October 9, 1952
THANK YOU very much for that welcome. I certainly do appreciate it.
I shall never forget the wonderful reception you gave me in 1948--and the majority that you gave me that year, too. But I want you to do better this year and give an even bigger majority to Adlai Stevenson. I know you'll do it.
As you may have heard, at least there has been rumor about it, I have been going around the country campaigning for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman. I am trying to wake the people up to the fact that this is a most important election. I have been trying to tell them what the real issues are.
The basic issue in this campaign is a fundamental difference in philosophy between the two major political parties. The Republican Party believes in running the Government primarily for the benefit of the wealthy--this makes government for the privileged few. The Democratic Party believes in government for the people--for all the people of this United States.
That difference in philosophy is apparent in the platforms of the two parties, it is apparent in their records, and it is apparent in the difference between our candidates.
I might say that there are few places where it is more clearly apparent than in the difference between the Republican candidates for Congress and the Democratic candidates for Congress in your own great State of Ohio. Whenever an issue comes up in the Congress, you can be pretty sure what a man from Ohio is going to do. If he is a Republican, he will vote for the special interests. If he is a Democrat, he will vote for the people.
So I urge you, for your own sake and for the sake of your country, send us a lot of good Democrats from Ohio this year. Send Mike DiSalle to the United States Senate. He is a man you can count on.
Send Bob Crosser and Mike Feighan back to the House of Representatives. Those two men are on the side of the people every time. I expect there are a lot of people here from the districts where Chat Paterson and Michael O'Brien are running for Congress. They are good men. Send us good Democrats like that from all over Ohio and we will have a Congress to be proud of.
And I am glad to say that you have the same kind of Democrats in your State and city governments--men like Frank Lausche and Tom Burke. I hope you will keep them there as long as they are willing to stay.
It is vitally important for us to elect the right man as President of the United States this fall. These next 4 years are likely to be some of the most critical we have ever faced. We must have a President who understands the complex issues of modern government, and who has the skill and integrity to handle them wisely and honestly.
The Republicans have nominated a Regular Army general. He doesn't know much, if anything, about the real issues, and the Republican snollygosters don't want him to find out about them. They want to keep the real issues out of this campaign, because if they let them in, that would expose the whole Republican record. The Republican Party knows it would lose if it had to run on its record, and that's why they have put up a general. They think the military glamor is going to make the people forget the real issues. But we are not going to let them get away with that.
You know, this campaign reminds me a lot of the campaign of 1852. You can read about it in your history books. In that year, the Whig Party--which was the ancestor of the Republican Party--was hopelessly split, and wrong on the issues. So they nominated a regular general to get the people's minds off the issues. That nominee was General Winfield Scott, the great hero of the Mexican War, who was known as "Old fuss and feathers." He campaigned around the country, talking about nothing, and the Democrats defeated him. After that, the Whig Party broke up into little pieces, and passed away from the American political scene. Now I wonder if that same sort of thing might not happen to the Republicans this year.
One of the real issues in this campaign is what to do about high prices. Now the Republican Party has been talking a lot about high prices and the high cost of living. It's like sin, they're against it. So is everybody else. But what do the Republicans propose to do about it ? Well, they don't tell us.
The Republican candidate for President has moaned and groaned about high prices in almost every speech he has made. But you can go all over those speeches, and read them with a magnifying glass, and you still won't know what he proposes to do about it. All he says is--elect me, and your troubles will be over. As a program, that has some badly missing elements.
Does the Republican candidate say anything about price control--that is, anything that you can understand ? Not a word. Is he in favor of stronger controls? Well, he doesn't say.
The reason is perfectly clear. His party won't let him say anything positive about price controls, because the special interest lobbies who control that party are against them. Now they are against them--and the Democratic Party is for them. The Democratic Party has been working for price controls-to help you balance your budget--and the Republican Party has been kicking and bucking and punching holes in them, and doing everything possible to weaken them.
