October 9, 1952
THE WELCOME you have given me reminds me of the welcome I received when I came here in 1948. I shall always remember that. And I shall also remember the good majority that Buffalo gave me in that election.
Now, this year I want you to give an even bigger majority to Adlai Stevenson. Also, I want you to turn in good majorities for the Democratic ticket in this great State. You people here have a chance to send three good Democrats to Congress. Two of them have represented you in Congress before. They have good, liberal records. They did a fine job for you in Washington. They are Anthony Tauriello and Chester Gorski. I hope you will send them back again, and I believe you will.
In the 42d District, you have a candidate who knows all about the needs of this area. He is E. Dent Lackey, and if you send him to Congress, you will have someone who will look out for your interests and not just the interests of the big business lobbies.
For the Senate, you have John Cashmore of Brooklyn. He is an able, well-qualified, and a good man, and I hope you will elect him. You have one Senator in the Senate of whom I am very fond already, and that is Senator Lehman. He is a wonderful Senator. He is always on the side of the people.
This year I am not campaigning for myself--but for something I believe to be necessary to the progress and prosperity of this country. It is vitally necessary for the welfare of this country that we have a Democratic victory in November.
I am not asking for anything for myself. I have had a rugged 4 years since I saw you last, and I have received a lot of mud and brickbats. But I don't feel too badly about those attacks that have been made on me, because I know the reason for them. It is that I have been working for the interests of the people.
If a President is truly working for the people, the special interest lobbies and the one-party press are sure to start smearing and slandering him. If he resists the big interests-if he tries to keep price control on the big corporations, for example, if he tries to prevent the oil companies or the gas companies from robbing the public--then it doesn't matter how decent he is, or how honest, the editorials and the hatchet commentators will try to make him look like a monster. My daughter never thought I looked like one.
On the other hand, if a President, or even a candidate for President, is on the side of the big interests, then no matter how he may behave, or what preposterous things he may say, the newspaper publishers will try to cover up for him and present him to the people as a great statesman. That is what they are doing for their Republican candidate this year.
So, on the whole, I am proud of the attacks that have been made on me. I have made my fair share of mistakes, I know; but I am confident that while I have been President, I have represented the 150 million people who don't have a lobby down there in Washington working for them. There's the oil lobby, the real estate lobby, and the National Association of Manufacturers lobby, and the railroad lobby, and the American Medical Association lobby. There's a lobby for this, that, and the other thing, so the President has to look out for the interests of the 150 million people who can't afford lobbyists in Washington.
And I know Adlai Stevenson will do that for you when you elect him, just as I have done it.
One of the things for which I have been most savagely attacked is my effort to preserve the Bill of Rights, the greatest part of the Constitution of the United States, and the spirit of mutual tolerance and fair play that we must have to hold this Nation together.
Ours is a nation of many different groups, of different races, different national origins and different religions. The American principle is that all men shall have equal rights before the law and that all men have equal rights in our economic life. This is the idea that holds us together, and it has made us the greatest nation in the history of the world.
But, my friends, this principle is always under attack. Some people are always trying to cut down the liberties of others--or block the progress of racial or national groups different from their own.
Let me tell you this; the President, whoever he may be, is, in many cases, the last line of defense against those attacks on your freedom. And it is better to be sure that you have a man in the White House, these next 4 years, who understands what it takes to preserve your rights. It is better for you to have a man who is not afraid to use the powers of his office to veto measures that endanger your liberty. For I believe the pressures are going to be heavier than ever, these next 4 years, to break down the principles of the Bill of Rights. And, quite frankly, this is one part of the job of being President that you better not turn over to a professional military general.
Now I want to tell you tonight about a fight that has been going on, during my term of office, over this question of equality and freedom. I want to show you how the Democratic Party in Congress has been on the side of the people in this fight, and the Republican Party in Congress has been against us.
