Remarks at the State Capitol in Des Moines

My friend and your fighting Governor Harold Hughes, lovely Mrs. Hughes, Mayor Iles and the gracious Mrs. Iles, my longtime friend, your able fighting Congressman Neal Smith, the other congressional candidates, and my fellow Americans:

I am happy to be here in the State that has such an able chief executive as Governor Hughes. I commend you on your choice. Neal Smith is one of the most effective Congressmen in Washington, but he needs some more Democrats down there to help him.

I think the people of Iowa know what the issue is in this campaign. The basic issue is responsibility versus irresponsibility. And for my part, this is going to be a responsible campaign.

I am here to talk about the politics of responsibility this morning. This campaign is going to give the people of America a clear mandate for a farm policy that will restore full parity of income and opportunity to all of the American farmers who live on American farms !

My roots are deeper in the soil than most Presidents' have been. I am proud to be the son of a tenant farmer; I am proud of land of my own. I love that land.

I think I know what farmers want and what they need.

They don't want political flattery; they want understanding of their problems.

Farmers don't want promises; they want policies that work.

Farmers don't want Government handouts; they want real, effective bargaining power in the marketplace.

Farmers don't want Government storage bins; they want new and expanding markets for their efficient production.

Farmers want freedom to grow, to prosper, freedom to operate competitively and profitably in our present economic system.

Farmers are farmers in the first place because they have the deep-seated instinct to raise crops, not to cut them back, not to leave the land unproductive.

America's farmers want, America's farmers need, and America's farmers deserve not promises but more income and more opportunity.

The Democratic answers to these needs include three sets of programs, which I shall enumerate:

--We intend to continue but to improve commodity programs. We intend to strengthen farm income.

--We intend to assure rural Americans full partnership in the building of our Great Society.

--We intend to increase, wherever we can, the consumer demand for our agricultural products.

I want to emphasize particularly the importance of the choice that farmers have in regard to the commodity program.

You can choose our proposal to continue but to improve commodity programs, or you can choose the contrary proposal to wipe those programs out altogether.

The opposition has already spoken plainly. The opposition has called--and I am quoting verbatim for you to hear and for you to remember--the opposition has said "prompt and final termination of the farm subsidy program." And it has said, and again I am quoting verbatim, "there can be no equivocation here."

In North Dakota, at the plowing contest, an attempt was made to soften these words. Our farmers were told, and again I quote, "Nothing would be done to bring disaster upon you suddenly."

Well, I guess they think disaster is better if it comes by degrees I Or I guess they think they could get by with it easier if they gave it to you in small doses.

Disaster is exactly what their position would bring to the farmers of Iowa.

The most careful and responsible studies, some of them by your own widely respected authorities at Iowa State University, have shown what would happen if we terminated farm price supports. And here is what your own experts say:

First, net farm income throughout the Nation would be cut in half, or $6 billion. Do you want that to happen?

Second, one out of five farmers would be bankrupted. Do you want that to happen?

Third, corn would sell for less than 80 cents a bushel, wheat for less than $1, and soybeans would sell for less than $2 a bushel. It would mean 17-cent cattle and 13-cent hogs. Do you want that to happen? Well, that's not all.

--Here in Iowa, the land with the richest soil in the Union, net farm income would fall by more than $422 million. Every person in the great State of Iowa, whether he lives on a farm or not, would suffer. And all of you better remember that.

--Net farm income in the corn belt would drop by $1.8 billion--$1.8 billion--a devastating blow to the heart of America's economy.

To such a disastrous policy, I believe, and I think you believe, and I think all America believes, that the answer ought to be no!

We know from bitter experiences that depressions are farm-led and they are farm-fed, and I say to you that the Democratic Party under my leadership, as long as I am President, is not going to repeat that experience.

We propose, instead, to find in our present feed grain program, our wheat program, our programs for other commodities, those elements which need to be strengthened, and then to improve them. Under these programs, gross farm income has averaged $4 billion a year since 1960. Net income has averaged $900 million a year higher, or $600 more per farm family.

But all of us wish we had done better. And we will do better.

The Democratic goal is parity of income for the farmer. We are making progress toward it. We will make more progress by going forward, learning as we go, building on what we have already done.

But parity of income is not enough. Our goal is more than that. It is parity of opportunity for rural America in the broadest meaning of the term.

In the past, our farm programs have been designed to protect against disaster. Now we must aim at preserving and strengthening the structure of the whole rural society, based on the family farm, based on the rural communities that have contributed so much to the American tradition. This is the kind of a life that I grew up in. I know its values. I know its worth.

We must make it possible for young people to spend their lives in the rural communities where they grew up if they choose to do so, instead of being forced by economic necessity to tear up their roots and to move away to distant cities.