So there's something else you won't find out much about in the Republican candidate's speeches. That's the Republican record in Congress on high prices. I don't blame him for not talking about that. If I were in his place, I wouldn't talk about it either--because it's bad. However, I don't happen to be in his place, so I'm going to see if I can't do something about remedying that omission in his speeches.
I am going to ask you to go back and look at the Republican record on the whole question of price controls.
Right after World War II we had a very inflationary situation in this country. People had lots of money, and the production of civilian goods had not come back far enough to meet the demand. The only thing that held prices down was price control. The Republican Party, almost to a man, was for taking controls off. And they succeeded in getting that done in 1946. The result was just as I predicted it would be. The cost of living rose 15 percent in 6 months. It was the worst inflationary rise in our history.
In 1947 and in 1948 I tried to get controls put back. That was during the Republican "do-nothing" 80th Congress, and of course they just laughed at the idea of controlling prices.
In 1949 prices levelled out a bit. Then came the aggression in Korea, and everybody foolishly rushed down to the stores and began to buy up everything they could put their hands on. That sent prices rushing right up again. By the time we got a price control law and a general freeze of prices and wages, the cost of living had gone up another 8 percent.
But with price control in effect prices began to level off, and hold steady.
And what did the Republicans do at this point? Did they rejoice, and help us keep a firm control on prices? Not at all.
The special interest lobbies descended on Washington and tried to get increases or exemptions for their products. And the Republicans in Congress began to hack and chop away at the control law, in order to legalize profiteering for the few.
Let me give you a few examples. Senator Capehart sponsored a terrible amendment that bears his name--but could more properly be called the National Association of Manufacturers amendment. That amendment has by now cost the American people just about a billion dollars or more in higher prices.
Last year Republican Senators voted 36 to 5 to curtail price rollbacks--and 37 to 3 for an amendment which prevented effective control of black marketing in meat. This year they voted 22 to 14 to end all price and wage controls; and only a Democratic vote of 43 to 1 saved what is left of protection to the consumer.
The Republican Senators have voted against rent control, too, and it has taken the votes of the Democrats to preserve such rent control as we have.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives have just as bad a record as the Republican Senators. In June 1950, 80 percent of the Republicans in the House voted to end rent control and let the landlords make a killing.
This year they voted again to end rent controls by 6 to 1.
They voted to suspend price control on any item which is not rationed--and that means food and automobiles and everything else that a person has to buy. And that vote was by almost a 4 to 1 majority of the House Republicans.
I could recite many more such votes. The Republicans tried, and in some cases succeeded, in putting across measures in favor of almost every rich man's lobby that came to Washington--the big meat packers, the railroads, the National Association of Manufacturers, the real estate interests, the chain grocery stores, and all the rest.
And now their candidate has the nerve to mourn over high prices, and to promise to fix everything up, if he is elected. With a record like that, you can be sure his party will murder what is left of price controls if it ever gets hold of the Government.
There is one way the Republicans could reduce prices, and I think they might be willing to try it. And that is to bring on a depression--not a big depression, you know, like they had in 1932, but just a little bit of a depression. They would just like to have a little depression, so they could get control of labor and prices.
I'm not sure you would be willing to try that, even if the Republican bankers are. And anyway, these little Republican depressions somehow have a habit of turning into big ones.
To say that the Republicans are the party of low prices is like saying the shark is man's best friend, or that tigers make nice household pets.
In spite of all the Republican opposition in Congress, we have been doing what we can to hold prices level. I called to Washington to help me on this, one of the ablest citizens of Ohio, Mike DiSalle. He did a fine job, and if you people of Ohio want good government, you will send him to the Senate, where he will represent the interests of the people.
If you elect him, and a firmly Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, you can expect to have some help in your struggle with the high cost of living. But, my friends, don't expect it from the Republicans, because their record shows they are not interested in what you want.
