Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman at Lincoln High School in Jersey City, New Jersey

TREMAN "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY, OCTOBER 7, 1948, 10:37 p. m., E. S. T. Thank you very much. I can't tell you, I can't even begin to express my appreciation for this Jersey City reception, and I want to pay my tribute to you, Mayor, and my good friend, Frank Hague, who got this thing up in so good a fashion. This is something to write home about. I have been in Rio de Janeiro, I have been in Mexico City, I have been in New York City, and in Los Angeles and San Francisco and Seattle and Denver. Call the roll of all the great cities in the country, and this tops them all. And, in each instance, I thought the next one could never be outdone, but here it is. Your enthusiasm shows that you take your politics seriously. That's the way it ought to be, because politics is your business. Politics is Government, and you are the Government if you exercise the privilege delegated to you in this great Republic of ours. If you don't take an interest in your Government and elect the right people, you have nobody to blame but yourselves. Now, in 1946 only one-third of the people of the United States who had the right, exercised that privilege to vote. And look what you got. And you didn't deserve a bit of sympathy for getting it because you did it to yourselves. You can't do that this year. I am warning you, the people of the United States, that the voters are not going to make the same mistake this year that they made in 1946. This time you are going to come out and vote. The registration is up in almost every State in the country. Labor has been doing great work towards getting out the vote. The workers know that they are in a fight to protect their basic rights. This is everybody's fight. It's not labor's fight alone. It's also the fight of the white-collar worker, the professional man, the farmer, and all the people in the United States -- the fight to preserve the gains made since 1933, when President Roosevelt took office. It's a fight to build up a greater future for all the people of the United States. We are going to win that fight. We must win that fight. Too much is at-stake in this election, my friends, to be in- different about it. Don't make the mistake of thinking it makes no difference to you whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in control of the National Government -- and don't let any of your friends make that mistake. Remember what the last Republican administration did to you in 12 years: depression, unemployment, foreclosures and evictions, bank failures, veterans selling suples. They were told that they were going to be put into business. Well, they went into business -- at the street corner selling apples. We have tried to 'profit from that experience in this Democratic administration. And what did the Republicans do to help it? Did the Republican leaders care what happened to you in the depression? Did the Republican administration provide the jobs you needed? Did they save your homes or protect your bank deposits? They either didn't care what happened to you or they didn't know what to do about it. They just sat and waited for prosperity to come from around the corner. (OVER)