Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Des Moines, Iowa

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT DES MOINES, IOWA September 18, 1948, 10:20 a.m., c.s.t. NATIONAL AND Governor, Senator Gillette, Distinguished members of my party who have been on the train with me across the state of Iowa, including your Democratic Candidate for Governor, your Democratic Candidate for Congress, and several other of your distinguished candidates, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I am delighted to arrive here this morning exactly on tire. I'll say this to you, though: that in every city there were immense numbers of people who were anxious to shake hands with me, and if I had delayed the train long enough to do that, I wouldn't have been here till the day after tomorrow. I always feel like I'm a part of this part of the world because I was raised down in Jackson County, Missouri, near a little town called Grandview, and I lived the best part of my life in Independence. Kansas City, you know, is a suburb of Independence, Missouri. I understand the thinking of the people in this part of the world because I think as you do and you think as I ** do think. I understand that Des Moines' baseball team won the pennant this year in the XN Western League. I've been trying to get Kansas City to win the pennant in the American Association ever since I was a kid. They won one when I was a little boy. I had hoped also to see St. Louis and Washington win the championships in the American and National Leagues. So I go for St. Louis one time and Washington the next, but I'm afraid they're both out. I know Washington is out. I think it's struggling to get to the bottom place in the American League. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see how well the countryside looks out here. I've been vitally interested in the prosperity of the agricultural section of the United States. The fact that you have been able, during the last six or seven years, to produce bumper crops has been one of the greatest contributions that we have had toward winning World War II and toward keeping the world on a basis of non-starvation since the war ceased. It's a wonderful thing. I don't think you yourselves appreciate what that contribution means. I don't think you appreciate what wonderful yields there have been in the last few years. Down home, not long ago, land on which I used to raise 14 and 15 bushels of wheat to the acre is now producing 25 and 30; land on which I used to raise 60 bushels of corn an acre is raising 100, and I understand up here you are now raising 165 bushels of corn an acre. That's the most wonderful thing in the world, and I want to see that kept up. I want to see that prosperity continue which has been the result of a Democratic policy so far as the farmer and the working man and the little businessman is concerned. I think I can remember a time when a farmer didn't know whether he was going to stay on his farm till the next morning or not, and it hasn't been so very far back. And I think I can remember when there were a great many people who didn't know where the next meal was coming from. OVER