Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Decatur, Illinois

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IM EDIATE RELEASE REAR FL. TFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT DECATUR, ILLINOIS, "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND October 12, 1948 - 3:30 P. , C.S.T. RECORDS LETTER SERVICE Thank you very much. Mr. Chairnan, my fellow Democrats of Decatur: I appre- ciato most highly this cordial welcome. You know, when I first started out on these tours, I made on effort to estinate the crowds, and I found that I just couldn't estimate them at all. -- and found I had to measure them by the acre. I did some figuring, and I figured cut that in an acre, there are 4,850 square yerds and that there cught to be at least two people tc the square yard, and when you have an acre of people, you have 9600 peorle, and when you have ten acres of people, you have 96,000. New, I would say that we might have about five acres of people here this Afternoon -- and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It shows that you are inter- ested in this campaign. It shows that you'ere interested in the welfare of the country, and I appreciate it. And I am always happy to see the young people come out because they are.going to have the responsibility of running this country in the next generation. And they ought to be interested and they ought to understand all the issues that are before the country now. I went to compliment these Junior Police for coming cut and helping to preserve order this afternoon. They are doing a good job. This is one of the most orderly crowds I have seen. The kind of receptions I have been getting here in Illinois today mesn you are vitally concerned with what is going on in the country. It means that you are going to send Paul Douglas to the Senate, and Olive Remington Goldman to the House of Representstives, and Adlai Stevenson to the State Capital in Springfield. Now, I have been making a crusade all over this country to tell the American people what the issues in this campaign are. I an explaining just exactly what this election means to them. The Republicans are trying to retend that there pren't any issues. Well, they couldn't be further from the truth if they tried, and they don't stick very closely to the truth very often. This election will decide who runs the Government of the United States for the next four years. It. will decide whether you, the people, are in control or whether 8 little group of reactionary Remublicans, completely under the thumb of the lobbies of the special interests, will be in office and run the country. I want to say to you that this 80th Congress was beset with more lobbvists than any other Congress in the history of the country, and they srent more money than ever has been sment in Washington in lobbies in the history of the country -- and that Congress did nothing about it. They liked it. They sat and took it. I have been going around the country, explaining how the actions of the Republican 80th Congress, which the Republican candidate for President has warmly endorsed, undermined the very foundation of the prosperity of the American people as they are enjoying it now. In 1933, after 12 years of Republic an misrule, Decetur was in very serious trouble. I am sure you remember what it was like in the railrood shops and the mills and plants and ll the stores and shops that supply the farmers in this part of Illinois. Well, you got sort of tired of that, and in 1932 you elected Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States. OVER