Another thing the Republican candidate for President has been moaning about is taxes. Now, I wish taxes were not so high, particularly for the people with moderate incomes. But the only reason they are so high is that we need money for our defense against Communist aggression and war. That is the only reason. We could slash our taxes tomorrow if we weren't in danger.
The Republicans talk as if we weren't getting anything for our taxes. But they know what our tax money is going for.
The average workingman, and everybody else in this country, has been purchasing, over the last 2 years, with his taxes, something more valuable than anything he could buy in the stores.
He has been buying national security. He has been purchasing the armaments with which to defend something infinitely more precious than dollars--and that is his own country and his own future.
The Republican Party and the Republican candidate know perfectly well that this is the reason we have to pay high taxes.
And yet, the Republican candidate is going up and down the country promising tax cuts, and budget cuts, and saying the people are on an "economic treadmill."
The Republican candidate did not speak up in 1950 against the defense program. He did not say, when he was called upon to go to Europe, that he did not agree with the objectives of rearming this country and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty. No, he was in favor, then, of our national security.
Well, my friends, he cannot have it both ways.
Either he wants to build up our defenses rapidly--and that means taxes-or he wants to weaken our security in order to reduce taxes.
He doesn't say which he proposes.
He talks instead about efficiency and eliminating waste.
Now, the Government is always working to eliminate waste, and trying to achieve better management.
In order to make the Government more efficient, I have sent a great many reorganization plans to the Congress. Most of these plans were approved by the Congress and are now in effect. Much has been achieved under them. More would have been achieved if the Congress had not turned down my other reorganization plans--and it was usually the Republicans that led the attack on them.
Great progress has been made in the military establishment in the last few years toward eliminating waste and improving efficiency. A single program by the Army for reclaiming and rebuilding old equipment has saved hundreds of millions of dollars. The Army has improved a great deal in that respect since the Republican candidate was Chief of Staff.
Further improvement is always possible. And I think real progress will be made along this line by Adlai Stevenson, who is known in Illinois--and elsewhere--as a tightfisted man with a dollar.
Now I see no reason to expect that the Republican candidate will do as well. He was in a position to cut waste in the military, as Chief of Staff of the Army. But I do not recall that he brought about any conspicuous examples of doing so. He certainly did no better in this respect than General Marshall before him or General Bradley and General Collins after him. And he knows that military expenditures simply cannot be cut enough to reduce taxes, without weakening our defense and injuring our national security.
This is just the old film-flare, and the Republican Party hopes that we will be so dazzled by their general, that we will not see through his specious arguments.
Now I am urging you to keep your eye on the ball. We have to realize that this military candidate is simply a front man for the party that has fought price and rent control, and has tried to open loopholes in our control laws and our tax laws for the powerful interests.
And remember, while prices may be high today, and the dollar may not be worth as much as it once was, it is a lot easier to get a dollar today--and there are a lot more of them.
I'll agree that a dollar would buy more in 1932. But in 1932 it took many people an entire day's labor to earn a dollar. Is that what we want to go back to ? There was a situation in 1932 where the vast majority of us did not have any dollars and we had to go and beg and sell apples.
So when you go out to the polls on November the 4th, look at the record of the Democrats in the Congress. Look at the record of the Republicans in the Congress and decide which is your party--where your interest lies. Look at the abilities of the candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency. Look where they stand on the great issues of this day. Decide which party and which candidates deserve your trust to lead this country through the difficult days ahead.
Now, if you do this, I have no doubt for whom you will vote. You will elect a Democratic Congress, and you will elect Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman overwhelmingly.
NOTE: The President spoke at 3:15 p.m. in the Public Square at Cleveland, Ohio. During his remarks he referred to Democratic candidate for Senator Michael V. DiSalle, Representatives Robert Crosser and Michael A. Feighan, Democratic candidates for Representative Chat Paterson and Michael P. O'Brien, Governor Frank J. Lausche, and Mayor Thomas A. Burke of Cleveland, all of Ohio; and to Senator Homer H. Capehart of Indiana.
