Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Rock Island, Illinois

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REAR PLATFORM REMARKSOF THE PRESIDENT AT ROCK ISLAND, ILL. September 18, 1948, 5:45 a. m., c.s.t. I don't think I have ever seen so many farmers in town in all TRUMAN my life. I had no idea that there would be anybody else in a town the size of Rock Island at this time of day. It is a pleasure for me to be here with you, and I am highly honored to be introduced by the next Senator from Illinois, and I am highly honored to have alongside me the next Senator from Iowa, Guy Gillette. Senator Gillette and I served in the Senate, and Douglas -- I never had the pleasure of serving with Senator Douglas-to-be, but I will probably have a chance to associate with him a very great deal the next four years. You know the issues in this campaign are not hard to define. The issue is the people against the special interests, and if you need any proof of that all you need to do is to review the record of this Republican 80th Congress. You remember in 1946, when everybody said he wanted a change that he thought the country had had enough, and they put out such pro- paganda as that, most of you stayed at home, and by a minority vote of about a third of the voters, you elected a Congress that I think has given you enough! The object of this 80th Congress, it seemed to me, was to take the bargaining power away from labor and give it back to the special interests. It was also the idea of the lobbies that controlled that 80th Congress to see that prices were not controlled. You know, I think they really like to have a "boom and bust". You know, that Congress had some of the most terrific lobbies that has ever been in Washington in the history of the Country. They had the Rual Estate Lobby, the one that turned the rent control program loose, and they had the Speculators Lobby and they had the National Association of Manufacturers Lobby, whose in- terest is not the public interest - its special interest. I want to bring it home to you that you must yourselves analyze the condition of the country at the time the 80th Congress took over, and you must also analyze the condition of the country over a sixteen year period, fourteen years of which were in the hands of a Democratic ad- ministration. You must also go back and compare that situation with the one with which we were faced after twelve years of normalcy, shall we call it? That is what they want to go back to. We don't want to go back, we want to go forward! Dozens of times -- I won't say that -- at least half a dozen times I'll say -- I asked the Congress to give us a price control bill that would gradually release those controls as production caught up with consumption and prevent a run-away inflation. You were informed by the National Association of Manufacturers in 1946 that within one year that prices would adjust themselves. They have adjusted themselves. They have gone all the way off the chart. It has not been in the interests of the common man either. It has been in the interest of special interests who want to control this country again. Now you can't afford to let that happen. You must, if you want this country to go forward, you must always be sure that you have people in control of the government whose interest is yours and not the special interests who want special privilege in everything that takes place. Now, in order to prevent that, you must elect men like Senator Douglas here in Illinois, and men like Senator Gillette in Iowa. You must elect Congressmen whose interest is the people's interest, and not special privilege interests. I hope you will keep that in mind and I hope you will do that on November 2. (OVER)