Harry S. Truman photo

Address in Omaha at the Reunion of the 35th Division

June 05, 1948

Mr. Chairmen, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

I am very happy to be back again tonight with the men of the 35th Division--one of the greatest fighting outfits this country ever had!

It is good to meet again with old friends who were my buddies in the First World War. I am proud, also, to meet the young men who brought new glory to the Division in the Second World War.

The story of the 35th Division is to me an example of one of the finest features of our democracy. This was a National Guard division. Here were trained civilians, ready to come to the defense of their country. When the need arose, these men, and thousands of other National Guardsmen throughout the Nation, answered the call--and answered on time. I won't go so far as to say that the National Guard won the war. But I will say that if it had not been for the National Guard and the Reserve components of our Armed Forces, the story would have been quite different.

You and I have shared the privilege of serving in the defense of our country. Now that the fighting is over, we have an equally great privilege to serve in another cause. In time of war, we worked together for victory. Now we must work together to secure the peace and the blessings which that victory has made possible.

This time, we must make sure that the tragic events that followed the First World War are not repeated. Looking back, the mistakes that were made in the years following the First World War are so obvious, and their consequences were so terrible, that there can be no excuse for repeating them.

Fortunately, we have learned from that bitter experience. After the First World War, the chief hope for keeping the peace was the League of Nations--the great dream of Woodrow Wilson. But shortsighted men in the United States Senate blocked our entry into that League, and it never recovered from that blow.

This time, the United States took a leading part in organizing the United Nations. In spite of the difficulties it has had, the United Nations is working. And we are determined to make it succeed!

In addition to learning that we must cooperate with other nations to keep the peace, we have learned something, also, about how to maintain our prosperity at home--at least, most of us have. As a result of the boom and bust of the 1920's and the 1930's, we have learned that the welfare of our people cannot be divided. The farmer, the workingman, and the businessman must prosper together, or they go down together.

At present we are all busy and our economy is prosperous. But that prosperity can be lost if we fail to safeguard it. Right now it is threatened by inflation and by the high prices which are causing real hardship to millions of our people.

On the other hand, our prosperity can be maintained and greatly increased if we act with vision and with courage. This is essential for our own comfort and well-being. It is essential also in order that we may contribute to the economic recovery of other nations, to help secure world peace.

Consequently, it is with a sense of real urgency that I speak to you tonight about one element of our economy, one which is fundamental to all the rest. That is agriculture in this United States.

You remember what happened to the farmers shortly after the First World War? I'm sure most of you do. The farmers were hit by a disastrous slump. I ran a 600-acre farm, which I was running myself with my brother. Then I went into business with a buddy, and you all know what happened to me in that slump of 1921!

In those years of farm depression, farmers could not sell their crops for a decent price, they could not pay for the equipment they needed, they could not provide a decent living for their families. In many cases they even lost their farms and were evicted from their homes because they could not keep up the unequal struggle.

The fact that farmers were unable to recover fully from this slump helped to bring on the Great Depression of the early 1930's and carried everybody--farmers, workers, and businessmen--down together. We can't let that happen again, and if I have anything to do with it, it won't happen again!

Since the dismal period of the 1920's and the early 30's, farmers and the Government have cooperated in what can truly be called the rebirth of American agriculture.

Now, most of the Nation's farmers are enjoying the best financial position they have ever known. Cash farm income last year reached a record high level of more than $30 billion. In 1932 it was $4,700 million. Farm mortgage debt has dropped 25 percent since 1941. Bank deposits and savings of farmers are $22 billion, the highest in our history. In 1932 you were afraid to go into a bank if you had any deposits to make, because you were afraid it would blow up in your face. In the last 3 years we haven't had a single bank failure in the United States.

