Address at Bonham, Texas

Speaker Rayburn--I say that advisedly-Governor Jester, Governor Turner of Oklahoma, and distinguished guests:

I have a warm spot in my heart for Texas. Texas has given me some of the best friends a man ever had, and a great many of them are on this platform with me tonight. There's John Myer, and Wright Patman, and Lyndon Johnson--candidates for Congress in the great State of Texas, who are real men, and who have always been for the people first. And then you have nominated a man for the Senate, my good friend, and the friend of the people of Texas, Lyndon Johnson.

The people of Oklahoma have nominated my good friend, Bob Kerr, for the Senate in Oklahoma, and if Lyndon Johnson and Bob Kerr get to the Senate, we'll make those Republicans dance in the next session.

I am more than happy to be here today in the hometown of one of the finest and best friends of them all--Sam Rayburn.

I understand that Sam asked you folks to come out here today so we could talk a little politics. I'm glad so many of you came, because it shows that you're interested in your Government--and interested in the kind of government you're going to have after the election next November.

One thing is certain. In Texas, it's going to be Democratic government, as it has been in the past; and that's a good way to keep it, because the Democratic Party is the party that works for the people.

So far as the Federal Government is concerned, the Republicans are putting on an immense propaganda campaign in an effort to take over this year. They are spending tremendous sums of money and lining up all kinds of strange bedfellows.

I just don't believe they're going to get away with it. We Democrats are going to see that the American people know the facts. When they do, I don't think the people will be taken in by slick Republican propaganda. I don't believe that Texas--or the rest of the United States--wants to go back to the days of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

The country will make a fundamental decision on election day--a decision which will affect you every year and every day for the rest of your lives.

The people will have to decide between the Democratic and the Republican Parties; and that is really a decision between two different kinds of government.

The Democratic Party will give you the kind of government that Sam Rayburn stands for--government in the interest of the farmer and the workingman and all the people. And when the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn will have a powerful voice in seeing that you get the kind of government you ought to have.

Some people have wondered why I keep on talking about the Republican 80th "do-nothing" Congress. Well, I'll tell you why. It's because they raised a storm warning that tells us what we could expect, if we had a Republican President as well as a Republican Congress.

We might have "unity" then. I don't know. But if we did have unity, what kind would it be?

Well, it would be the unity of the Martins, and the Tabers, and the Wherrys, and the Tarts. Then it would be unity in giving tax relief to the rich at the expense of the poor--unity in refusing to give aid to our schools--unity in letting prices go sky high in order to protect excessive profits--unity in whittling away all the benefits of the New Deal, about which the Republicans are so scornful. But they have never yet offered to repeal any of the New Deal measures that were put on the books in the last 16 years.

Do you want that kind of unity? Do you want that kind of unity? Well, I don't either.

Some things are worth fighting for. We have to fight the special interest lobbies instead of being "unified" by them. We must fight isolationists and reactionaries, the profiteers and the privileged class.

The way to fight it is to fight them with votes. When the people know the leaders of the Republican Party are tied up with big business and the special interests, then the people will know how to deal with them at the polls.

That is why I keep talking about these Republicans in the 80th Congress and what they did to the people. Part of the story is of special concern to the Texas farmer, although it affects every American. That is the attitude of the Republican Party toward international trade. The 80th Congress has shown that the Republican Party is still a high-tariff party of Smoot and Hawley, and Joe Grundy.

And you can't expect anyone under an obligation to Joe Grundy to change it into some other kind of party.

When Cordell Hull wrote the reciprocal trade agreements program which came up for renewal this year, the Republicans in Congress insisted on a lot of crippling amendments. Moreover, they renewed it for only 1 year instead of the usual 3; and now, apparently, they wanted to be in a position to do something next year that they didn't dare do this year, because this year is an election year. It's obvious what they want to do next year. They just want to kill the program entirely.

This is a matter of concern to every man, woman, and child in the United States, because it vitally affects our prospects for world peace. A thriving world trade is essential to world prosperity. And prosperity is fundamental to peace and security.

When a man gets too hungry he gets desperate. Just the same way with nations. Poverty and distress breed war.

Foreign trade is not merely a way to keep prosperity. It is the best way to insure peace.

Your Government is making every effort to establish a just and permanent peace. That has always been the main objective of my administration.

For that purpose the Democratic administration established a bipartisan foreign policy, taking the Republican Party into our confidence and working with them in matters concerning our relations with other countries.

One of the great architects of our foreign policy, as you know, is your own Senator Tom Connally. From the beginning Tom Connally has contributed a full measure of hard work and statesmanship in making the policy work.

The bipartisan foreign policy has added greatly to the strength of our efforts for peace. But the peace can be no more secure than the foundations upon which it rests. And if the Republican Party will not join us in establishing a firm basis for world trade, the foundation of peace will be very shaky, indeed.

Vigorous world trade is necessary to maintain our domestic prosperity. The farmers of Texas know the truth of that statement from the hard lesson of experience. They know that adequate foreign markets help to provide stable farm incomes. They know that barriers to foreign trade mean farm depression.

Let me give you an illustration. During World War I, American wheat growers expanded their production to meet the great foreign demand for wheat. Shortly after that war, the foreign markets dried up, and the wheat farmers were left high and dry. You know what happened to prices--they kept falling until finally many farmers were selling wheat for 25 cents a bushel.