Many of us have ties--of kinship or national origin--with lands beyond the sea. We feel deeply the trials and troubles those nations are experiencing. We are distressed by the terrible ordeal of the people of Poland and Hungary and other countries of Eastern Europe behind the godless Iron Curtain. We know the struggles of the people of such nations as Italy and Greece, to withstand communism and find employment and prosperity.
We want to help these people and we have been helping them. We have been helping them through our Government and through the efforts of individuals and private organizations. We have sent relief to them. I understand that the people of Buffalo did an extraordinary job of sending clothing for overseas relief; and I congratulate you on it.
We have helped displaced persons from some of these countries.
Our whole foreign policy is designed to strengthen these countries where they are still free, and to work toward the day of freedom for those that are enslaved.
We are engaged in a great effort around the world to hold back the godless forces of Communist aggression, and to prevent another world war. We helped the Greeks to defeat the Communist invasion of their soil, and our aid has kept Turkey free and independent. Through the Marshall plan and military aid, we strengthened the free countries of Europe. We have helped them to crush the Communist conspiracy within their borders, and to build defenses against the Communist threat from without.
One of the great victories in this fight was the support we gave to the cause of freedom in the elections in Italy in 1948. The letters that citizens of this country wrote to their friends and relatives in Italy that year, did a great deal to turn the tide against communism in Europe. Those letters showed that the people of this country, as well as this Government, have made common cause with free men around the world in the fight against communism.
We have done more than this. We have built the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and helped to set up a unified army to defend Europe. We have brought a new Germany back into the community of nations. In the far East, we have helped to set up a group of new and independent nations, from India to the Philippines. We are strengthening them against communism. We have restored Japan to its place on the side of freedom.
At the point where Communist armed aggression threatened to break through, in Korea, we have held the dyke. This has cost us much, and the sacrifices still go on. But if it checks the Communist plan of conquest, and prevents a third world war, it will have been worth all the losses and all the pain.
This is what we have been doing, around the world, and it has brought new life to free men everywhere. It has brought new hope and courage to the hearts of those who still must live under the Communist yoke.
But we must not encourage rash adventures. We are not going to ask the unarmed people of the Iron Curtain countries to rise up against their aggressors, and sacrifice themselves before firing squads of the Kremlin. That may be what the Republican candidate for President and his foreign policy advisers are urging--in order to get votes in this country. But we are not going to do it. It might lead to war, and it would certainly be a useless slaughter of brave men and women behind the Iron Curtain.
There is, however, one more thing we want to do, and we find it very hard to do, because of Republican opposition. That is to find new homes and new opportunities, particularly in our own country, for some of the people of those lands.
Our immigration laws bar the way to this kind of help. They keep us from doing what we should for the refugees from the Soviet terror, and for the victims of overcrowding in the free countries.
Now, I want to tell you something about these laws.
Our immigration laws are based on the National Origin Quota System. This system limits the immigration quotas of each European country, in accordance with the past contribution of that country to the population of the United States. Under this system, we can admit over 65,000 British subjects every year, although very few want to come over. But we can only admit 6,500 from Poland or 5,600 from Italy or 308 from Greece--countries where the need is great and pressing.
This National Origin Quota System is a Republican invention. It was conceived and written into law under a Republican President and a Republican Congress in the 1920's. It is based on a discredited and un-American theory of racial superiority. That theory considers the so-called Nordics from England and Northern Europe to be superior to persons born in Italy, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland, or any other country of Southern or Eastern Europe. It's all wrong.
Now the Republicans took full credit for this discriminatory policy. They boasted of it, as one of their achievements, in their 1932 platform.
It is, of course, necessary to regulate the flow of immigration and to have some kind of limitation on numbers. It is also necessary to exclude undesirable individuals. But I think it is un-American to exclude a qualified, worthy individual just because he comes from Poland or Italy or Hungary. And that is exactly what happens under this Republican law.
The policies of the Republican Party haven't changed very much since they wrote this law in 1924. Let me prove that to you.