While the present agricultural prosperity is due partly to special factors in the postwar situation, the sound farm legislation which has been adopted since 1932 provides a much better basis for sustained agricultural prosperity than we have ever had before. If you think back for a minute to 1932, you'll remember that we then had no soil conservation program, no price support program, no school lunch program, only a limited research program. In the years since that time, we have built up these and other valuable farm programs, until today there is a solid basis for further agricultural progress.

But even though most of our farmers are better off than they have ever been before, farmers are concerned lest a sudden change may result in the bottom failing out of agricultural prices, as it did in 1921.

The American farmer has done a great production job during and since the war. That is the greatest agricultural production job in the history of the world. In spite of shortages of labor, machinery, fertilizer, and many other materials, he has stepped up farm output to meet our needs. This was an essential contribution to winning the war, and to helping worldwide recovery after the war. Our farmers have earned the right to real protection against a postwar slump.

We need not--and we must not--allow an agricultural depression to happen. This is part of a larger problem--that of preventing general economic depressions. I believe that we should use every power and resource of the Government to maintain maximum employment, production, and purchasing power throughout the whole economy. I believe that a most vital part of this effort must be directed toward meeting agricultural problems.

We need action, and action now, to make sure that our farmers hold the gains they have made since 1932, and that we move forward with the job of providing future organized, sustained, realistic abundance for American agriculture.

We should also be deeply concerned about the many farm families who are not sharing fairly in the progress of American life.

In far too many farm communities, housing, medical services, and educational facilities are inadequate. Some farmers are isolated by poor roads. Some still do not have electricity.

Here again we need action, and action now, so that more farm areas will have better housing, adequate health services, good schools and good roads, electricity, and all the other benefits of modern living.

I believe that the Federal Government has a definite part to play in building for lasting agricultural prosperity and in assisting farm areas to obtain better living standards. The sound and far-reaching agricultural legislation we now have constitutes an excellent basis for continued progress. But we do need a number of extensions and improvements in our present farm programs.

First, the Congress should provide a permanent system of flexible price supports for agricultural commodities. For the benefit of farmers and the whole Nation, we need price support legislation which will assure reasonable stability of farm income while encouraging desirable adjustments in production.

Wartime legislation for price support programs will expire next December. It must be replaced. Farmers right now don't know what to expect in case of crops that go beyond the end of the year, including the important winter wheat crop.

I believe that the American farmer has the right to expect his Government to prevent prices of farm commodities from falling to ruinous levels.

I believe also that the entire Nation should be protected against the wide swings in farm prices that have contributed in the past to economic insecurity for us all.

A second important program for the future of the American agriculture is that of soil conservation. Our present soil conservation program must be vigorously supported and rapidly extended.

We have been preaching conservation in this country for more than 40 years, but it was not until the 1930's that we began to make important progress in conserving the soil--the most basic of all our resources. Today, the soil conservation program is going strong. We have come to realize more and more the vital necessity for protecting the thin layer of topsoil which sustains our national life. Throughout the country, farmers have organized 2,000 soil conservation districts to push this work forward, and the operators of nearly 3 million farms are cooperating today in the agricultural conservation program.

But I don't think we should be satisfied until every acre of farmland in the United States is being properly managed so that its fertility will be permanently maintained. We must not, through ignorance or misguided economy, lose any more of our vital soil resources.

You know what I think? A large part of the fertile topsoil of Iowa and Nebraska and Missouri and Kansas is down at the mouth of the Mississippi River trying to make another county for Louisiana, and we mustn't let that keep up!

As a third element of major importance to agricultural prosperity, we must take steps to maintain adequate markets for farm products and to improve the methods of distributing them to consumers.

The principal market for our farm products is here at home, among the American people. The best assurance of farm prosperity, therefore, is general prosperity for the whole country.

But, aside from doing all it can to assure general prosperity, the Federal Government should take specific steps to maintain strong and steady farm markets. For example, we need to press forward with our research program to develop new uses for farm products. We must also continue to take steps, in cooperation with other governments, to encourage export markets for many of our important farm commodities.

