Remarks at a Republican Rally at the Kanawha County Airport, Charleston, W. Va.

Governor Underwood, Senator Revercomb, Senator Hoblitzell, Congressmen Neal and Moore, Mr. O'Dair Duff, candidate for Congress, and the rest of the candidates here assembled--My fellow Americans:

For the past two or three weeks, I have been traveling about the country to urge upon the American people the need for good, sound, and progressive government. I have done this by pointing out the record of the last six years of government, showing the programs that have been proposed, those that have been adopted, what we need to do now, and why I believe Republicans best can give you, and America, this kind of government.

Now, my friends, the overpowering question, the most important problem of our time is peace. I think we should be careful to keep it out--the principles of peace--out of partisan debate.

All Americans, as Americans, want peace. Their aspiration is to live at peace with their fellows, with themselves, and have the full opportunity to develop their lives, their families, their society, according to the desires of the great majority.

Now, the leaders of the Congress from both parties have constantly supported the Administration in its attempt to follow faithfully these principles. But I think we do have the right to look back with some satisfaction on the six-year record of the operations of these principles so as to maintain the peace in the world.

Now we stand on these principles, and I think all Americans do: that we will not use force to gain our ends in the world. That we will support the United Nations, and that we will remain strong for our own security and to have a proper position from which to negotiate for peace.

We have no selfish ambitions of any kind. We want no one else's territory. We do not seek domination over them of any kind--economic, political, or otherwise.

Now these are the principles which I believe no one, no American, would contest. But as we go back over those six years, I think we do have a right to congratulate ourselves that since the summer of 1953 there has not been a hostile shot fired by Americans--that many trouble spots have been so treated that the irritations, the anxieties that they cause have been much ameliorated or eliminated. These spots are Korea, Viet Nam, Iran, Trieste, Austria--others of this kind, where great, difficult problems have had to be solved in the application of the principles of which I speak.

Just this morning I had some news that I think all of you would like to hear: the Chinese communists announced this morning that they have completely evacuated North Korea with their forces.

This seemingly ends this particular episode, this particular difficulty between the Chinese communists and ourselves in North Korea. And I say "seemingly," because we must be alert, we must be wary, and we must be sure that by their deeds we will give our confidence to people whose word has no longer been such as to inspire our confidence.

Now, incidentally, I read this morning a certain motto of yours which says "Mountaineers are always free men." The reason that this comes to my mind is because of one particular thing in this matter of peace that we always tend to overlook.

We are not concerned merely with protecting territory, our people abroad, even our homes; we are concerned in defending a way of life. This, my friends, we must do, by strength, a conciliatory spirit, and understanding, and with the cooperation of our friends in the world. It means that we must also defend that way of life always at home.

Which brings me to a word or two about our economy. Now you have heard all the statistics about the very remarkable six years we have just experienced--the great increase in the earning power of labor, the increase in the purchasing power of the average family, gross income-every kind of index shows that this has been a remarkable six years. We realize that of course in a free economy there are ups and sometimes downs, and we had one starting a little more than a year ago. We moved rapidly to give a helping hand, leadership to bringing this free economy back to its normal state of health and strength.

There has been a tremendous increase in our later advances and I am quite sure that all of you know what the statistics in the situation are. I think that you will find them satisfying.

But I do want, as I speak about this economy, to indicate that I know there are spots of weakness still to be dealt with. Some of these, unfortunately, are within your own State. And I want to talk for a moment about two things we have been doing and we are doing to help here.

The first deals with the interstate highway system. There are more than 40,000 miles of highway to be constructed in this country, crisscrossing almost every State. After the first allocation of mileage to West Virginia, there were presentations made by Senator Revercomb, and by your then Chairman, Senator Hoblitzell, as to the greater need of West Virginia, and that allotment of highway was more than doubled. It is now something on the order of 395 miles.

And the point is: this is not a dream. It is not a visionary project for your consideration. Work is going on right now, and it will go on more rapidly and more effectively, as each month passes, until the job has been completed.

Now another problem that I should like to speak about in this program is that dealing with small business. Small business has been discussed by every kind of political leader for a long time, and everybody seems to feel a perfectly natural sympathy for the small business man when he is in difficulty, and he gives him a lot of sympathy, but it seems often little else.

Now the purpose of this Administration has been to do something-and has done it.

Finally, getting certain bills through the last Congress that will have very great significance for the small business man. I vetoed one small business bill, and for very good reasons, first it would do nothing for anybody until 1959, and secondly it was just not a good bill in its detailed provisions. But under the authorization we now have, there is more money coming into areas such as this than could possibly have come under any other bill. And that rate of support and help in the form of loans, and in other ways, is increasing, and to the very great benefit of small business.

Taxes and tax concessions and other kinds of concessions have been established so that small business can have better access to financing and to getting a better share of government contracts, to make certain that it is in a better competitive position with larger businesses.

Now I want to go back, then, to the results of these two things that I am talking about in our economy--the roads, and small business. for the small-business man, it gets, as I said, for him a better competitive position, better financing, a better certainty that he can plan his future to become a bigger and more prosperous business man himself.

Good roads will save lives. They will be of great economic value, and route 77, I believe it is, will finally give a continuous route all the way from Ohio to Miami, to the great benefit of West Virginia.

These thoughts I give to you as some of the things we have been trying to do our best in the economy and for the benefit of yourselves-this State. I should like to point out this, on a more definitely partisan basis, that Republicans have tried to do these things under sound, sane, and progressive policies. We do not believe that you can buy peace. We do not believe you can purchase prosperity. We have seen in the more radical wing of the opposition party plans proposed only last spring for expenditures that would have saddled you, your children, and your grandchildren, with billions of dollars of debts that were unnecessary, and would have been for no useful purpose, either now or in the future.

This type of philosophy, this spending for spending's sake, has been completely repudiated by America. We do not want more debts. We do not want more interest rates. We do not want diluted the value of our dollar and to make our basket of groceries cost more and more dollars.

We want sound, stable government that is progressive to meet human needs but is not silly in destroying the economy that has led us and brought us to the position that we now enjoy and occupy.

Now, as you know, my friends, this brief stop that I have been able to make here is on the way to Pittsburgh where I am to make a more formal speech this evening. But I have tried merely by coming here to assure you that my fight, my struggle--the Republican struggle--for this kind of government of which I speak, will never cease.

I happen to have grandchildren of my own. I have no other personal objective to serve as I struggle for these things of which I speak. You know that the Constitution itself eliminates me from further political consideration after the next election, even if I had any ambitions in that direction, which I assure you I do not. So I merely want to say that in this fight I am thinking of the future, and I believe that what sound, progressive Republicanism means is that we have got sense enough to look in the future to preserve what is good, and to repudiate with our whole strength, with our whole souls, these phony doctrines that would merely put the private citizen in a wheelchair furnished him by the Federal government.

I am here in the conviction that you can keep this kind of government--sound, sane government, progressive government, forward-looking government, human government--by electing your entire slate of Republican candidates. I believe America is on the march, and is marching well--strongly. I think all of us should keep helping it to do exactly that. Thank you and good night.