After the Second World War, I wanted to do something to help the millions of uprooted and homeless persons in Europe. At my urging, the 80th Congress adopted the Displaced Persons Act. That was necessary to get around the restrictions of the National Origin Quota System, and let a substantial number of those people in. But the 80th Congress wrote in to the Displaced Persons Act provisions that deliberately discriminated against Catholics and Jews.
I made those provisions a campaign issue in 1948, and after we won, the Democratic 81st Congress repealed them.
Now the Displaced Persons Act has expired. There are still people in Europe that need our help. First, there are the brave men and women who manage to escape the Soviet terror and cross the Iron Curtain. Then, there are thousands of desirable immigrants in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Greece. But we cannot help these people as we want to because of the old Republican National Origin Quota System.
So, this year--get this, now--so this year I asked the Congress to modify our laws again to let some of these people in. And what did they do? They passed a bill which does nothing for this emergency problem in Europe, and which reenacts the National Origin Quota System.
This new law--which is just as unfair as the old to the people of Southern and Eastern Europe--had the support of the Republicans in the Senate, 4 to 1. I vetoed that law, and they passed it over my veto.
Now this law bears the name of a Democratic Senator. And I'm sorry that it does, but he is not my kind of Democrat. My kind of Democrat was fighting against that law, and the leader of that fight was your own brave Senator Lehman.
He has done more to expose the whole injustice of our immigration laws than anyone else. And he has had a lot of good Democratic support.
Now the Democratic Party is not going to give up on this issue. Our platform this year pledges us to work against the unfair and unjust features of the present law, and to get a decent law in its place. And I have appointed a commission to study the present law in operation, and to report to me before the next Congress meets.
But the Republican platform doesn't even have the word immigration in it. The fact is the Republicans are well satisfied with the unfair immigration law we now have. It could not have been enacted without their almost solid support in the Congress. And I know it couldn't have passed over my veto without their support.
The Republican candidate for President was asked about immigration, but he didn't have any views on the subject. The Republican candidate for Vice President was one of the Senators who voted in favor of this unjust law, and he voted to override my veto.
So now you know where the top Republicans stand. They're just against us, as usual.
If you want that law changed--if you want a decent break for the brave anti-Communist people of Europe--you'd better vote the Democratic ticket.
The National Origin Quota System isn't the only bad feature of this new immigration law. The whole statute breathes prejudice against the foreign born--alien and naturalized citizen alike. It establishes a cruel and restrictive procedure against aliens, and a second class status, before the law, for naturalized citizens. And that, my friends, is an outrage of the worst sort.
Now the excuse for these discriminatory and restrictive provisions is the fear of communism. Because we are opposed to communism, we are asked to adopt restrictions that violate the spirit of our institutions-restrictions that bear most heavily on persons from such countries as Italy, Greece, and Poland, who are just as opposed to communism as we are here in this country. Now what is the logic in that?
I'll tell you--there just isn't any.
There is no logic in it--but there is plenty of prejudice--prejudice against people with foreign names and foreign backgrounds.
Why is it that the politicians who make the loudest noise about being against communism are usually the ones who oppose foreign aid, and favor new legal restrictions on aliens and on naturalized citizens? I wish somebody would answer that question for me.
Why, in this country, every good citizen is opposed to communism. We have taken firm measures against it. We have prosecuted the leaders of communism for breaking our laws, and we have a complete security system for our Federal Government. We have the FBI, which is doing a good job--and we have counter-espionage activities that I can't talk about because they are secret. And our intelligence agencies are constantly on the alert.
What then, is all this current oratory on the Republican side about?
Well, I am going to tell you.
There is a group of hotheads--mostly Republicans, with a few Democrats--who want to break down all our constitutional guarantees in dealing with the problem of communism. They want to do away with the Bill of Rights, whenever a man is accused of communism. They want to be able to deport a man on the basis of mere suspicion. And they are trying heroically to do it. I don't call it very heroic, either. This immigration law that I vetoed was a step in the direction of such lawless and unconstitutional procedures.