American farmers cannot expect to be prosperous if our trade with other nations is strangled by high tariffs or other trade barriers. In this regard, the most important step we can take is to extend the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act for 3 years in its present form.

The bill that is now pending before the Congress has been amended to death. Just as well repeal the Reciprocal Trade Agreements and go back to Hawley-Smoot, because that's what a lot of people in the Congress would like to do.

We have a great opportunity, also, to develop programs which will help to assure stable markets for the products of our farms and at the same time will improve the health and diets of our people. Excellent school lunch program which has been worked out in recent years, for example, should be extended and strengthened.

I believe that we should also start now to develop a practical plan for safeguarding the diets of low-income families. We should have such a plan ready all the time on a standby basis, to be put into operation on short notice in case of need. We must never again allow Americans to go hungry while agricultural surpluses are going to waste.

Both farmers and consumers will be helped by continued improvements in the distribution of farm commodities. We all have the right to expect reasonable efficiency and minimum of waste in processing, transporting, and distributing farm products. And we have the right to expect a reasonable relationship between the price the farmer receives for his commodities and the price the consumer must pay for them.

I believe very strongly that the Government should continue to encourage farm cooperatives. Cooperatives have proved their usefulness and their right of survival in a free enterprise system. But they are now under heavy attack. Some people, through selfishness or lack of foresight, seek to destroy cooperatives or to limit their effectiveness. We must stand firm against these attacks.

I have spoken of price supports, and soil conservation, and the marketing and distribution. The fourth major element which I believe should continue to be a part of our national agricultural program is this: The Federal Government should assist farmers in meeting special problems of their occupation, just as it gives assistance to other great segments of our population.

I have recommended to the Congress, for example, measures to provide better health services to farm communities, and measures to help farm families get better houses. Better roads should be provided in many agricultural areas. We should go forward with rural electrification as rapidly as possible to bring the blessings of electricity-and they are real blessings--to the farms which they have not yet reached.

All the measures I have been discussing tonight are sound, practical steps needed to assure the future welfare of American agriculture. They represent no great change in our national policy, but instead are designed to improve and build upon the sound foundation we already have.

A number of measures I have been talking about need to be enacted into law. Since the beginning of the 80th Congress, in January 1947, I have been recommending action on this necessary legislation. The Secretary of Agriculture has presented the program in detail to the Congress on a number of occasions. The Congress has considered it, and studied it, and weighed it, and pondered it. But the Congress has not acted upon it.

We must not give up hope, however. There is still time for Congress to act. I am sure that American farmers join me in the wish that the Congress will not leave Washington without passing the farm legislation we need.

Here in Nebraska a few weeks ago there was a primary election. A lot of prominent politicians were interested in the outcome of that election. It happens that Nebraska is justly famous as a great independent farm State, in the heart of the agricultural region of the Middle West--the breadbasket of the Nation and the world. So, these prominent politicians got the idea that they should come out here to Nebraska and make farm speeches. And that's what they did.

They came and said they were for the farmers; they said they were for a farm program; they said they were for the enactment of legislation needed for a farm program. Now, I must confess to you that these same politicians have great influence with the present Congress. So, I think we might properly ask, "Why doesn't Congress act?"

Now I believe that is a fair question. I believe the time has passed when a man can be for a farm program in the West and against a farm program when he is back East. If everybody is in favor of a farm program, now is the time for Congress to act upon it.

We have it within our power to bring sound and lasting prosperity to our farms and to improve the standard of living here in our own country and in other countries.

This is the course we must follow to build for our future and to make our full contribution to the peace and freedom of the world.

Note: The President spoke at 7:15 p.m. in the Ak-sar-ben Coliseum in Omaha. His opening words "Mr. Chairmen" referred to Edward D. McKim and Robert A. Drum, who served as cochairmen of the reunion. The address was carried on a nationwide radio broadcast.

Harry S Truman, Address in Omaha at the Reunion of the 35th Division Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232360

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