THANK YOU very much for that welcome. I certainly do appreciate it.
I shall never forget the wonderful reception you gave me in 1948--and the majority that you gave me that year, too. But I want you to do better this year and give an even bigger majority to Adlai Stevenson. I know you'll do it.
As you may have heard, at least there has been rumor about it, I have been going around the country campaigning for Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman. I am trying to wake the people up to the fact that this is a most important election. I have been trying to tell them what the real issues are.
The basic issue in this campaign is a fundamental difference in philosophy between the two major political parties. The Republican Party believes in running the Government primarily for the benefit of the wealthy--this makes government for the privileged few. The Democratic Party believes in government for the people--for all the people of this United States.
That difference in philosophy is apparent in the platforms of the two parties, it is apparent in their records, and it is apparent in the difference between our candidates.
I might say that there are few places where it is more clearly apparent than in the difference between the Republican candidates for Congress and the Democratic candidates for Congress in your own great State of Ohio. Whenever an issue comes up in the Congress, you can be pretty sure what a man from Ohio is going to do. If he is a Republican, he will vote for the special interests. If he is a Democrat, he will vote for the people.
So I urge you, for your own sake and for the sake of your country, send us a lot of good Democrats from Ohio this year. Send Mike DiSalle to the United States Senate. He is a man you can count on.
Send Bob Crosser and Mike Feighan back to the House of Representatives. Those two men are on the side of the people every time. I expect there are a lot of people here from the districts where Chat Paterson and Michael O'Brien are running for Congress. They are good men. Send us good Democrats like that from all over Ohio and we will have a Congress to be proud of.
And I am glad to say that you have the same kind of Democrats in your State and city governments--men like Frank Lausche and Tom Burke. I hope you will keep them there as long as they are willing to stay.
It is vitally important for us to elect the right man as President of the United States this fall. These next 4 years are likely to be some of the most critical we have ever faced. We must have a President who understands the complex issues of modern government, and who has the skill and integrity to handle them wisely and honestly.
The Republicans have nominated a Regular Army general. He doesn't know much, if anything, about the real issues, and the Republican snollygosters don't want him to find out about them. They want to keep the real issues out of this campaign, because if they let them in, that would expose the whole Republican record. The Republican Party knows it would lose if it had to run on its record, and that's why they have put up a general. They think the military glamor is going to make the people forget the real issues. But we are not going to let them get away with that.
You know, this campaign reminds me a lot of the campaign of 1852. You can read about it in your history books. In that year, the Whig Party--which was the ancestor of the Republican Party--was hopelessly split, and wrong on the issues. So they nominated a regular general to get the people's minds off the issues. That nominee was General Winfield Scott, the great hero of the Mexican War, who was known as "Old fuss and feathers." He campaigned around the country, talking about nothing, and the Democrats defeated him. After that, the Whig Party broke up into little pieces, and passed away from the American political scene. Now I wonder if that same sort of thing might not happen to the Republicans this year.
One of the real issues in this campaign is what to do about high prices. Now the Republican Party has been talking a lot about high prices and the high cost of living. It's like sin, they're against it. So is everybody else. But what do the Republicans propose to do about it ? Well, they don't tell us.
The Republican candidate for President has moaned and groaned about high prices in almost every speech he has made. But you can go all over those speeches, and read them with a magnifying glass, and you still won't know what he proposes to do about it. All he says is--elect me, and your troubles will be over. As a program, that has some badly missing elements.
Does the Republican candidate say anything about price control--that is, anything that you can understand ? Not a word. Is he in favor of stronger controls? Well, he doesn't say.
The reason is perfectly clear. His party won't let him say anything positive about price controls, because the special interest lobbies who control that party are against them. Now they are against them--and the Democratic Party is for them. The Democratic Party has been working for price controls-to help you balance your budget--and the Republican Party has been kicking and bucking and punching holes in them, and doing everything possible to weaken them.