But I am not going to yield to this pressure to weaken the Bill of Rights--and neither, if I know him, will Adlai Stevenson.
Because the Bill of Rights protects us all. Once it is broken down in one direction, the irrational forces of prejudice and hate will break through, and endanger all of us. And the first people to suffer, if this happens, will be naturalized citizens and those of foreign parentage--and all those whose roots in this country are relatively new.
This sort of thing has happened before in our history. It happened in the days of the "Know-Nothings," a secret party dedicated to hatred of immigrants and of the Catholic Church. It happened after World War I, when a wave of hysteria about communism led to violent and illegal acts against aliens and persons of foreign extraction and labor organizations.
It could happen again, unless we hold firm against prejudice and racial hatred--unless we stand on the Bill of Rights and hold a man innocent until he is proved guilty.
I have been trying to stand firm on that principle. I have been abused and criticized for it. But I am sure that it has been in the best interests of my country.
So now I say to you tonight, beware of the candidate whose sole stock in trade is self-proclamation of anti-communism. Beware of a party that tries to make votes out of false charges about communism. The hysteria, the irrational fear, that they are manipulating in one direction today, may turn against other groups tomorrow.
Once these deep forces of prejudice and unreason are set loose, no man can tell where they will go. They could tear our Nation apart, setting group against group, creed against creed, the older immigrant stocks against the newer.
Let us recognize this menace, and defend our American principles against it--our principles of tolerance and equality before the law, and adherence to the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.
The way to do that, my friends, is to vote for the party that has stood firm for civil rights and civil liberties and a decent immigration law. The way to do that is to vote for a man whose career shows that he understands our system of constitutional liberty, and that he has the courage to defend it, and that man is Adlai Stevenson of Illinois.
NOTE: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall at Buffalo, N.Y. During his remarks he referred to Anthony F. Tauriello, Chester C. Gorski, and E. Dent Lackey, Democratic candidates for Representative, John Cashmore, Democratic candidate for Senator, and Senator Herbert H. Lehman, all of New York.
THE WELCOME you have given me reminds me of the welcome I received when I came here in 1948. I shall always remember that. And I shall also remember the good majority that Buffalo gave me in that election.
Now, this year I want you to give an even bigger majority to Adlai Stevenson. Also, I want you to turn in good majorities for the Democratic ticket in this great State. You people here have a chance to send three good Democrats to Congress. Two of them have represented you in Congress before. They have good, liberal records. They did a fine job for you in Washington. They are Anthony Tauriello and Chester Gorski. I hope you will send them back again, and I believe you will.
In the 42d District, you have a candidate who knows all about the needs of this area. He is E. Dent Lackey, and if you send him to Congress, you will have someone who will look out for your interests and not just the interests of the big business lobbies.
For the Senate, you have John Cashmore of Brooklyn. He is an able, well-qualified, and a good man, and I hope you will elect him. You have one Senator in the Senate of whom I am very fond already, and that is Senator Lehman. He is a wonderful Senator. He is always on the side of the people.
This year I am not campaigning for myself--but for something I believe to be necessary to the progress and prosperity of this country. It is vitally necessary for the welfare of this country that we have a Democratic victory in November.
I am not asking for anything for myself. I have had a rugged 4 years since I saw you last, and I have received a lot of mud and brickbats. But I don't feel too badly about those attacks that have been made on me, because I know the reason for them. It is that I have been working for the interests of the people.
If a President is truly working for the people, the special interest lobbies and the one-party press are sure to start smearing and slandering him. If he resists the big interests-if he tries to keep price control on the big corporations, for example, if he tries to prevent the oil companies or the gas companies from robbing the public--then it doesn't matter how decent he is, or how honest, the editorials and the hatchet commentators will try to make him look like a monster. My daughter never thought I looked like one.
On the other hand, if a President, or even a candidate for President, is on the side of the big interests, then no matter how he may behave, or what preposterous things he may say, the newspaper publishers will try to cover up for him and present him to the people as a great statesman. That is what they are doing for their Republican candidate this year.
