Remarks at the Mall Shopping Center, Bergen, New Jersey[*]

Governor Hughes, Senator Williams, Daniel Amster, ladies and gentlemen, and distinguished guests:

In the past week I have visited 15 States. I have seen more than 2 million people. In New England and the West, in the Midwest and the South, the story has been the same all across this land.

The American people are coming out of their living rooms, they are leaving their offices. They are turning away from work and play. They are coming together to stand together, side by side, as Americans have seldom done in our times. They are coming out as never before because they want the world to know that this is a nation united, one nation indivisible, under God.

For 11 months I have guided my every act by this one belief, that any man who serves as President must serve as President of all the people. Americans do not want the White House to be a house where some citizens are privileged to enter and others are turned away at the door because they were born "wrong," because they believe "wrong," or even because they voted "wrong."

I have found that the vast majority of Americans want to help their President, not hurt him. I have had greater strength than my own on which to call, from business and from labor, from west and from east, from the conservatives, from the liberals, from the Republicans, and from the Democrats.

From that I learned much about the American people.

I believe they are weary of those who preach that America is failing in the world and faltering at home. The people are tired of being told that their character is in question, that their moral fiber is riddled with "rot and decay."

The American people want leadership which believes in them, not leadership which berates them.

This year, good Americans of both parties are determined to put their country first. They intend to vote to preserve the traditions of our country.

But other traditions are at stake, too--a two-party system, for example. That system is not in danger when the leaders of both parties represent those common principles and those broad agreements that have developed down through our history.

The two-party system dangles by a slim thread when the faction that controls one party wants to repudiate the policies that have built our progress step by step over 30 years.

I do not believe that responsible Republicans are going to let control of their party rest for very long with men who want to repeal the present and veto the future. History tells us that once such a faction seals its control of a major party, the fate of that party is also sealed.

The Republican Party today, now, is in temporary receivership. Responsible Republicans can't do anything about it.

But they will have a chance on November 3d to do something about it, and they are going to do it November 3d. And I am here this morning after traveling all over the United States to tell you that all the American people are going to do something about it.

I want to thank the people of this area for the support they have given me in sending that wonderful Senator to Washington-Pete Williams. I hope that you can send us Eddie Ihnen and Henry Helstoski to Congress to help him out.

Come next January, we are going to meet in the Capital and have a program for all the people of this Nation, not just Democrats, not just Republicans, not just Independents, but a program of peace and prosperity for all Americans in all regions of all this great land of ours.

We have the most wonderful country in all the world. We want to protect it. We want to preserve it. The way to do it is to go to the polls November 3d and give us a Democratic victory.