Address at the Armory, Springfield, Illinois

Senator Lucas, and fellow Democrats of Illinois:

I wish I were half as good as Senator Lucas says I am, I might be able to fill the Presidency as I know it ought to be filled, and as I pray that I may fill it.

I can't tell you how I appreciate the wonderful reception I have had in the great State of Illinois today. Every city where we have stopped has been just like this. It looks as if at every stop everybody for 40 miles around was there--and I believe they were.

The cordiality of your greeting makes me believe that you are truly interested in the issues that are in this campaign, in my opinion the most important campaign we will have for a generation.

I particularly want to pay tribute to the Mayors of these various towns--the Mayor of Decatur, the Mayor of Danville, the Mayor of Springfield--you have been exceedingly courteous and cordial to me and to my family, and we want to express our sincere thanks. And I want to say to you, if you ever come to Washington, or if you will come to Missouri, we will try to give you the same kind of welcome.

You know, I am always glad to be in this great State, because it's a close neighbor of Missouri. I have a lot of friends in Illinois. I always had a lot of relatives, too. I have found more relatives in Illinois and Kentucky and Missouri over the years, that I think I can win an election, if all my relatives vote for me.

Senator Barkley and I, you know, come from the same stock. The Senator's ancestors stayed in Kentucky, and mine moved from Kentucky to Missouri, and those people in Kentucky who are not kinfolk of Senator Barkley are kinfolk of mine.

We do understand the needs of that part of the United States that lies in the Mississippi Valley, but I think you will find that Senator Barkley and I a so understand the needs of the Nation as a whole, and of the world. Each of us has had experience that is necessary to meet the conditions with which we are faced today. I hope you will weigh that carefully, when you go to vote on the second of November.

I'm glad to be here, too, to tell you how proud I am of the ticket the Democratic Party is offering to the voters of Illinois.

Never within my memory has any party offered your State a finer team than Adlai Stevenson and Paul Douglas. I know that Adlai Stevenson is going to make a splendid Governor. He is a fighter, and comes of fighting stock.

And when Senator Douglas gets down to Washington to work with your present great Senator, Scott Lucas, it will be a good thing for Illinois and a good thing for the country as a whole, and for the world.

A man is known by the company he keeps, and I find myself in good company on your election ballot. Now, on the side, I want to say that I don't think I have celebrated or spent a more pleasant Columbus Day in the history of my life than I have today in Illinois. It has been a real celebration, one I think that has given the people some information that will do them good, and one I think that will do the country good. If old Columbus could come back and see what a great country he had discovered, my, how pleased he would be, I am sure!

I feel especially good about your election ballot, when I consider the unhappy situation of the Republican candidate for President in that respect. He certainly is lining up with some queer characters. You ought to check the voting records of the candidates that he has been trying to get reelected to the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. Then you can judge for yourselves whether the elephant's got a "new look" and whether it means anything or not.

No one ever comes to this historic city without thinking of Abraham Lincoln. I just wonder tonight, as I have wondered many times in the past, what Lincoln would say if he could see how far the Republican Party has departed from the fundamental principles in which he so deeply believed.

Lincoln came from the plain people and he always believed in them. He put labor ahead of capital--he put people ahead of property--and principle above all else.

I just wonder what Lincoln would say if he could see how his party has become the tool of big business and special interest. How far do you suppose the real estate lobby would get with Abraham Lincoln? What do you suppose he would say to the power lobby and the railroad lobby?

I have a notion that the only kind of lobby he would like would be a schoolteachers' lobby.

The masters of the Republican Party today would have been the bitter enemies of Lincoln in his time, just as they are enemies of his principles today.

But I did not come here to talk about principles alone. I came to talk about putting principles to work for the good of the people.

Democrats are practical folks. We like to get down to cases and talk business. It's curious that our opponents, who claim to be so businesslike and so efficient, refuse to get down to specific issues.

I don't blame them for trying to campaign on theory. They are afraid to tell the people where they stand on specific issues.

The Republicans know they can't run on their record--that record is too bad.

But you ought to know about their record. And since they won't tell you, I will.

I can't cover the whole story at one time, so tonight I will talk to you about the farm record of the Republicans. Here in Illinois you have a lot of farmers, and a great many others who are dependent on farm prosperity. This story is of interest to everybody, too, because it is a fair sample of the kind of treatment the people have been getting from the Republicans.

There are a few big questions every farmer--and every one of the rest of us-ought to ask himself before he decides how to vote on November 2d. One of the questions each of us ought to ask is this:

How well off was I in 1932, after the Republicans had been in office 12 years, how well off am I now after having had Democratic Presidents for the last 16 years ?