So, on the whole, I am proud of the attacks that have been made on me. I have made my fair share of mistakes, I know; but I am confident that while I have been President, I have represented the 150 million people who don't have a lobby down there in Washington working for them. There's the oil lobby, the real estate lobby, and the National Association of Manufacturers lobby, and the railroad lobby, and the American Medical Association lobby. There's a lobby for this, that, and the other thing, so the President has to look out for the interests of the 150 million people who can't afford lobbyists in Washington.
And I know Adlai Stevenson will do that for you when you elect him, just as I have done it.
One of the things for which I have been most savagely attacked is my effort to preserve the Bill of Rights, the greatest part of the Constitution of the United States, and the spirit of mutual tolerance and fair play that we must have to hold this Nation together.
Ours is a nation of many different groups, of different races, different national origins and different religions. The American principle is that all men shall have equal rights before the law and that all men have equal rights in our economic life. This is the idea that holds us together, and it has made us the greatest nation in the history of the world.
But, my friends, this principle is always under attack. Some people are always trying to cut down the liberties of others--or block the progress of racial or national groups different from their own.
Let me tell you this; the President, whoever he may be, is, in many cases, the last line of defense against those attacks on your freedom. And it is better to be sure that you have a man in the White House, these next 4 years, who understands what it takes to preserve your rights. It is better for you to have a man who is not afraid to use the powers of his office to veto measures that endanger your liberty. For I believe the pressures are going to be heavier than ever, these next 4 years, to break down the principles of the Bill of Rights. And, quite frankly, this is one part of the job of being President that you better not turn over to a professional military general.
Now I want to tell you tonight about a fight that has been going on, during my term of office, over this question of equality and freedom. I want to show you how the Democratic Party in Congress has been on the side of the people in this fight, and the Republican Party in Congress has been against us.
Many of us have ties--of kinship or national origin--with lands beyond the sea. We feel deeply the trials and troubles those nations are experiencing. We are distressed by the terrible ordeal of the people of Poland and Hungary and other countries of Eastern Europe behind the godless Iron Curtain. We know the struggles of the people of such nations as Italy and Greece, to withstand communism and find employment and prosperity.
We want to help these people and we have been helping them. We have been helping them through our Government and through the efforts of individuals and private organizations. We have sent relief to them. I understand that the people of Buffalo did an extraordinary job of sending clothing for overseas relief; and I congratulate you on it.
We have helped displaced persons from some of these countries.
Our whole foreign policy is designed to strengthen these countries where they are still free, and to work toward the day of freedom for those that are enslaved.
We are engaged in a great effort around the world to hold back the godless forces of Communist aggression, and to prevent another world war. We helped the Greeks to defeat the Communist invasion of their soil, and our aid has kept Turkey free and independent. Through the Marshall plan and military aid, we strengthened the free countries of Europe. We have helped them to crush the Communist conspiracy within their borders, and to build defenses against the Communist threat from without.
One of the great victories in this fight was the support we gave to the cause of freedom in the elections in Italy in 1948. The letters that citizens of this country wrote to their friends and relatives in Italy that year, did a great deal to turn the tide against communism in Europe. Those letters showed that the people of this country, as well as this Government, have made common cause with free men around the world in the fight against communism.
We have done more than this. We have built the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and helped to set up a unified army to defend Europe. We have brought a new Germany back into the community of nations. In the far East, we have helped to set up a group of new and independent nations, from India to the Philippines. We are strengthening them against communism. We have restored Japan to its place on the side of freedom.
At the point where Communist armed aggression threatened to break through, in Korea, we have held the dyke. This has cost us much, and the sacrifices still go on. But if it checks the Communist plan of conquest, and prevents a third world war, it will have been worth all the losses and all the pain.
This is what we have been doing, around the world, and it has brought new life to free men everywhere. It has brought new hope and courage to the hearts of those who still must live under the Communist yoke.
