Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Reno, Nevada

IMMEDITI RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE TRUSTY ARCHIVES "NATIONAL REMARKS OF THE PRESIDE T IN RENC, NEVADA RECORDS AND SEPTEMBER 22, 1948, 10.50 k.f., CDST SERVICE" Thank you very much. Senator McCarran, Governur Fittmen, Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen: It is E very great pleasure indeed to face this wonderful audience here in this great Nevada city of Renc. I have been here before, and I have had some good times here, but I never sit to stey long enough, the train did not stop long enough. I hope, same time or other, that I our CERC back and spend state time in this lovely town of yours -- 0 grand pl: ce to be, SO they tell me. The Geverner and Pat Cerran have been selling me the State ever since I came inti it this morning. I didn't need much selling. You are interested, of course, in the welfare of the West. Your interests are wrapped up with the proper development of this great Western country. And if you are going to corry through on those developments, you nove git to make up your mind who is your friend and who is nut your friend. You have got to decide whether you want to continue with E bunch of people in control of the Government who went turn the clock back, or whether you want to go forward with people who have your interest st heart. You have that choice in November the second. If you want to send another 80th Republican do nothing Congress back to Washington, that will be your affair. It will cost you. I Per asking you not to do that. I have been talking about that Republicon 80th Congress and the Republican Perty all over this country, enti want t. ex- plain to you just how the Republican Party, through that 80th Congress, failed to act in the public interest. The Congress elected in 1946 -- and elected by only a third of the voters -- had 245 Republicans and 188 Democrats in the House, and 51 Republicans and 45 Democrats in theSenate. Now bear those figures in mind. That meant & XXXXXX lot of changes in the operation of the Congress. It put the :epublicans in as presiding officers of the House of Representatives and of the Senate. It put Republicans in as chairmen of every committee in the but House and Senate. That is of vital importance. That is control of the Congress. Committees in Congress do the basic work of the Congress. Practically nothing can be voted on by the House or the Senate unless it is first approved by /Committee. About the only thing you can vote on in the Senate--and I was there for 10 years-without a Committee's approval is a motion to adjourn. The chairmen control all the Committees and have the whip hand as to what subjects the Committees can take up. In the 80th Congress the chairmen were the Republicans who have been in Congress for the longest period of time. They are a bunch of old moss-backs. They are living back in 1890, and they tried to make that Congress act like 1890--and I think they succeeded pretty well. These chairmen, together with the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate decide what Congress shell Now, I can't tell Congress what to do. I can only point out to the Congress what needs to be done. For example, I asked the Congress to do something about inflation. I set out specific plans to control high prices. Democratic Congressmen introduced specific bills to accomplish what I had in mind, but in the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee that handles such things would not even let the Comi ttee vote on the bill which I urged. OVER