irrigation project in the Central Valley of California.
My friends, it may be hard for you to understand why I should interrupt a campaign trip in this election year to come and sing the praises of Shasta Dam and the Central Valley project. It may appear to you that their usefulness and value are self-evident. You may believe that projects of this kind need no defense from me speaking as a partisan campaigner.
But if you have any notions of that sort, you had better get them out of your heads. For in this election, there are few issues more clearly at stake than the future of these projects-and the policies which brought them into being.
It is not the Democratic Party which has made these things the issue. Our party platform accepts them all, and pledges to continue to improve them. It is not the Democratic candidate for President who has made an issue of public power, or reclamation, or flood control. On the contrary, he made it perfectly plain in Seattle a few weeks ago, that he stood fair and square on the Democratic platform.
No, it is not the Democrats, it is the Republicans who have made the issues here. It is an issue because the Republicans are threatening to wipe out the progress we have made and to reverse our policies, however and wherever they can.
The Republican platform hints at this intent.
Their candidate for President has now confirmed it. And their record in Congress bears him out.
Now, as for the Republican candidate, I do not know what view he may have formed upon these questions before he entered into politics this summer. It may be, that in his life of Army service, he never had occasion to form any views at all on this subject.
But one thing I do know. Since he became a candidate he seems to have embraced most of the prejudices of the Republican Old Guard. He has surrendered to them and he speaks their language now.
Now, my friends, I feel sorry for that little band of liberal Republicans who dreamed that the General would become their champion. Men like Earl Warren, men like Wayne Morse, must find it hard to listen to what he has to say these days.
When the General spoke in Boise, Idaho, a few short weeks ago, he left no doubt that he was now the spokesman for the Old Guard GOP. He made it plain he does not understand, and does not sympathize with, Federal action to harness our rivers and provide the water and the power that you need so badly here. He does not think the Federal Government should do these things.
Many people have been wondering what kind of a President the Republican candidate would make, if he were elected. Many of you may have wondered just what he would do about public power and reclamation.
He has not been specific, up to now but I do not think the answer's hard to find.
I think it can be found in the record of the Republicans in Congress. It is a record written by the same Old Guard Republicans who now surround the five-star general.
These are the people who voted against creating the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933.
These are the people who voted in 1946 to block the great transmission line from Shasta Dam to Sacramento.
These are the people who voted in 1947 to cut out half the money for the Central Valley project.
These are the people who voted five separate times, in the Republican 80th Congress, to cripple rural electrification.
These are the people who voted just last year, to sabotage our national power policy and give the power companies a rake-off on public power sales.
The Old Guard Republicans of today are a far cry from men like Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot--men who did so much for conservation in this country. But those were different days and they were a different breed of Republicans than the ones who run the GOP today. Today's Republican leaders have but one thought in mind--to serve the interests of the big corporations that finance the Republican Party and control its policies from top to bottom. My friends, the power companies own a great deal of stock in the Republican Party--and that party's policies on public power will be the policies these private interests want--not what you want.
The plain people of this country do not count with the GOP. And the resources of this country will no longer be developed for the people, if the Republicans succeed in grabbing off the White House and the Congress next November.
Remember that. Give it some thought. It is a matter of very great importance to you and to this whole wonderful western country.
A vote for the Republicans in this election is a vote against your own interests.
A vote for them is a vote against the future. It is a vote against the growth, the prosperity, and progress of California and the whole West.
I urge upon you, do not turn this country over to the special interest lobbies.
Cast your vote for a President who understands your problems, cares about your needs, and will work for your progress and the country's progress. Vote for Adlai Stevenson of Illinois.
You, yourselves, are responsible for the sort of government we will have in the next 4 years. You are responsible if your own interests are not protected. You--the people--are the Government of the United States. And if you don't exercise your privilege at the polls next November, and you get bad government, and you get these great things wiped out which we have been building in the last 20 years, you won't have anybody to blame but yourselves.
So do your duty on election day, and then you will be all right, and we will have 4 more years of good government.
[4.] RED BLUFF, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 4:55 p.m.)
It is a real pleasure, I can assure you, to receive a welcome like that here in the home of my good old friend Clair Engle. I'm sorry he can't be here. I have a telegram from Clair Engle and I would like to read it to you: "I regret that a long-standing engagement in Los Angeles which could not be changed without serious inconvenience to other people prevents my being present to welcome you into my district, and especially to Shasta Dam, the key unit of the Central Valley project which is so successful that the California State engineer has issued a formal report that it could be purchased by the State with interest-bearing revenue bonds and pay out in 50 years with a profit of $368 million. If that is, quote, Democratic bungling, end of quote, we should have more of it. I welcome you to my district and wish you a pleasant and successful journey. Congressman Clair Engle."
I have come here on this trip for a special purpose. I guess maybe you have guessed it. I am on a campaign for Democratic victory in November, and I am doing everything I can to help put Adlai Stevenson in the White House on the 20th of January. If that comes about, you can be sure I will pack up my bags and head home to Missouri the happiest man alive. For I'll know that my place has been taken by a very great and very able new leader. I will know that all of you will have a friend to look out for your interests.