So there's something else you won't find out much about in the Republican candidate's speeches. That's the Republican record in Congress on high prices. I don't blame him for not talking about that. If I were in his place, I wouldn't talk about it either--because it's bad. However, I don't happen to be in his place, so I'm going to see if I can't do something about remedying that omission in his speeches.
I am going to ask you to go back and look at the Republican record on the whole question of price controls.
Right after World War II we had a very inflationary situation in this country. People had lots of money, and the production of civilian goods had not come back far enough to meet the demand. The only thing that held prices down was price control. The Republican Party, almost to a man, was for taking controls off. And they succeeded in getting that done in 1946. The result was just as I predicted it would be. The cost of living rose 15 percent in 6 months. It was the worst inflationary rise in our history.
In 1947 and in 1948 I tried to get controls put back. That was during the Republican "do-nothing" 80th Congress, and of course they just laughed at the idea of controlling prices.
In 1949 prices levelled out a bit. Then came the aggression in Korea, and everybody foolishly rushed down to the stores and began to buy up everything they could put their hands on. That sent prices rushing right up again. By the time we got a price control law and a general freeze of prices and wages, the cost of living had gone up another 8 percent.
But with price control in effect prices began to level off, and hold steady.
And what did the Republicans do at this point? Did they rejoice, and help us keep a firm control on prices? Not at all.
The special interest lobbies descended on Washington and tried to get increases or exemptions for their products. And the Republicans in Congress began to hack and chop away at the control law, in order to legalize profiteering for the few.
Let me give you a few examples. Senator Capehart sponsored a terrible amendment that bears his name--but could more properly be called the National Association of Manufacturers amendment. That amendment has by now cost the American people just about a billion dollars or more in higher prices.
Last year Republican Senators voted 36 to 5 to curtail price rollbacks--and 37 to 3 for an amendment which prevented effective control of black marketing in meat. This year they voted 22 to 14 to end all price and wage controls; and only a Democratic vote of 43 to 1 saved what is left of protection to the consumer.
The Republican Senators have voted against rent control, too, and it has taken the votes of the Democrats to preserve such rent control as we have.
The Republicans in the House of Representatives have just as bad a record as the Republican Senators. In June 1950, 80 percent of the Republicans in the House voted to end rent control and let the landlords make a killing.
This year they voted again to end rent controls by 6 to 1.
They voted to suspend price control on any item which is not rationed--and that means food and automobiles and everything else that a person has to buy. And that vote was by almost a 4 to 1 majority of the House Republicans.
I could recite many more such votes. The Republicans tried, and in some cases succeeded, in putting across measures in favor of almost every rich man's lobby that came to Washington--the big meat packers, the railroads, the National Association of Manufacturers, the real estate interests, the chain grocery stores, and all the rest.
And now their candidate has the nerve to mourn over high prices, and to promise to fix everything up, if he is elected. With a record like that, you can be sure his party will murder what is left of price controls if it ever gets hold of the Government.
There is one way the Republicans could reduce prices, and I think they might be willing to try it. And that is to bring on a depression--not a big depression, you know, like they had in 1932, but just a little bit of a depression. They would just like to have a little depression, so they could get control of labor and prices.
I'm not sure you would be willing to try that, even if the Republican bankers are. And anyway, these little Republican depressions somehow have a habit of turning into big ones.
To say that the Republicans are the party of low prices is like saying the shark is man's best friend, or that tigers make nice household pets.
In spite of all the Republican opposition in Congress, we have been doing what we can to hold prices level. I called to Washington to help me on this, one of the ablest citizens of Ohio, Mike DiSalle. He did a fine job, and if you people of Ohio want good government, you will send him to the Senate, where he will represent the interests of the people.
If you elect him, and a firmly Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, you can expect to have some help in your struggle with the high cost of living. But, my friends, don't expect it from the Republicans, because their record shows they are not interested in what you want.
