Remarks to Two Groups of Republican Workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

My Friends:

I am going to make a speech tonight so I am not going to make a double speech to any group. But I am going to make one observation that I think might be helpful in all your political work, including the always irksome job of providing the wherewithal.

I am often asked what is the difference between this country now and in 1952. I have given a lot of thought to it, and I will tell you: the biggest difference, at least so far as my heart and mind show it, is this: We are just happier. We are just a happier nation.

Now, anybody that has had anything to do with great organizations of any kind, military or civil, knows that this is a terribly important fact, because here is morale.

What is a happy crowd? A battalion or a company where they say, "Hi Boss." It's an outfit that has confidence in itself and knows it's going places. It just strikes me that if I had the task of organizing and raising the money, and I started to talk to my prospect, I would say, "How much happier are you than you were four years ago?" And then I would show him what it meant, that he is a man of self-confidence, that he has confidence in his country, which is the organization that you are talking about at the moment. He believes that country is going places.

I think that is the most important thing that we can compare-our country--in that phase of our life, when we talk about 1956 and 1952.

And that being the case, think what 1960 can be! Thank you and goodbye.

[The President then spoke to a group in an adjoining room]

As you know, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to make a speech tonight and certainly I don't want to inflict myself in the role of speaker on any group twice in the same evening, so I am not going to make a speech.

I am going to tell you a little story I told to a group of Republican workers in Lexington, Kentucky. They liked it so well that two or three of them wrote me a note that I ought to tell it everywhere. It is this:

The Republican workers apparently have a job of explaining themselves to their prospects that they want to vote our way, and they accordingly have to find out the reasons that any prospect may be thinking of voting another way.

So this Republican worker walked up to a man on the street and he said, "I would like to talk a little politics to you, and I would like to start out by asking you whom you are going to vote for next time?"

The man said, "I am going to vote for Stevenson, of course."

Well, that sort of settled the Republican back on his heels and he thought it over a minute, and he said, "Of course, that's your privilege, you are a free-born American citizen, and I acknowledge that, but would you mind telling me the reasons?" "Not at all," he said. "It's perfectly simple. I voted for him four years ago, and everything has been wonderful ever since."