For nearly all of us, the answer to that question is perfectly plain.

Some people would like you to think that the Government had nothing to do with this--that the country just drifted into the depression without any help from the Republicans and drifted out into prosperity without any help from the Democrats ?

As a matter of fact, the Government has a great deal to do with these things.

The increasing prosperity we have enjoyed since 1933 has been due in a large part to Government programs put into effect by the Democratic Party.

The Republicans fought these programs for years, but lately they have come around, saying: "Me, too, but I can do it better."

Well, two-thirds of you stayed at home in 1946. That third that went to the polls elected the Republican 80th Congress, and you gave them a chance to show what they could do. And what did they do? Let's get back to the farm program.

The first thing they did was to cut the soil conservation program. They have been telling you how strong they were for soil conservation.

I'll tell you how strong they were for it: The Republicans in the House of Representatives voted 12 to 1 to kill the agricultural conservation program entirely. That's how strong they were for it, although their platforms of 1940 and 1944, and even of 1948 said they were for soil conservation.

You ought to know this too: When they voted to kill that program, they automatically voted to kill the farmer-committee system. Those committees are made up of farmers and are elected by farmers to run the farm programs. As long as you have the farmer-committee system, you can laugh at the lies about bureaucrats coming out and running the farms. But if they kill the committees, one of two things will happen: Either you won't have any farm program, or the bureaucrats will run whatever there is to run. There won't be much to run, I can tell you that.

They will have to be Republican bureaucrats, too, because the Democrats will never allow that to happen, while we have the power to stop it.

The Republican attack on soil conservation and the committee system did not succeed in full. Democrats had voices and we still had some votes in Congress. But remember this: The Republicans cut the agricultural conservation program exactly in half. Even for this election campaign they did not put back as much as they cut.

Let's look at some more of their performance.

They tell you that they favor price supports. But while you sat out here on a powder keg waiting for prices to blow up, that Republican Congress lit a fuse.

They knew for a long time that price support legislation would expire at the end of this year. But for a year and a half after they took control of the Congress, they did absolutely nothing.

The gentleman over there who said "nothing" to that question awhile ago told the truth, if it ever was told. They did nothing for the people.

Then the first thing the Republicans did was to restrict the right of the Commodity Credit Corporation to provide storage bins for grain.

No longer can the Government provide enough storage in rural areas to carry the surplus from the fat years until the lean years come. Farmers can't afford to go into the storage business to that extent. And the grain trade has either been unable or unwilling to do it.

This action by the Republicans will cost both farmers and consumers. It will benefit the speculative grain trade and the shipping interests. And that's all it will benefit. It will turn the farmers back to the speculators.

If the farmers can't find storage facilities, they can't get support prices.

And if you have to sell your corn for less than the support price for lack of storage, you will know that the blame lies squarely on the Republican Party, and nowhere else.

While they are doing this to cripple price supports, the time was fast approaching when our major price support legislation would expire. Remember, they had had a year and a half to deal with this problem.

But it was not until 5 o'clock on Sunday morning, in the last minutes of the congressional session, that they finally worked out a compromise price support bill. The Republicans were forced to pass something that would look good on the record for the election campaign. But at the very time they passed it, they were explaining that next year it could be amended or repealed. I had been begging them ever since the Congress met, to meet that situation, but they couldn't do it until the last minute. They were afraid to go to the Republican convention in Philadelphia without doing some little thing, and that is what they did.

Just last month Republican Senator Capper of Kansas, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture in the 80th Congress, made a very significant statement in his weekly broadcast to Kansas. He openly predicted that there would be a drive in the next Congress to reduce the support price levels in 1949.

This uncertainty is unfair to all farmers, and especially unfair to those of you who are livestock producers, because you have to plan your operations a long time in advance. You need to know what you can count on, and on the basis of the record no farmer can count on the Republican attitude toward price supports.

Only with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President can you be sure that you will get a square deal on prices.

Some people want to know why I keep talking about the 80th Congress. Some of them seem to think that the Republican candidate for President has no connection with the record of the 80th Congress.

I want to remind you of something. He is bound hand and foot by the record of the 80th Congress, and he is running on that record, and nothing else.

In order to get the nomination, he indorsed the record of that Congress. The platform on which he is running gives it the warmest endorsement. He is trying to get the people to reelect every reactionary member of the 80th Congress, as you noticed when he came here to Illinois.

Recently the Republican candidate stated that he was proud of the record of the 80th Congress.

Now, when I speak of the 80th Congress, I am speaking of the leadership of that Congress, the people who run it. I am not speaking of such men as Scott Lucas and other Democrats who served in that Congress. I am here to tell you that the leadership of that Congress--if you elect it this time--they will control it again, and we will have worse than an 80th Congress, if that is possible.