Another thing the Republican candidate for President has been moaning about is taxes. Now, I wish taxes were not so high, particularly for the people with moderate incomes. But the only reason they are so high is that we need money for our defense against Communist aggression and war. That is the only reason. We could slash our taxes tomorrow if we weren't in danger.
The Republicans talk as if we weren't getting anything for our taxes. But they know what our tax money is going for.
The average workingman, and everybody else in this country, has been purchasing, over the last 2 years, with his taxes, something more valuable than anything he could buy in the stores.
He has been buying national security. He has been purchasing the armaments with which to defend something infinitely more precious than dollars--and that is his own country and his own future.
The Republican Party and the Republican candidate know perfectly well that this is the reason we have to pay high taxes.
And yet, the Republican candidate is going up and down the country promising tax cuts, and budget cuts, and saying the people are on an "economic treadmill."
The Republican candidate did not speak up in 1950 against the defense program. He did not say, when he was called upon to go to Europe, that he did not agree with the objectives of rearming this country and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty. No, he was in favor, then, of our national security.
Well, my friends, he cannot have it both ways.
Either he wants to build up our defenses rapidly--and that means taxes-or he wants to weaken our security in order to reduce taxes.
He doesn't say which he proposes.
He talks instead about efficiency and eliminating waste.
Now, the Government is always working to eliminate waste, and trying to achieve better management.
In order to make the Government more efficient, I have sent a great many reorganization plans to the Congress. Most of these plans were approved by the Congress and are now in effect. Much has been achieved under them. More would have been achieved if the Congress had not turned down my other reorganization plans--and it was usually the Republicans that led the attack on them.
Great progress has been made in the military establishment in the last few years toward eliminating waste and improving efficiency. A single program by the Army for reclaiming and rebuilding old equipment has saved hundreds of millions of dollars. The Army has improved a great deal in that respect since the Republican candidate was Chief of Staff.
Further improvement is always possible. And I think real progress will be made along this line by Adlai Stevenson, who is known in Illinois--and elsewhere--as a tightfisted man with a dollar.
Now I see no reason to expect that the Republican candidate will do as well. He was in a position to cut waste in the military, as Chief of Staff of the Army. But I do not recall that he brought about any conspicuous examples of doing so. He certainly did no better in this respect than General Marshall before him or General Bradley and General Collins after him. And he knows that military expenditures simply cannot be cut enough to reduce taxes, without weakening our defense and injuring our national security.
This is just the old film-flare, and the Republican Party hopes that we will be so dazzled by their general, that we will not see through his specious arguments.
Now I am urging you to keep your eye on the ball. We have to realize that this military candidate is simply a front man for the party that has fought price and rent control, and has tried to open loopholes in our control laws and our tax laws for the powerful interests.
And remember, while prices may be high today, and the dollar may not be worth as much as it once was, it is a lot easier to get a dollar today--and there are a lot more of them.
I'll agree that a dollar would buy more in 1932. But in 1932 it took many people an entire day's labor to earn a dollar. Is that what we want to go back to ? There was a situation in 1932 where the vast majority of us did not have any dollars and we had to go and beg and sell apples.
So when you go out to the polls on November the 4th, look at the record of the Democrats in the Congress. Look at the record of the Republicans in the Congress and decide which is your party--where your interest lies. Look at the abilities of the candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency. Look where they stand on the great issues of this day. Decide which party and which candidates deserve your trust to lead this country through the difficult days ahead.
Now, if you do this, I have no doubt for whom you will vote. You will elect a Democratic Congress, and you will elect Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman overwhelmingly.
NOTE: The President spoke at 3:15 p.m. in the Public Square at Cleveland, Ohio. During his remarks he referred to Democratic candidate for Senator Michael V. DiSalle, Representatives Robert Crosser and Michael A. Feighan, Democratic candidates for Representative Chat Paterson and Michael P. O'Brien, Governor Frank J. Lausche, and Mayor Thomas A. Burke of Cleveland, all of Ohio; and to Senator Homer H. Capehart of Indiana.