But we must not encourage rash adventures. We are not going to ask the unarmed people of the Iron Curtain countries to rise up against their aggressors, and sacrifice themselves before firing squads of the Kremlin. That may be what the Republican candidate for President and his foreign policy advisers are urging--in order to get votes in this country. But we are not going to do it. It might lead to war, and it would certainly be a useless slaughter of brave men and women behind the Iron Curtain.
There is, however, one more thing we want to do, and we find it very hard to do, because of Republican opposition. That is to find new homes and new opportunities, particularly in our own country, for some of the people of those lands.
Our immigration laws bar the way to this kind of help. They keep us from doing what we should for the refugees from the Soviet terror, and for the victims of overcrowding in the free countries.
Now, I want to tell you something about these laws.
Our immigration laws are based on the National Origin Quota System. This system limits the immigration quotas of each European country, in accordance with the past contribution of that country to the population of the United States. Under this system, we can admit over 65,000 British subjects every year, although very few want to come over. But we can only admit 6,500 from Poland or 5,600 from Italy or 308 from Greece--countries where the need is great and pressing.
This National Origin Quota System is a Republican invention. It was conceived and written into law under a Republican President and a Republican Congress in the 1920's. It is based on a discredited and un-American theory of racial superiority. That theory considers the so-called Nordics from England and Northern Europe to be superior to persons born in Italy, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Poland, or any other country of Southern or Eastern Europe. It's all wrong.
Now the Republicans took full credit for this discriminatory policy. They boasted of it, as one of their achievements, in their 1932 platform.
It is, of course, necessary to regulate the flow of immigration and to have some kind of limitation on numbers. It is also necessary to exclude undesirable individuals. But I think it is un-American to exclude a qualified, worthy individual just because he comes from Poland or Italy or Hungary. And that is exactly what happens under this Republican law.
The policies of the Republican Party haven't changed very much since they wrote this law in 1924. Let me prove that to you.
After the Second World War, I wanted to do something to help the millions of uprooted and homeless persons in Europe. At my urging, the 80th Congress adopted the Displaced Persons Act. That was necessary to get around the restrictions of the National Origin Quota System, and let a substantial number of those people in. But the 80th Congress wrote in to the Displaced Persons Act provisions that deliberately discriminated against Catholics and Jews.
I made those provisions a campaign issue in 1948, and after we won, the Democratic 81st Congress repealed them.
Now the Displaced Persons Act has expired. There are still people in Europe that need our help. First, there are the brave men and women who manage to escape the Soviet terror and cross the Iron Curtain. Then, there are thousands of desirable immigrants in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Greece. But we cannot help these people as we want to because of the old Republican National Origin Quota System.
So, this year--get this, now--so this year I asked the Congress to modify our laws again to let some of these people in. And what did they do? They passed a bill which does nothing for this emergency problem in Europe, and which reenacts the National Origin Quota System.
This new law--which is just as unfair as the old to the people of Southern and Eastern Europe--had the support of the Republicans in the Senate, 4 to 1. I vetoed that law, and they passed it over my veto.
Now this law bears the name of a Democratic Senator. And I'm sorry that it does, but he is not my kind of Democrat. My kind of Democrat was fighting against that law, and the leader of that fight was your own brave Senator Lehman.
He has done more to expose the whole injustice of our immigration laws than anyone else. And he has had a lot of good Democratic support.
Now the Democratic Party is not going to give up on this issue. Our platform this year pledges us to work against the unfair and unjust features of the present law, and to get a decent law in its place. And I have appointed a commission to study the present law in operation, and to report to me before the next Congress meets.
But the Republican platform doesn't even have the word immigration in it. The fact is the Republicans are well satisfied with the unfair immigration law we now have. It could not have been enacted without their almost solid support in the Congress. And I know it couldn't have passed over my veto without their support.
The Republican candidate for President was asked about immigration, but he didn't have any views on the subject. The Republican candidate for Vice President was one of the Senators who voted in favor of this unjust law, and he voted to override my veto.