The same thing happened to cotton. The Republican high tariffs and trade barriers put up after the first World War cut down the trade in cotton and put the cotton prices on the skids. Farmers were finally selling cotton for 5 cents a pound.

You know that the Republicans who were then in office did absolutely nothing about it.

Now, we are faced with problems like those that followed the first World War. This year we are producing bumper crops of cotton and grain. We mean to keep on producing big crops.

The world needs our crops, and our farmers want to sell them. Other countries want to sell their products to the United States to pay for what they buy. And we in the United States need the products they want to sell.

The Democratic administration has been doing a great deal to protect the export markets for your crops. I have spoken of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements. Also, your Government has taken the lead in setting up the International Trade Organization.

In addition we negotiated a special international agreement relating to wheat.

The practical effect of the International Wheat Agreement would have been just this. Now, listen carefully. Our farmers would have had guaranteed markets, domestic and foreign, for billion-bushel wheat crops for a minimum of 5 years, at prices at least as good as those assured by our price support program.

The Wheat Agreement was submitted to the United States Senate to be ratified as a treaty. What happened to it? The Republican leadership of the Senate wouldn't even allow it to be brought up on the floor of the Senate for consideration.

The Republicans killed the International Wheat Agreement. That is how they love the farmers. This is the kind of treatment the farmer has been getting from the Republican Party, and that's the kind of treatment he can expect to keep on getting from that party. Don't you forget that, now, on election day.

Look at what they have been saying about cotton. The Republican press has been having a field day warning people that the Government may have to make a lot of cotton loans this year at a rate of around 30 cents a pound. They talk as if that is a bad thing to do. They use it as an argument against the whole support price program.

They don't tell you how cotton loans rescued the farmer from the mess of 1932, or how useful Government stocks were during World War Two. They don't tell you that the Truman administration set up a vigorous cotton export program at the end of the war and completely wiped out the last of the cotton surplus--the headache that had plagued farmers for a quarter of a century.

Yes, and we've still got a vigorous cotton export policy. Sam Rayburn can tell you about the $150,000,000 revolving fund that he finally pushed through a reluctant Congress in June. That fund will help us keep on using American cotton in the occupied areas of Germany and Japan.

As long as I have anything to say about it, we'll keep on knocking down trade barriers and opening up foreign markets for American cotton. And we will drive just as hard to hold and expand the home market, by improving the product, finding new uses, and cutting costs of production.

The Republicans tell you not to worry, while they threaten the Reciprocal Trade Agreements, not to worry while they refuse international cooperation through a wheat agreement, and not to worry while they attack your price supports.

This shows very clearly the real principle of the Republican Party. That is the "trickle-down" principle. Take care of the big boys and some of the money will trickle down to the little fellow.

That's just the opposite of the Democratic way. Our primary concern is for the little fellow. We think the big boys have always done very well, taking care of themselves, and they will always take care of themselves. It is the business of the Government to see that the little fellow gets a square deal.

As a matter of fact, I have nothing against the big boys until they get in the way of progress. You sometimes find one who wants the little fellow to get a break. But that is very seldom; you don't find them very often.

Ask Sam Rayburn how many of the big money boys helped, when he was sweating blood to get electricity for farmers and the people in the small towns. You know, Sam was one of the fathers of the Rural Electrification Administration. It's a great monument to him.

When he started working to get REA, you folks in Texas had electricity on very few farms--only on 23 farms in every thousand. Last year, over half of the farms in Texas had electricity. And we intend to push that program vigorously during the next 4 years.

That's an example of what I mean, when I say that the Democratic Party works for the people. And in this case, as in so many others, the Democratic Party did it over violent Republican opposition.

There have been six record votes in Congress on REA. In all but one of those record votes, only about 12 to 25 percent of the Republicans voted in favor of the REA. The vast majority of Republicans opposed REA, and the vast majority of Democrats supported it. The REA program owes its birth and its present life and vigor to the Democratic Party.

I am deeply concerned about what the Republicans would do to the rural electrification program, if they could get control of the whole Government. I know that the Republican Both Congress was not willing to bring low cost electric power to consumers that would stand in the way of the profits of the private power monopolies. And that power monopoly had one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington that ever came there.

I could go on and on about Republican failures. They've made enough mistakes to give me ammunition to talk from now to Christmas. But I don't want to wear out my welcome in Texas. After all, nothing I could say about the Republicans is half as bad as their record. In fact, it is because the Republican record is so bad that I am sure the Democrats will win this election.

I have a profound faith in the people of this country. I believe in their commonsense. They love freedom and that love for freedom and justice is not dead.

Our people believe today, as Jefferson did, that men were not born with saddles on their backs to be ridden by the privileged few.

We believe, as Jefferson did, that "God who gave us life gave us liberty." We protect our liberty against those who threaten it from abroad, and we do not propose to give it up to those who threaten it at home.

We will not give up our democratic way to a dictatorship of the left; neither will we give it up to a despotism of special privilege.

The people of this congressional district have shown that they share these convictions. They have shown it by sending Sam Rayburn to Congress time after time.

And when I go down to the Capitol to address the Congress next January, I expect to see Sam Rayburn sitting up in the Speaker's chair where he belongs.

Thank you very much.