I have been on this train for 6 days now, stopping to talk to people all along the way. It has been my job to tell them some plain facts and hard truths about the Republican Party, and even about the Republican candidate. Now that is not very pleasant, because the facts aren't very pleasant in this particular case. And this time I want to take a vacation from it and talk to you about some pleasant things, like the growth of this great State of yours, which is one of the wonders of our time.
Your growth out here has been phenomenal and I am proud to say your Government has helped you--worked in partnership with you. That is what government is for, and that is how the Democratic Party has been running it for these 20 years.
Here we have built great dams like Shasta that have controlled water and made power available to farms and cities. Here we are carrying out the great Central Valley project, adding abundance to California's already rich agricultural economy.
Through State and Federal measures we are managing to save the last of your great forests, some of the greatest and oldest left in the whole world. And in our national parks, we have preserved your natural wonderlands and secured them for future generations.
Our Federal road program has helped you crisscross your mountains and your valleys with good highways--highways your State Government, with the aid of Federal funds, is constantly improving. You have some of the best in the world.
All these things add up to splendid accomplishments. California is richer, its land is more productive, and you have a better life because of it.
Did you ever stop to think that in the last analysis these are the two big assets that we have: our land and our people? If we take care of both the people and the land, we will continue to grow strong, and we will remain the greatest nation on earth.
That is my prescription for America-and I know it is yours.
There is a lot of talk about big government. But our Government is big only because our land is big, and our people are many. You know, those people who talk about big government, and the dangers of big government, forget that the government they are thinking about was the government of a very few people comparatively. They want to go back and think about the government when there were 30 million people in this country, or when there were 70 million people in this country. Now there are 157 million people in this country, and instead of being an isolated country, which is bound by the two oceans and by Canada and Mexico, it has become the free leader of all the world.
And the government that is the free leader of all the world has to have a government in compensation to the size of the job that it has to do. Nobody in the world is going to roll this country back. We have to go forward.
You people here in California are a demonstration of what happens when a country is properly developed. And you are properly developed because you have a government with the will to do for you what our Government should do for its people. Now, I want you to bear that in mind.
When you go to the polls in November, remember that you are the Government, that it is you that is to profit by the welfare of this Nation, if you have good government.
And when you don't have good government, it is your own fault, because you don't vote for the right people, and you don't deserve any sympathy.
If you do the right thing, you will go down there on November the 4th and you will vote for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, and you will have 4 more years of good government, and 4 more years of good growth for California.
[5.] GERBER, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 5:20 p.m.)
I am certainly glad to be here this afternoon in Gerber. You are certainly most cordial in your welcome, and I appreciate it very much.
By now there is no secret about why I am out here. I am campaigning for the Democratic ticket, and it is giving a lot of people the jitters, too.
The President has five jobs, any one of which is a full-time job for most people. I am out here in my job as leader of the Democratic Party because I believe that the future peace and prosperity of this great country depend on the election of Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman and the whole Democratic ticket.
Now one of the newspapermen along on this trip has heard so much about my five jobs, as President, that I hear he wrote a little piece for his paper saying: "President Truman keeps talking about jobs all the time--five for himself and 62 million jobs for the rest of the American people." I like that description, because that is just what the Democrats have done for the last 20 years-we have brought jobs to 62 million people.
In the past 7 years the Democratic administration has brought more prosperity to the average man than in any period in the history of the country. Take railroad workers, for example--in 1945 the average straight-time hourly rate of railroad employees was about 93 cents. Under an increase effective October 1st, 1952, that income will be about $1.86, or an increase of exactly 100 percent.
The gains which railroad workers have made, and the gains which all the people have made, did not come about by accident. They came about because you had a government that worked for the welfare of the people. And you could *lose them if you get a government that did not care anything about the people.
I have here a copy of the Wall Street Journal-which I don't read very often, but I just happened to see this--and it has something in it which you will be interested in. It is dated May 26, 1952, and it has a headline which says: "Mr. Taft has some ideas." I expect he has. And they'll wreck the country if you give him a chance to carry them out, I can tell you that.
This article in the Wall Street Journal tells about Senator Taft's plans to crack down on labor unions if the Republicans get into power. The article talks about how Senator Taft wants to put more teeth into the Taft-Hartley Act.
You may not think this will affect you, but I will say this to you--if the Republicans get into power, they will crack down on everybody except the special interests that put them into power.
Keep these things in mind when you go to the polls next November. Weigh the record carefully. Vote for the party that is the party of the people, the party that has made the country prosperous over the last 20 years, the party that pulled us out of the greatest depression in the history of the world, the party that has kept the thing on an even keel. The economy of this country was never in a more balanced condition. The farmer is prosperous, the laboring man is receiving good wages, and the small businessman and the big businessman are making fantastic profits. And they squawk to beat the band about taxes, but how in the world could they squawk about them when 20 years ago they didn't even have the income to pay the taxes? Now when they have the income to pay the taxes, they want to quarrel about it. They still have more money left than they ever had in the history of the world.
