Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Gary, Indiana

HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE October 25, 1948 CONFIDENTIAL: The following address of the President, to be delivered in Gary, Indiana, MUST BE HELD FOR RELEASE until 12 o'clock noon, today, Monday, October 25, 1948. TRUMA "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS CHARLES G. ROSS SERVICE Secretary to the President - Not long ago an elderly man who was driving into Gary gave a lift to a young man going his way. During their talk, the older man asked the young fellow, "What takes you to Gary?" The young man hesitated, put his head down and said: "I am working for the Republican State Committee. They are sending me to Gary to see what I can do to get the people there to vote the Republican ticket." The old man was silent for a while and then he said: "Son, I've listened to sad stories for fifty years and that's the saddest one I've heard yet." I agree. I can think of no harder job than to try to sell the Republican Party to the men and women of Gary who lived through those dark years of the Republican depression in 1930, 1931 and 1932. More than twelve million able-bodied Americans couldn't find work. The average hourly wage in industry was only 45 cents and take-home pay was barely $17 a week. There was no unemployment compensation, no work relief -- we just had bread lines. Thousands of farmers lost their farms in a single year under Republican rule. Millions of Americans lost their homes, their jobs, their savings and their hopes. What did the Republicans do for the people they had treated that way Absolutely nothing. The Democrats cured the depression by political action - and the Republican Party has never forgiven us for it. By 1932 the American people had had all they could stand. They elected a great Democratic President -- Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt brought the capital of the United States back to Washington from Wall Street. It's going to stay there as long as the Democratic Party controls the government. You know what the Democratic Party has done for industrial workers in great cities like Gary. Your right to organize and bargain collectively was established by the Wagner Act, and protected by the National Labor Rela- tions Board. Your standard of living was protected for five years of war and reconstruction by the price control law. After the war, we restored free collective bargaining to help you adjust wages so as to protect your purchasing power which the country needs to insure its prosperity. We put a floor under wages -- by the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. We outlawed child labor. We set up overtime pay at the rate of time and a half for every hour worked over forty hours a week. We gave all industrial workers protection against unemployment and old age by the Social Security Act of 1935. The Republican Party said it couldn't be done. We did it. We are today the most prosperous nation on earth. More than sixty- one million Americans have jobs. The average hourly rate of pay in industry is $1.33, instead of 45 cents as in 1932. It's three times as much under Democratic Administration (CVER)