Rear Platform Remarks in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio

[1.] WARRENSBURG, MISSOURI (8:35 a.m.)

It certainly is a pleasure to me to see all of you this morning. I don't think I have seen as many people with whom I am personally acquainted, since I have been the President, out here this morning. Even in Independence.

I asked them to stop the train here in the hope that that would take place, that I would get to see as many of you as possible.

You are interested, of course, in education. That is one of the fundamental things in this town, the education of teachers, principally. We have been having a great deal of difficulty with the educational situation in the country. All of you know that the schools are all overcrowded, the teachers are underpaid, and for that reason I sent a message to Congress, and included in the Budget Message a recommendation that $300 million be appropriated for Federal assistance to the States in the schools.

That bill passed the Senate, and is now reposing in a committee of the House of Representatives. I wrote a personal letter to the Speaker of the House and asked him to get that bill out, but it has not been acted upon.

It would be very helpful, in this stage of things, if that bill could be acted upon. I would be glad to sign it, if they would bring it out and pass it.

I am certainly glad to get a chance to stop for a few minutes in Warrensburg, and get to see all of you. It's just like old times. I made four campaigns in the State, and I never had such a crowd as this at any meeting that I had in Warrensburg.

You know what I did at home, one time, right after I was sworn in--a few months after I was sworn in as President ? They had a homecoming for me in Independence, and I filled that 15,000-people auditorium up there, and that was the first time I ever succeeded in doing that, too!

I want to thank you for coming out. It certainly is a pleasure. I wish I could stay longer, but I can't. We have to go on and keep the train on schedule, and I have got to be in Washington at a certain time.

Thank you for coming.

[2.] SEDALIA, MISSOURI (9:10 a.m.)

Thank you very much. My goodness, it's a pleasure to be in Sodalia on a day like this, with so many people out as this. You know, I made four bitter campaigns in the State of Missouri, and I don't think I ever had as big a crowd in Sedalia in my life. Something about it!--I don't know what it is-that makes you all come out and see your President; and I am glad you do, because I think you ought to know what the President is trying to do.

The best way is to talk to him. You can then get the facts as far as he knows them, because that is his business. He is elected by the whole people, and it is his business to keep you informed on what he thinks is best for the country, and if that is right then you will get in and push and support him. And if you want a different President, you can kick him out when the time comes around.

I know this city, and I know what it stands for, and what it does, and what your principal support is. And I think the thing that you are principally interested in is the high cost of living.

The present dollar is only worth about 60 cents, in groceries, food, and things to live by. I have been trying, ever since the war ceased, to find a way to meet the control of prices, so they would balance the wages and make the dollar reach just as far as it possibly can.

Way back in November 1945, I asked the Congress to execute a price control law. I asked them again in January 1946, and I asked them in May 1946. Along about the 30th of June, when the law was about to expire, they sent me one that wasn't any good, and I vetoed it. Then they sent me one on the 30th of July that wasn't much better. I signed it, but it wouldn't work.

Then you got to hollering about the price of meat, and in the election of 1946, 66 2/3 percent of you didn't go out and vote, and you got this Congress. You got just what you deserved.

But in 1947, after this Congress took over, I asked them to do something about the price situation. They didn't do anything. Then I called a special session, you remember, back in 1947 in November, and I asked them for a 10-point program which would have met the situation. They didn't do anything about it. They haven't done anything about it yet. They are getting ready to quit, and the majority of that Congress is going to Philadelphia to tell you what a grand job they have done, to the people-not for them!

But you are going to have a chance to weigh that situation. I took this trip all over the country, before the Congress adjourned, in order to put my side before you, so that you would understand that the fight is between special privilege and the people. That's all there is to it.

That's what the campaign is going to be on this fall, and when I come back here on a political tour, I am going to tell you all about it.

It has certainly been a pleasure to see all my friends in Sedalia this morning.

[3] JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI (10:55 a.m.)

Mr. Mayor, and Governor, and all the distinguished Missouri officials:

It certainly is a pleasure to be here this morning and see so many people, so many people that I know. I think probably I could call half of you by name. I have been down here on many an occasion, both political and otherwise. I made four campaigns for the Senate in this State, two in the primary and two in the general elections. And in those campaigns I was in Jefferson City each time, and I didn't draw a crowd like this. There must be something about this Office that makes the people want to see their President. Of course, they know him just as well, if they hadn't seen him.

