Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Remarks at Centennial Plaza, Minneapolis, Minnesota

October 16, 1956

Mr. Chairman, Senator Thye, Congressman Judd, your soon-to-be Governor, Ancher Nelsen, and a brand new Congressman who should tower in some ways over everybody in Washington, George Mikan--my Fellow Americans:

First, let me thank you on behalf of both Mamie and myself for the heartwarming welcome you have given us. We are deeply touched.

Now, ever since I became the Army's Chief of Staff, about eleven years ago, I have been coming regularly to Minnesota and to Minneapolis. Every visit here has been a sort of home-coming, getting back among old and warm friends. And the cordiality of your welcome makes this the best home-coming of all.

I should tell you that, in a very real sense, I am here today-as President--because of you, the people of Minneapolis and of Minnesota.

Back in the spring of 1952, I was scrutinizing prayerfully my duties and responsibilities--trying to resolve my doubts as to whether there was any place or need for me in politics, and to settle in my mind and my conscience what I ought to do. At that time, the write-in vote in the Minnesota Primary moved me far along the road to a final decision. Since that day, I have always felt a special kinship and relationship with you of this city and State.

Now, one of my friends has done outstanding work in high office for you and for me and for America. There is no finer citizen than Ancher Nelsen, who served as the head of the Rural Electrification Administration in Washington in my Administration.

You know, a couple of weeks ago, I read in the paper that down at the Worthington Turkey Day, a national opposition candidate made an erroneous charge against Ancher. I found out later that that man had to publicly eat his words. I think anyone would have a hard time making a false charge stick against Ancher--and you will be prouder still of him and of your State when you elect him Governor.

Now, in the brief visit I am to have with you today, I want to talk for a few minutes about agriculture. This is especially appropriate in this State, where on the Republican side your Senior United States Senator, your next Governor, and your State Chairman, John Hartwell, are all honest-to-goodness farmers. And right here I want to add that I hope you good people of Minnesota will return all your Republican Congressmen, and increase their number.

What I have to say is in this spirit: I want full justice for all farmers, because they are inseparable from--and indispensable to-- a truly prospering America, and everything I do seeks to assure full justice and fairness for all the American people. I am equally dedicated to the needs and aspirations of labor, of business, of education, of the professions--not because they are specialized groups--nor voting blocs to be pitted against one another--but because they all have vital, functioning roles in the harmony of our free society.

In this spirit, I seek--and I shall continue to seek--to assure our farm families their full share of our nation's unparalleled prosperity today.

Now, in talking about agriculture, I realize that I am talking in a great City. But you here in this City, here in the heartland of American agriculture--each of you realizes that we cannot have lasting prosperity in our cities without the same prosperity on our farms.

In recent weeks you have heard some others talking about farming, in this State and in this City. From what I've read of some of their statements I am sure that if some of these men drove a tractor like they talk, they would have a mighty tough time driving a straight furrow!

It is certainly not straight talk to say that our farmers would be better off to return to the programs that caused surpluses to pile up and prices to go down.

The record on this is clear.

From World War II until last year, rigid wartime price supports induced the farmer to grow more of certain crops than he could sell and choked off much of his foreign market. Huge surpluses built up. Prices went down.

Rigid supports did not cause high farm income. Wars--with their high demand--did that. When wars were ended--and even before--prices started down. And as I have remarked before, it really takes genius to drive prices down when you have got a war on. Yet they did go down in 1952 while the Korean War was in full swing.

So by the time this Administration took office--almost four years ago now--the whole farm economy was seriously threatened.

Recognizing this difficulty, and particularly that there is no such thing as a farm problem, rather a multitude of them, we began personal meetings in Washington with farm leaders. We got representatives of the Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union, and the Grange. We got people from the great Land Grant Colleges of the United States. We got practical dirt farmers, and we had conference after conference. We had them with the Cabinet officers, with your Congressmen, with whole farm families coming down. And out of this, we constructed a farm program.

We proposed legislation. Despite delays and opposition, we got sizable parts through. Consequently, this year is the first year since World War II that farm prices have started back up without the tragic help of war. And this, my friends, is the first full year in which the new farm program, worked out by this Administration in cooperation with the farming community, has been at work.

Now, contrast that with the eight long years--excepting the one Korean War year--when farm prices went down under the old laws.

Here, then, is the plain proof. The new laws work.

Nevertheless, some political orators--no doubt overly excited by the din of a campaign--actually have been saying that I am "against" the little farmer, that I consider the farmer expendable, that I think the family farm is obsolete. What kind of drivel is this?

The family farm is the cornerstone of American agriculture, just as the family is the cornerstone of our whole society. There is no one among us that needs to be told that if our family life is weakened, likewise our nation shall suffer. In the same way, if the farm family is not to be the center of our concern in this whole problem of agriculture, then we are indeed shooting wide of the mark.