But we Democrats cannot be content merely to run against the Republican record, however black it may be. And although we are proud of the Democratic record, we are not content merely to run on our record.

We have a positive program for the future, and I want to be sure you know about it. This program has been spelled out in detail in messages I have sent to the Congress.

Tonight I want to give you a brief and concrete statement of what the program is. But first, I want to remind you again of how much farmers and city people depend upon each other.

What I would like to tell you is very simple. I have said it again and again in this campaign. If you are a farmer, your customers are in the cities, and most of them are men and women who work for a living. Unless they get good wages, they can't pay good farm prices. And, as for labor, the best market for the products of industry is the farmer. Unless the farmer gets a fair price--a parity price for his crops, he can't buy the clothes and the tools, and the automobiles and the radios, and the other things which labor helps to manufacture.

When the farmer votes for a Republican Party that proposes to smash the strength of labor, the farmer is not voting just for a cut in the wages of the city workers.

He is voting to cut his own income.

He is voting to reduce his own prices.

He is voting to have the Republican Party do a repeat-performance of the agricultural depression of the 1920's.

This is now the most prosperous nation the world ever saw. And we can keep it that way.

I propose to tell you how we can keep it that way, particularly as to how agriculture is concerned.

There is only one sane national policy for agriculture, and that is a policy of organized, sustained, and realistic abundance.

We must not only produce abundantly, but we must market, distribute, and consume the abundance we produce.

Our farmers are producing far more than before the war, and, with continuing prosperity, they can produce even more. The people are eating more and better food, and generally living better. Many people, however, are not yet able to supply their needs. When all our people can get as much as they should have, then we will have no danger of farm surpluses.

In order for our people to get all they need, we must maintain high levels of employment. If unemployment should occur, we must be ready immediately to take up the slack. We must also maintain good export outlets.

Now, this is what I believe in. Here are the main outlines of the agricultural program we must have:

1. We must have on a permanent basis a system of flexible price supports for agricultural commodities. Price supports and related measures help us keep our farm production adjusted to shifting market requirements. They are also required by the very nature of our economy. Farm prices are unstable in relation to other prices. And farm price trouble can lead to depression, which cuts the markets and further depresses agriculture. Parity must be our continuing goal.

2. We must expand our soil conservation program and put a stop to the waste of our agricultural resources. By using our land wisely, we can produce abundantly and permanently. But wasteful use of the soil is national suicide.

3. We must continue and strengthen our programs to assure adequate consumption of agricultural products. In this I include scientific research, efforts to encourage world trade through agreements and other means, the school lunch program, and further efforts to improve the diets of low-income families. We must never again allow our people to go hungry while surpluses are going to waste.

4. We must continue to develop means of meeting special agricultural problems. For example, we must protect the right of farmers to do business through cooperatives. We must extend rural electrification. We must have better housing, better roads, and better educational facilities for our farmers.

The policy and the programs I have mentioned are essential to the future welfare of agriculture.

They are essential to the welfare and prosperity of this whole Nation, and of the world.

A policy of democratic abundance is the best answer in the world to the threat of communism. It is a policy that contributes toward world peace.

Thanks to the Democratic administrations of the past we have much of the legislation we need to follow a policy of organized, sustained, and realistic abundance. I asked that Both Congress to add the missing pieces and to provide adequate support for the programs we have. The Republican leadership refused.

I wish the Wall Street crowd would let their candidate stamp his "me, too" on the agricultural policy that my party and my administration stand for.

I wish we had at least as much bipartisan support for our agricultural policy as we have for our foreign policy.

But unfortunately agricultural policy is very much a partisan matter at this time.

The enemies of the farmer feel pretty cocky. They tell us the farmer is fat and happy and not worried about anything. They picture the farmer in a private airplane or a fine new car, and they laugh and say the farmer won't pay any attention to Truman.

They say the same thing about labor. Labor has been put in its place, they say, and is going to get more of the same.

I wish they were right in saying you don't have a thing to worry about. You are more prosperous than you ever were under the Republicans. But I want you to be as prosperous as the people who are saying you are already too prosperous.

As a Democrat, I believe in prosperity for the many, and not for just a few.

I believe that the farmer and the industrial worker, and the miner and the businessman, will prosper together or they will fail together.

I reject the reactionary idea that there are second class citizens who were meant to be nothing but hewers of wood and drawers of water.

I maintain that every man, woman, and child in the United States is entitled to a decent living and to equal justice in a free land.

To that end we of the Democratic Party pledge our strength and our courage.

We shall never rest until, by God's grace, we have attained that goal.