I am glad we get that way, because it is my business on this trip to keep you informed as to what the issues are before the country.

There is just one big issue: it is the special interests against the people. And the President, being elected by all the people, represents the people. You have now a special interests Congress. You have that special interests Congress because only one-third of you voted in the election of 1946, and you are getting just what you deserved. I have no sympathy with you. If you do that again, you will also get what you deserve.

Now, you will have a chance, very shortly, to make a decision as to whether you want people in there, in the Congress, to represent you, and to look out for your interests, or whether you want to continue the special interests Congress in force.

Now there are many fine gentlemen in that Congress, but they are not in the majority. They were overwhelmed in 1946. And that is the reason you are getting the sort of legislation you are getting now. If you will analyze that legislative program, you will find that special interests come first, and the people come second.

Now if the President doesn't get out and inform the people on what the issues are, then he is not doing his duty; and that is why I took this trip, that is why I went out through the West and the Southwest and the central part of the country, in order that the people might understand just what the issues are.

You are interested in agriculture in this part of the world, to some extent--to a great extent, I think--I know. Now there has been an agricultural program covering the last 12 years, which has been successful. In 1932 the farm income of the United States was $4,700 million--$4,700 million. In 1947 the farm income was a little over $30 billion, 6 or 7 times as much as it was in 1932. The farmers, in 1932, were losing their farms, because the mortgages were coming due so fast we couldn't meet them. Not only were they losing their farms, but they didn't have any money in the bank, and if they had money they were afraid to go to a bank and put it in for fear it would blow up in their faces. We haven't had a single bank failure in the last 3 years. Nobody has lost any money in a bank failure in the last 3 years. And the farmers have $23 billion on deposit in those safe banks. Now the issues are clearly drawn. The agricultural situation was brought about by a program in favor of the farmers. That program--the fundamental basis of that program--will expire on the 31st of December. The bill is resting in the Congress that will meet that situation.

Now, since this trip started, Congress has taken action on some most important measures. They have found that the people are interested in some of these things. And I thought I ought to take this trip, before the Congress adjourned, to give them a chance to do something for the people.

If they do, I will be just as happy as the people will be. But I don't know; I am very doubtful of what will happen.

I think they will have a convention--two conventions in Philadelphia. The first convention will be controlled by the majority of the present Congress, and they are going to tell you what they have done to the people, not for the people.

And if the people believe and act on that information, then as I said a while ago, they will get just what they deserve.

I can't tell you how much I have appreciated the privilege of stopping here to see all my friends in Missouri. Back at Warrensburg and Sedalia, I thought everybody in that part of the State was at each one of those stops, but I was mistaken. They are all here. I don't know how they got here so fast. I do appreciate it, and I hope, when I take a political tour, that I can come back and tell you something more about the issues.

[4.] EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS 1:50 p.m.)

Mr. Mayor:

I certainly appreciate that introduction. I also appreciate the key to the city which you have given me. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

It is a pleasure to get a chance to stop here. We couldn't stop everywhere, so we stopped at the points where they change the engines on the railroad, or put in ice, and things of that sort. But I was happy to stop in East St. Louis, for the simple reason that you have the greatest railroad out here in the country. You have stockyards almost equal to my hometown stockyards, although those stockyards are in the suburbs of Independence.

I know you are all interested in the things in which I am interested. I have just finished vetoing a bill which was intended to emasculate the Labor Department, and the Congress has just passed it over my veto. They are determined to emasculate the Labor Department. I am very much interested in that organization. The Republican platform of 1944 made the statement that they expected to make a strong Labor Department. They have absolutely controverted that platform. They have done everything they possibly could to tear up the Labor Department. They just took the Employment Service out of the Labor Department, and they have cut down the appropriation for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from which every department of the Government gets its information. I don't know why they did that, unless it was because they were anxious to be sure that we didn't know just how far the cost of living is going up. I think maybe that is what they had in mind.

You see, the cost-of-living index is standing somewhere around the figure of 133, which is a percentage figure as compared with some date in the past which was used as a basis. That figure right now is beyond the 170 figure, which means that your dollar now is worth about 66 cents compared with what it was worth in 1945, when we took off price controls. I couldn't convince these gentlemen that we ought to release price controls gradually.