This Administration has acted to help the family farm in the most concrete ways: Social Security for farm operators; the Federal gas tax refund; the Soil Bank; the most liberal Farm Credit Program in history; the biggest, most creative research program to find new products, new uses for old products, new markets for all products.

And just a word about another Administration effort of which I am very proud: the Rural Development Program. It is a bold, long-range program for lifting the lowest-income people in rural areas by improving their education, skills, credit facilities and earning opportunities. Here in Minnesota three counties-Itasca, Hubbard and Carlton--are among more than fifty pilot counties in the country where this Program is now advancing.

Now that this vital effort, recognizing the special needs of low-income farmers, is well underway, I am determined to bring into the government the best man I can find in this field to devote full time to speeding and perfecting the Program. There are wonderful opportunities for good here. We shall make the most of them.

Now, does this small sampling of Administration measures to benefit family farm people sound like the work of anyone trying to put the family farm out of business?

The fact is: we have made real advances in behalf of the people living on family farms these past four years.

Looking to the future of farming, I think this:

Clearly, we are over the hump. The biggest clean-up job left is to keep up our attack on surpluses until both overproduction and the excess stocks already on hand of certain products have become just a memory.

But even that is not enough: we must keep carrying forward all the solid programs now under way.

I want to state my sincere conviction: I believe that, by any objective yardstick, the future today in agriculture looks better-- more promising--more dependable--than at any time in this generation. Let's keep it going that way.

Now, my friends, I know well that your interests--as is the case with all Americans--are far broader than agriculture.

You want, as I do, clean, honest government--efficient government.

Four years ago I pledged that kind of government. And we have kept that pledge.

You want, as I do, a strong, up-to-date, alert national defense--one that gives you a dollar's worth of defense for each dollar spent. I pledged you that. And we have kept that pledge.

You want, as I do, a government that, while being prudent in its use of the people's money, remains ever sensitive to all concerns of human welfare.

That pledge, too, we have faithfully kept.

Today our country's good times are rooted in confidence. And one of the reasons for that confidence is simply this: Your government today is one that believes in you. We see no necessity for having a government in Washington that takes the attitude of the benevolent father and tells you what to do all the time, and assures you of prosperity through doing what a bunch of bureaucrats say. We think there can be no government in Washington better than the people that have sent it there.

Finally, my friends, I must speak a word of what is most in the minds and hearts of all of us.

We all know that all these concerns of our national life that I have been discussing have true and lasting value only in the light of our tireless quest of a just and lasting peace.

We have advanced a long way on the road toward that goal.

The peace we enjoy today is, of course, not all that we would wish--nor all that, with God's help, it will one day be. Centuries of mutual hatred among nations, of ancient prejudices and quarrels, cannot be erased in a few short years.

And yet we must ask ourselves: why the anguished cry of some politicians, these days, that we have made no gains whatsoever toward the peace we seek? The plain truth is that Americans know very well the difference between today--and the days of the Korean casualty lists. And Americans have not forgotten those other milestones--all around the world--on our road to peace: Austria, Trieste, West Germany, Guatemala, Panama, Caracas, Geneva.

All of these have meant some worthy effort to promote that understanding, that common reverence of the spirit of justice that will finally bring to the peoples of the earth a peace in which we can confidently trust.

But are these wailing politicians really trying to bring Americans to believe that our nation's voice is not urging--daily and powerfully. conciliation, mutual understanding and justice? We are doing exactly that in the Suez problem.

Can these politicians believe that Americans are blind to the strength and persistence of our efforts to dedicate the atom not to the destruction but to the constructive service of mankind?

My friends, the simple truth is this: All America is dedicated to peace--a just and lasting peace. This longing in our hearts bears no political label. This longing is not subject to partisanship.

Yet in our labor toward the peace we seek, we must comprehend always its basic requirements, and face up to them manfully.

First: strength--spiritual, intellectual, economic and military strength.

Second: unity--our clear awareness that the road to peace is one that all nations must travel together, else none can do so.

Third: faith--a faith in the greatness of our purpose that inspires in all of us a readiness to work and to sacrifice, that this greatest of all mankind's hopes may one day be realized.

It is to this kind of effort--and in this kind of understanding-that your Administration is pledged.

Today, here in Minnesota, I renew this pledge of continued, determined labor, of the prayerful devotion of myself and all my associates to this greatest cause of all: peace for the world and America.

Thank you very much indeed.

Note: The President spoke at 1:00 p.m. His opening words "Mr. Chairman" referred to George F. Etzell, Republican National Committeeman.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks at Centennial Plaza, Minneapolis, Minnesota Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/233478

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