We will work together to make more effective use of our food abundance. There is no justification for any person in this country going hungry in the midst of plenty.

The food stamp program has worked well. The Democratic Party under my administration proposes to expand the food stamp program.

The Food for Peace program has worked well. It is good international policy. It is good economic policy. People who are hungry are weak allies of freedom. We broadened that program this year, and we will make it still better as we go along.

One out of every six dollars earned by farmers today comes from export markets, things we sell abroad, and one out of every four acres harvested today produces for markets overseas. Our agricultural exports for dollars climbed last year to $4 1/2 billion, up 20 percent in one year, 35 percent greater than in 1960.

And there is another exciting prospect for our agricultural markets. Our studies show that if about 80 of the newly-developed countries increased their per capita income by just $100 a year, we can double America's export market for food that we produce in Iowa and the other farm States. I intend to continue to improve and build America's export market for the family farm, and I pledge you that we will get that job done if you will return the Democrats to office on November 3d.

I look forward to the day when we can rely less on cutbacks and more on programs to sell abroad all that we produce.

I look forward to the day when our great cooperatives and other private enterprise institutions can perform most of the marketing functions with a minimum of Government involved.

Rural America must take a leading role in building the Great Society here and in the world. And rural America, led by the greatest State in the farm belt--Iowa-must take the lead of all on November 3d in electing a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress.

It was the initiative, it was the vision, it was the enterprise of America's farmers, Iowa farmers, that developed our great land frontiers. The same initiative, the same vision, the same enterprise must help now in building a better, a more prosperous America for every boy and girl born in the United States.

So let's join together to get the job done, not just as Democrats, not just as Republicans, but Americans first.

Before I leave I want to tell each of you how proud the rest of the Nation is of the great State of Iowa for the responsible State Government that Harold Hughes has given this State. We are proud of his education program. We are proud of his State responsibilities. We are proud of his State's rights. He is a living and walking example of what bipartisanship can mean and that kind of cooperation we intend to put into effect in Washington on the national level, and your President and your Governor are going to walk shoulder to shoulder to get the job done.

Yes, we pledge you people today on our word of honor that we will give you an administration that is representative of all the people and all the parties, and all the States of this Union.

Peace, a five-letter word--p-e-a-c-e--peace is our first priority. America is the most powerful Nation in all the world, but we must use our power and our responsibility carefully and with restraint--not injudiciously, never recklessly.

Some of you may remember a few months after that terrible tragedy when we lost our great President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we had a problem at Guantanamo. Mr. Castro notified us that he was cutting off the water that our boys stationed at Guantanamo had to drink. There were immediate shouts from all over the land. They gave us various forms of advice. Some of that advice said, "Send in the Marines."

Well, we didn't act hastily. We acted cautiously and carefully and deliberately, because some of those Marines come from Iowa and Texas and the rest of the States of this Union, and every one of those Marines means something to his home and something to his President. So what did we do? Instead of sending the Marines in to turn the water on, we sent in one admiral to cut it off!

Recently near Viet-Nam, in the Gulf of Tonkin, when they fired on our flag, we retaliated in kind. We not only sank the boats that fired upon it, but we immediately moved to destroy the nests that housed those boats. But we didn't drop a bunch of bombs on civilian women and children in an act of desperation or in a thoughtless moment.

We used our power with judgment and with restraint, and I want you to know that if I am continued as your Commander in Chief, I am willing to go anywhere, I am willing to talk to anyone, I am anxious to sit down and get the advice of men in both parties.

You will remember it was Arthur Vandenberg that advised with Harry Truman. You will remember I was the Democratic leader of the Senate when President Eisenhower was the Republican President. It is now your own Bourke Hickenlooper who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and comes in and advises with us. In matters of foreign policy, it is not Democratic, it is not Republican. It is what is best for your country.

We have more freedom today than we have had at any time in our lifetime. We have more prosperity today than we have had at any time in our lifetime.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't cut the budget. That doesn't mean we shouldn't cut waste. That doesn't mean we shouldn't cut taxes. And this year, under the Democratic leadership and in a Democratic Congress, with the Republican opposition opposing that bill, the Republican leader in this campaign voted "no," and we reduced your taxes $12 billion.

We reduced your budget $1 billion, and I say to you that if you will give us some more Democratic Congressmen from Iowa to join Neal Smith, if you will support the strong right arm of Governor Hughes, if you will return to Washington a Democratic administration, we will work and fight and give you prosperity and peace for the people of this country.

I wish I could stay here and visit with each of you. But we must cover several more places today. We must be on our way and all I can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Good luck and God bless you. I hope that each and every one of you can come to the inauguration. Wouldn't that be a wonderful sight in Washington in January?