They said that prices would adjust themselves, and they have the same idea about wages. They would like to make wages adjust themselves. I have asked them time and time again to give me an increase in the minimum wage. I asked them to raise it to 75 cents an hour as a basis on which all wages could be computed. Remember when we passed the first minimum wage law? These special privilege fellows said the country was going to the dogs; but the country did not go to the dogs, for the simple reason that we built ourselves up to the point where we have more than $200 billion national income.

I didn't want to pass this rich man's tax bill because I wanted to pay off some of those big debts which we owed while we are rich. Not satisfied with that, they have taken off all controls that will let this spiral go up. I think they are hunting for a boom and bust.

I want you to weigh all these things as we go along, and when the decision has to be made, and when I come back here on a real political tour and get a chance to talk to you about the issues, then you can make up your mind exactly how you want the country run. If you want it run in the interests of the special privilege class, all right. If you want it run for the people, then you will know what to do, and I won't have to tell you.

I can't tell you how much I have appreciated the privilege of stopping, and I really do hope to come back here. The next time I will have to play fair and stop on the other side of the river, and all of you can come over, just as a great many St. Louisiana came over here today; and I will talk to you all at once and try to give you the facts. Then you use your own judgment.

I will appreciate this key. I have gotten three keys on this trip, and this is the biggest one I have received.

Thank you very much. I wish I could stay longer, but I have to run on a schedule, and I have to get back to Washington to veto some more bills.

[5.] TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA (4:45 p.m.)

Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of this great Indiana city of Terre Haute:

I am certainly glad to see you, and happy to see so many of you out here today. I have been through this city and stopped here on numerous occasions. When I was in the Senate, and I was there for 10 years, I used to drive back and forth from Independence, Mo., to Washington by way of highway number 40--usually always stayed on that highway in Terre Haute going one way or another, so I am very well familiar with your city and its environs. And I like the location. This city is located in the richest farming area in the world. This city is interested in the products of the farm as well as in manufactures, many of which are located here in this town.

When you come right down to fundamentals, it takes the agricultural background to make any country great. And this country has made a contribution to agriculture unequaled by any other country in the history of the world. We raised enough food during the war years to feed our own people, our own forces, and to contribute immensely to the forces of our Allies.

Since the war we have been feeding not only ourselves and many of our Allies, but we have been keeping people alive in the devastated areas, where otherwise millions of these people would have starved to death.

Now the agricultural situation in this country is the outgrowth of a policy which was pursued over the last 12 years. In 1932 the income of the farmers of the United States was $4,700 million, and last year it was $30 billion--$30 billion! More than 5 times as much as it was in 1932.

The farmers had on deposit in banks in the United States in 1947, $23 billion. In 1932 they didn't have much of anything but mortgages that were coming due so fast we couldn't even pay them. And insurance companies who owned the mortgages were taking the farms over so fast, the farmers didn't know which way to turn.

Now the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the policies pursued by the administration over the last 12 years are the reason for the prosperity of the farmers, as well as the immense demand for food. The farm support program will expire on December 21, 1948•

I have been asking the Congress to remedy that situation. Nothing so far has been done. The farm bill has been passed by the House. I don't know whether it will pass the Senate or not. If it isn't passed, the farm support program which has done so much to help make the farmer prosperous in the last 12 years will expire; that is, the floor under prices for the farmer will come to an end, just as the ceiling on prices for the consumers came to an end on June 30, 1946. These two situations balance each other. A floor under farm prices and a floor under wages, and a consumer price control, has been necessary to prevent inflation in this country. We can't stand inflation in this country. We shouldn't have it. This country never passed through a more prosperous 3 years than the last 3 years, and everybody said we wouldn't have any jobs, or that we would be on the edge of a depression.

The national income in the last year was more than $200 billion, and I had hoped while we were prosperous that we might reduce the national debt from the surplus which we had been accumulating over the last 2 years.

But this Congress saw fit to pass a rich man's tax bill which will wipe out that surplus in 1949, and in all probability leave us with a deficit. I am saying to you, as I go across the country, that this is a policy of special privilege against the people. The President of the United States was elected by all the people, and it is his business to look out for those things that are of most benefit to the most people.

I think you are going to find the legislative program by this Congress is in the interests of special privilege all the way across, and we will discuss that when I have a chance to make a trip across the country on a political campaign.

