Address in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

Thank you--thank you very much. I certainly appreciate most highly the cordial and friendly welcome of your distinguished Mayor. He wonders how I stand the campaign! I will explain it to him.

When I was a very young man, I campaigned in the township to be township committeeman, and I failed to make the grade. When I got to be a little older, I campaigned in the county to be county Judge, and I made that grade. Then on several occasions I campaigned through the whole State for Senator, and of about 114 counties in the State I made them all.

Now, as President of the United States, and head of the Democratic Party, it is my duty to let the people know just what I stand for, and what the Democratic Party means. And when I have a duty to do, it is never too great to be done.

I certainly appreciate the privilege of meeting former Sergeant Hopkins, who was in the 109th Field Artillery. I did happen to be on the ridge at Mont Blaineville and fired on two German batteries. I didn't know I was doing anybody any good at that time. I just saw these batteries firing, and put them out of commission.

That sometimes happens in politics, too.

It certainly is a pleasure to be in this wonderful city of Wilkes-Barre today.

A Democrat ought to feel at home here, in a city and county which have supported the Democratic Party consistently--except for a little mistake in 1946!

We can't afford to make mistakes like that this year. This election is too important.

Just one fundamental issue in this election this time, and that is the people against the special interests. And when you vote at the polls on November 2d, you will either vote for yourself or you will vote against yourself. Remember that.

I have just been telling your neighbors over in Scranton what the Republican 80th Congress has done to labor and what the Republican Party plans to do to labor, if it gets control of the 81st Congress and puts a Republican President in the White House.

You know, I exercised my power of veto oftener than any other President of the United States in the time limit, except Grover Cleveland, and each of those vetoes I felt was in the public interest. Suppose I hadn't been there!--the 80th Congress would have certainly fixed you sure enough, but they didn't have a chance to do all the things they wanted to do.

All you have to do to avoid a mistake like the 80th Congress is to come out and vote on November 2d.

Wilkes-Barre deserves to have a Representative in Congress who will vote in the interest of the people who live here--in your interest. You ought to have a Congressman who will vote to bring down high prices, to provide you with better social security, and good, decent, American homes.

You deserve to have a Congressman who will vote for you, and not against you. Don't make a mistake again. Send Dan Flood back to Congress where he belongs. He was a good Congressman.

Your city of Wilkes-Barre is a perfect example of what has made this country the leading nation in the world today--the greatest nation in the world on which the sun has ever shone upon. The greatest nation in the world today is the United States of America, and Wilkes-Barre made this country great. It is named after two great fighters for human liberty--John Wilkes and Isaac Barre. Wilkes-Barre has grown because men and women who loved liberty have come here from all over the world. You have fought for human liberty, too--in your businesses, in building up strong labor unions, and in the armed forces of this country fighting for freedom throughout the whole world in two great wars.

This is the real American way.

The ordinary common people of the world are just like we are. They want peace and security, and that is what we are trying to obtain for them.

We know that the people of the world really want freedom and liberty. We understand the sufferings and the struggles of those in the lands from which we came. We know that they want freedom, no matter what regime may be imposed upon them by force or treachery.

The Democratic Party stands for aid to people of other lands in their struggles against tyranny. We know that the people of the world really want liberty and freedom.

During the 80th Congress, one of the pieces of legislation in which I was most interested was the displaced persons bill. This bill opens the door to a portion of those former victims of nazism, people from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and other European countries, who have been persecuted by Germans and who don't want to go back to tyranny behind the Soviet Iron Curtain.

I wanted to see our country admit its fair share of these helpless victims. I wanted to see them come in without any discrimination, but the Republican 80th Congress passed a law which discriminates against certain groups.

It excludes nearly all displaced persons who belong to the Jewish faith, and it excludes an unfair proportion of those belonging to the Catholic faith. I don't think that is right. It is not American.

I asked the Republican Congress to change this law at the special session last July, but it refused to act.

Now, if you want to see these displaced persons, who have so much in common with us, treated on a fair and equal basis, you have got to elect a Democratic Congress on November 2d.

If you elect a Democratic Congress, you will be sure of getting laws which will help out all the people of the United States, and not just a powerful, wealthy few.

We need a law that will provide a half million units of low-rent public housing, clearance of slums, and rural housing. The Democratic Congress will give you that sort of law, because that is a part of the Democratic platform.

We need Federal aid to education. The Democratic Congress will give you that aid, because that is a part of the Democratic platform.

We need at least a 75-cent minimum wage. The Democratic Congress will give us that minimum wage. Now the Republican candidate says he is for a minimum wage, and I think the sort he wants is the smaller the minimum the better.

We need extension of social security to everybody in the entire Nation not now covered, and a 50 percent increase in benefits. A Democratic Congress will give us that extension and that increase.

The Republicans said they are for social security, but when they had the power and the Congress, they took social security away from a million people that had it.

We need controls on inflation. A Democratic Congress, I think, will give us these controls.

I am urging you with everything I have to vote the Democratic ticket straight November 2d, and then we can go on to build the kind of people's America that our great President Franklin D. Roosevelt had in mind when he gave us the New Deal.

We can build the kind of prosperous Nation we all want in a peaceful world that I want--and I am sure you want and need.

Thank you very much.