Rear-Platform Remarks at Greeley, Colo

Good morning. I have just got through breakfast; and I am glad to come back here to be introduced by Fred Cummings, who is an old friend of mine.

The last time I stood here, I think, was with Mrs. Roosevelt in 1920 when I was running for Vice President. A lot of things have happened since that time.

For example, I know of a lot of things that have happened to the beet-sugar industry. I want to tell you a story about that. It relates to beets, and it relates to a lot of other products. Way back in the campaign of 1932, a man brought on the train a chart showing the fluctuations of prices of various raw materials and agricultural commodities—cattle, sheep, corn, cotton, wheat, sugar, minerals such as gold, silver and copper, and so forth and so on. I found from that chart that some of these commodities had fluctuated an average of 400 percent up or down between 1920 and 1932. Well, I do not believe there is any permanent prosperity in a commodity that fluctuates 400 percent up or down, any more than there is in a mortgage or a home that fluctuates 400 percent up or down.

Therefore, back in 1932, we laid plans to try to iron out these up-and-down fluctuations and get commodities to more stable year-in and year-out price levels.

I think we have accomplished a good deal along that line. Sugar beets form one pretty good example. The average grower of sugar beets has recognized the fact that he is better off, if, when he puts his seed in the ground, he knows approximately what the price is going to be when he harvests his crop, than he would be in a highly fluctuating, speculative market. Whenever there are great fluctuations in prices, the .only seller who really ever makes money is the speculator. That is why we have tried to stabilize the prices of various farm commodities and other commodities as well.

I say this merely to give you one little slant on the general policy that the Government has been following during the last four years. I think that in the long run it is a sound policy for the country as a whole, whether it applies to the raw products of the soil or to the raw products of the mines.

If you are interested in following it further, go and get a chart of the prices of any of these raw materials from the nearest library and see what I mean. If you will follow the line showing the prices as they have advanced or declined, you will see a zigzag that will horrify you even if you check it back for only fifteen years.

I am going on from here down to Denver, and then farther down to Pueblo. It is the first time that I have been down in the middle part of the State since I took office in 1933. I have, however, been what they call "a traveling President." I have been trying to keep in personal touch with the Nation. I have been pretty well all around Colorado and I have touched a corner of Colorado several times. I am glad now to be able to get into the middle of the State and see at first hand some of the conditions. It is going to help me during the next four years.