I can't tell you how very much I appreciate the cordiality of your reception, and I appreciate what is the best in the things I have had to say to you about the things in the country that you are vitally interested in. It is the business of the President to inform the people on what he thinks they should know, and then it is up to the people to make up their minds how they want to act.

In 1946 about a third of the electorate gave us the majority in the 80th Congress; and you get just what you deserve when you don't go out and vote.

If all of you don't come out this time and decide what is best for the country, you can't complain about what you get for the next 4 years.

Thank you very much.

[6.] INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA (6:20 p.m.)

Mr. Mayor, and people of Indiana:

It looks as if you are all here. I appreciate this privilege very much, and I can't tell you how much I thank you for this courtesy which you have extended to me.

You see, I started out from Washington to make a tour around the country, and to acquaint the people of the country with the views of the President of the United States, which is one of my duties.

I stopped in Chicago and discussed the issues that are most in the minds of the people. I did the same in Omaha, I did it in Seattle, in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, and cities in between. I am told that I have discussed these issues with nearly 60 different groups. I have seen at least two and a half millions of people, and I have tried to lay before the people the things I think that are most necessary for the welfare of this country; and I have found it necessary at various places to discuss specific things which I think the Congress should do that the Congress has not done.

Just today the housing situation, one of the most important in the country, is a matter on which the House of Representatives has acted in the interests of special privilege.

I promised the reporters on the train that I would read to this audience a statement for release to the press of the United States.

[Reading] "For many weeks the House of Representatives has had under consideration a comprehensive housing legislation passed by the Senate and containing provisions to carry out all of the housing proposals recommended in my February 23, 1948, message to the Congress transmitting a program for housing legislation. After weeks of hearings on this comprehensive housing program, the Republican leadership in the House introduced a substitute bill stripped of almost all of the essential features which would be of real and lasting benefit to the American people."

And that is what they have been doing on nearly all this legislation.

[Continuing reading] "In the House Committee on Banking and Currency, after full and free debate, all of the essential features of the comprehensive housing legislation passed by the Senate were restored to the bill and recommended for passage by the House."

And that was done over the protest of the chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee. Now listen to what he did:

[Continuing reading] "Yesterday, the Republican leadership in the House decreed that the elected representatives of the people should be deprived of the right to vote upon this comprehensive housing legislation so vital to the welfare of the American people. The Republican leadership in the House refused to let the House vote upon this comprehensive housing legislation, because they are afraid if it is submitted to a vote, it will
pass.

"The Republican leadership has thus decreed that the House shall vote only upon the emasculated housing legislation which the Republican leadership wants, and that it shall never be allowed to vote upon the kind of housing legislation which the people of this country need and want.

"It will be tragic if the comprehensive housing legislation which has been so long considered, and which has come to the verge of final passage, should be blocked by parliamentary devices which thwart the democratic process.

"But if this is to be the case, the American people should know just how it was done, and by whom."

That housing bill, known as the Wagner-Ellender-Taft bill, passed the Senate 4 years ago while I was in the Senate, and it died in the House. Again this year, after my message, it passed the Senate again, and it has been lying in the House Banking and Currency Committee until just the other day, when 11 Democrats and 3 forward-looking Republicans voted it out to the floor of the House. And the Rules Committee bottled it up again, and will not let the House vote upon it.

Now that comprehensive housing legislation is absolutely essential to the welfare of this country. In every city of the country there is a housing shortage, and what we need is low-cost rental housing for the people, on a basis that they can afford to pay.

The real estate lobby has managed to knock that thing out of this bill, and this thing that they are passing is in the interests of the investors in housing, so they can really get a tax cut. That is what it amounts to.

I don't think you people ought to stand for that. I don't think you are going to stand for that. When this Congress passed a rich man's tax reduction bill, I think that was enough to throw into the faces of the people, without this.

Now we are in a position where the country's national income is more than $200 billion, and when we have that sort of income, we ought to be paying money on the national debt, which is almost astronomic in its size. And that is what I propose to do. I vetoed that tax bill 3 times. They passed it the last time over the veto.

And this housing bill is right in the same line with that sort of legislation.

This is a special privilege majority in Congress. There are a lot of good men in that Congress, but they are in the minority, and they can't act.