So now you know where the top Republicans stand. They're just against us, as usual.
If you want that law changed--if you want a decent break for the brave anti-Communist people of Europe--you'd better vote the Democratic ticket.
The National Origin Quota System isn't the only bad feature of this new immigration law. The whole statute breathes prejudice against the foreign born--alien and naturalized citizen alike. It establishes a cruel and restrictive procedure against aliens, and a second class status, before the law, for naturalized citizens. And that, my friends, is an outrage of the worst sort.
Now the excuse for these discriminatory and restrictive provisions is the fear of communism. Because we are opposed to communism, we are asked to adopt restrictions that violate the spirit of our institutions-restrictions that bear most heavily on persons from such countries as Italy, Greece, and Poland, who are just as opposed to communism as we are here in this country. Now what is the logic in that?
I'll tell you--there just isn't any.
There is no logic in it--but there is plenty of prejudice--prejudice against people with foreign names and foreign backgrounds.
Why is it that the politicians who make the loudest noise about being against communism are usually the ones who oppose foreign aid, and favor new legal restrictions on aliens and on naturalized citizens? I wish somebody would answer that question for me.
Why, in this country, every good citizen is opposed to communism. We have taken firm measures against it. We have prosecuted the leaders of communism for breaking our laws, and we have a complete security system for our Federal Government. We have the FBI, which is doing a good job--and we have counter-espionage activities that I can't talk about because they are secret. And our intelligence agencies are constantly on the alert.
What then, is all this current oratory on the Republican side about?
Well, I am going to tell you.
There is a group of hotheads--mostly Republicans, with a few Democrats--who want to break down all our constitutional guarantees in dealing with the problem of communism. They want to do away with the Bill of Rights, whenever a man is accused of communism. They want to be able to deport a man on the basis of mere suspicion. And they are trying heroically to do it. I don't call it very heroic, either. This immigration law that I vetoed was a step in the direction of such lawless and unconstitutional procedures.
But I am not going to yield to this pressure to weaken the Bill of Rights--and neither, if I know him, will Adlai Stevenson.
Because the Bill of Rights protects us all. Once it is broken down in one direction, the irrational forces of prejudice and hate will break through, and endanger all of us. And the first people to suffer, if this happens, will be naturalized citizens and those of foreign parentage--and all those whose roots in this country are relatively new.
This sort of thing has happened before in our history. It happened in the days of the "Know-Nothings," a secret party dedicated to hatred of immigrants and of the Catholic Church. It happened after World War I, when a wave of hysteria about communism led to violent and illegal acts against aliens and persons of foreign extraction and labor organizations.
It could happen again, unless we hold firm against prejudice and racial hatred--unless we stand on the Bill of Rights and hold a man innocent until he is proved guilty.
I have been trying to stand firm on that principle. I have been abused and criticized for it. But I am sure that it has been in the best interests of my country.
So now I say to you tonight, beware of the candidate whose sole stock in trade is self-proclamation of anti-communism. Beware of a party that tries to make votes out of false charges about communism. The hysteria, the irrational fear, that they are manipulating in one direction today, may turn against other groups tomorrow.
Once these deep forces of prejudice and unreason are set loose, no man can tell where they will go. They could tear our Nation apart, setting group against group, creed against creed, the older immigrant stocks against the newer.
Let us recognize this menace, and defend our American principles against it--our principles of tolerance and equality before the law, and adherence to the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.
The way to do that, my friends, is to vote for the party that has stood firm for civil rights and civil liberties and a decent immigration law. The way to do that is to vote for a man whose career shows that he understands our system of constitutional liberty, and that he has the courage to defend it, and that man is Adlai Stevenson of Illinois.
NOTE: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall at Buffalo, N.Y. During his remarks he referred to Anthony F. Tauriello, Chester C. Gorski, and E. Dent Lackey, Democratic candidates for Representative, John Cashmore, Democratic candidate for Senator, and Senator Herbert H. Lehman, all of New York.