Now you go to the polls on the 4th of November, and vote for your own interests. Vote the Democratic ticket and put Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman in the White House, and the country will be safe for another 4 years.
Thank you a lot.
[6.] DAVIS, CALIFORNIA (Rear platform, 7:28 p.m.)
I want to say to you that I think you have one of the greatest Governors in the United States. He has always been my friend, and I have always been his--and I shall always be.
I thank you most sincerely for the reception which you have given me. I appreciate it very much. You remember that I stopped here in June 1948. I was on a nonpolitical trip then, on my way down to Berkeley to get a degree from the University of California. I understand that the Agricultural College of the University is located here, and that you do some very fine experimental work here. I know you are contributing a great deal to the welfare and prosperity of the farmers of California, and I want to compliment you for that.
I wish I had time to get off the train and go and look at the farm where you carry on your experiments, because I am still interested in farm programs.
Now you photographers, don't do any shooting until I get through, then you can do all the shooting you like. I get so I can't see when you flash those things in my face. Maybe you like to do that--I don't know.
If I could stay here awhile, maybe we could work out some experiments on how to get the Republican Party to bring its policies on agriculture up to date.
The Republican candidate for President made a speech a few weeks ago and said his farm activities belonged to the day of the Percheron and the mule. I am sure General Eisenhower is right about that, and his thinking on agricultural problems does not seem to have developed very much since that date. In fact, I don't believe that he or the Republican Party have had a constructive idea on farm policy in 30 years, and I know what I am talking about.
The Republican candidate said something else in that speech that amazed me completely. He said that our Government agricultural programs were brought into being on a nonpartisan basis.
Now I just want to read you a part of the record, so you can see what this nonpartisan contribution by the Republicans was like.
In 1933--you remember 1933, it was pretty tough on the farmers--House Republicans voted against the Agricultural Adjustment Act in a ratio of 2 to 1. That same year they voted against TVA 8 to 1.
In 1936--and I was in the Senate at that time--they voted against the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act 3 to 1.
In 1938 they voted against the Triple-A, which is still our basic price support legislation, they voted against it 5 to 1
In 1939 they voted against parity payments 7 to 1.
In 1943 they voted to kill crop insurance 16 to 1. You remember that old ratio, don't you? California was interested in that at one time.
The same year they voted against expanding rural electric power facilities 3 to 1.
In 1947 they voted to kill the farm ownership program 8 to 1. That same year they voted to kill the agricultural conservation program 12 to 1.
In 1948 they voted to cripple the grain storage program, and they succeeded, until the Democratic 81st Congress rescinded that action.
In 1949 the majority of House Republicans voted against rural telephone programs--and they called it socialistic--a threat to free enterprise. That same year they voted against price supports on perishables 40 to 1.
In 1951 they voted to cripple crop insurance 2 to 1 That same year they voted against expanding rural electric power 9 to 1; and they also voted to cripple the conservation program.
And only last July a majority of House Republicans voted against the amendment assuring price supports at 90 percent of parity for 1953 and 1954.
Now they are claiming credit for that, although they voted against them. In the face of a record like that, how in the world can the Republican Party or its wonderful candidate claim credit for the farm programs we have today? That's what I call trying to rewrite history for political purposes.
I hate to think that the General was being deliberately dishonest. I don't think he was. I think it is more likely that he just didn't know what he was talking about. After all, why should he? He has spent all his life in the Army. He doesn't know anything about farming at all. No reason why he should. But when he has a bunch of political snollygosters around him giving him bad advice, he can't tell whether they are deceiving him or not. And I will tell you that is a mighty dangerous situation for the candidate to be in.
I am afraid it is true with respect to a lot of other subjects, as well as farm problems.
I don't believe you want to turn the country over to a combination like that. The thing for you to do, if you want a President who understands your problem, and a government that is interested in your welfare, is to vote the Democratic ticket. And I think that is exactly what you are going to do--just like you did in 1948.
for your own interests, for your own welfare and benefit, vote to send John Moss to Congress. He is a good Democrat. He will give you the kind of representation you ought to have.
Then, to top the thing off, in your own interest--now, you are the Government-you are the Government. I have been going over the record, and if you will go over the record, you will find just exactly who has been the friend of the people--and it hasn't been the Republican Party at all. They never were the friend of the common people.
You vote for yourselves. You vote for yourselves when you vote to continue good government. Vote for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman, and the country will be in safe hands for the next 4 years.
NOTE: In the course of his remarks on October 3, the President referred to John G. Jones, Democratic candidate for Representative, Walter Pierce, former Governor and former Representative, and Senator Wayne Morse, all of Oregon, Senator William Langer of North Dakota, Representative Clair Engle of California, Governor Earl Warren of California who introduced the President at Davis, Calif., and John Moss, Democratic candidate for Representative from California.