Now this majority is going to quit, so that I doubt very much whether they will pass a comprehensive housing bill. And they are going up to Philadelphia and tell the people, not what they have done for the people, but what they have done to the people.

And if you let them get away with it, that is your fault. In 1946 just a third of you voted, and you got just exactly what you ought to have, the two-thirds of you that stayed at home.

Now if you are going to do that again this year, you will deserve what you get. I hope you will profit by the lesson that has been given to you.

Thank you very much.

[7.] RICHMOND, INDIANA (7:45 p.m.)

Ladies and gentlemen:

I was waiting to see whether the Mayor would arrive or not, but I am told he is out of the city, and didn't know I was coming. [Laughter]

It certainly is a pleasure to see all these smiling faces in Richmond. You know, I have been through here at least a hundred times, and nobody paid any attention to me. When I was in the Senate, and even before that, I always used to drive through Richmond, and sometimes stayed at the Richmond-Leland Motel. I ought to get something for that plug, don't you think? [Laughter]

I am going back home myself, as soon as Congress adjourns, and I hope I will have a chance to stay there for a few days and enjoy myself.

I think that Indiana has been most kind to me. When I stopped in Terre Haute, I thought everybody in western Indiana was there, and when I stopped in Indianapolis, I stopped in the union station, just over the street in the west end of the station, and I think there were more than seven or eight thousand people down in that street.

And now I get to Richmond, and I find all the people in eastern Indiana here. It is a pleasure, a privilege, and a compliment. And I appreciate it.

I would like to say just a word to you about the price situation, which is of vital interest to every citizen of the United States. During the wartime we had a consumer price control, and prices remained substantially level until after the war was over. And along in November 1945, I asked the Congress to extend price control from June 30th, 1946, until production had caught up with consumption, because there had been so many things that we couldn't make during the war that were for consumer demand, such as refrigerators and clothing and things of that sort.

But the Congress did not see fit to act on my suggestion, in November 1945, so I asked them again in January 1946, and I asked them again in May 1946; and on or about the 30th of June, the day the price control bill expired, they sent me an impossible bill, and I vetoed it. You see, I have the habit of veto. But I think I am vetoing in the public interest.

Well, they waited until June 30 before they sent me another bill, and it wouldn't work. I knew it wouldn't work, but I had to sign it because it was all I could get, the Congress had adjourned.

So along in the late part of 1946, just fore the election, John Lewis went on a strike, the price of beef went sky high, and 66 2/3 percent of the voters stayed at home, and the one-third elected this Congress. You are getting just what you deserve. When you don't come out and take care of your interests, then something happens to you.

And I made this trip around over the country to inform the people myself of what I think is in the public interest. You see, the President and Vice President are the only officials who are elected by the whole United States, and their interest is the public interest of the whole United States, and not any special interest. And I call this 80th Congress the special interest Congress.

They passed that rich man's tax reduction bill, which I vetoed a couple of times, and then they passed it over my veto. Sometime or other, when politics really gets going, I hope I can come out and make you another political speech, and I will analyze that bill for you and tell you what it does, and then you will understand why I vetoed it.

You see, the country is getting about $200 billion in income, and I thought we ought to pay the national debt so long as we could stand it. But special privilege--special privilege!--special privilege is working.

I just made a statement in Indianapolis that I had heard about what they had done to the housing bill. They have emasculated the housing bill in the interest of the real estate lobby. And if that bill passes, you will all feel it. And then maybe, instead of a third of you coming out, a hundred percent of you will come out and vote for the next Congress, and then we can see what we can do with it.

I hope we can work things out in the public interest. But this price situation affects every person in the country. Price control in the war was a consumers price control, and this Congress said if price controls were removed prices would adjust themselves. Well, prices have adjusted themselves to the point where they have gone off the graph. They are still adjusting themselves in the interests of the fellows that control the goods, and not the people that have to buy.

That is principally what I am interested in, the people who have to pay the bill. And I am going to continue to be interested in just that. I made this trip around the country so you could understand what I stand for, so you would understand what I look like, and so you could understand, without any political implications, what you ought to do when you have a chance to vote again. And you are going to have that chance not far away.

When this Congress adjourns, the majority is going to Philadelphia, and they are going to tell the people what they did to the people in this country, and not what they did for them.

And if you want it done to you as this Congress has done it, then you go ahead and stay at home next time, and let's have another one like it.

But if you believe in the welfare of this Nation, you ought to inform yourselves on exactly what is best for the Nation. Then you ought to go and vote for what you think is best; and when the majority of the American people study the question, they are always right. Jefferson said that, and it is just as true today as it was when Jefferson said it.

I can't tell you how very much I have appreciated this cordial reception which you have given me in Richmond, and I hope sometime or other to come back on a real political tour, and tell you the facts about the issues.

[8.] COLUMBUS, OHIO (11 p.m.)

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. I am certainly agreeably surprised that so many people stayed up so late to see the President! I appreciate it more than I can tell you. The receptions along the trip have been just like this one. They have been so cordial, and people have been so interested in the things that are at issue in the country, that it has been a very great pleasure to me to be able to face the people and tell them just exactly what I think is for their welfare and benefit. That is what I made the trip for. I have tried to make it perfectly plain that there is just one issue before the country, brought about by the Both Congress, and that is special privilege or the people's privilege. I think we are going to have this Congress with the historical record of a Congress of special privilege; and I wanted 'the people to understand distinctly my viewpoint on all these things.

I have discussed prices and housing and the farm program, and all the other main issues that are before the country. In every section of the United States, I know that most everybody is interested in the price situation. And then there is another program that the Republican platform made a perfect statement on. They said that they were going to build up a strong Labor Department. They have emasculated the Labor Department. They have just finished taking another function of the Labor Department away from it. They have made the Labor Department a travesty as a department. And that is wrong.

I have just vetoed the so-called bill--yesterday-where they took about 750,000 people off the social security rules. That ought to be broadened and increased, those rules, instead of tearing up the social security program of this country.

I wish it were not so late that I had time to discuss the whole number of issues with you, but I think the thing that you are principally interested in is the cost of living.

In 1946 they brought me in an impossible price control bill which I had to veto June 30th, when the price controls expired. Three times before that I had asked them to extend that price control law just one year, so as to give production a chance to catch up with consumption, and restore it, to some extent. That was not done.

They finally passed a law about the 30th of July which was impossible of enforcement, and immediately the price spiral began, and it hasn't stopped yet.

We must find some means to balance this situation. You know, it was said that prices would adjust themselves. The prices have adjusted themselves, in favor of the people that have the goods. They charge as much as the traffic will bear.

What I was trying to do was to maintain a consumer control until production caught up with consumption, and then prices would honestly adjust themselves. That's all I asked for. I don't like price controls any better than anybody else, but it is the only thing by which the consumer could have been protected. We are not going to get any action on that in this Congress. We are not going to get any action on the housing bill, which was emasculated today.

The Wagner-Ellender-Taft bill, which is a bill in the interests of all the people, passed the Senate more than 4 years ago, while I was still in the Senate. I sent a message to Congress last February on the housing bill, and the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill passed the Senate and went to the House. And the Banking Committee of the House held that bill until some of the Republicans revolted and 11 Democrats and 3 Republicans reported that bill out to the floor of the House. The Rules Committee tabled it, and they have introduced a housing bill which will be passed under a suspension of the rules, which is for the benefit of the people who make the loans on houses, and has no help whatever for low-cost rental housing, which is what the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill provided.

That, today, is the action of the Congress, and it is almost a crime against the public. But you know, in 1946 you were disgusted with everything, and most of you stayed at home and didn't vote. Only one-third of the qualified voters of the Nation voted in November 1946, and you elected the 80th Congress; and you got just what you deserved, when 66 2/3 percent of you stayed at home.

The majority in control of that Congress said they were going to adjourn right away, and they are going to Philadelphia, and they are going to tell you what they did, not for the public but to the public. And if you are gullible enough to be fooled twice in a row, you will still deserve what you get.

When it is possible, and the lines are drawn, and I can have a chance to make a political tour over the country, I will tell you what all the issues are, and explain them to you so that you can't make a mistake.

I can't tell you how very much I appreciate the privilege of seeing all of you, and letting all of you see me. There have been so many things said about me since I have been President of the United States that think you ought to have a chance to see what I look like. I appreciate that. I want to thank you very much. It certainly is wonderful to have you come out at this time o night to listen to your President, and to look at him and to judge him on your own hook.

Thank you very much.