Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Framingham, Massachusetts

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT FRAITINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 27, TRUMAR 1948 - 3:40 P.M., E.S.T. RECORDS AND LIBRARY SERVICE" GOVERNMENT Thank you, thank you very much. I certainly appreciate most highly that cordial introduction. I have had a most wonderful reception in this great State, and I certainly wish I could visit every corner of New England and every town in it. Now, this city of Framingham has a reputation of being a forward-looking community. I hade heard about it long before I ever arrived here. I know that you want to keep right on going forward along the lines laid down by the Democratic Party in the last 16 years. You proved that in 1946 when you sent a fine Democrat to Congress, Harold D. Donohug. If more cities and Congressional Districts had followed your xample, how much better off we would all be! We would never have had that backward-looking 80th Congress if very city and community had done what you did the last time, I am satisfied that the American people are very sorry that they let so many moss-back Republicans slip into that 80th Congress I believe the voters all over the country are going to S end those reactionary Republicans back to private life in November. I believe the voters are going to turn thumbs down on the Republican candidate for President, a candidate fino won't tell you where he stands or what he believes in. He goes around preaching platitudes. You know, he has givën "GOP" another meaning. It now means "Grand Old Platitudes. I believe the American people are entitled to hear from the Republican leaders the full and honest convictions of the candidate. You certainly know where the leaders of the Democratic Party stand. I have gone all over the country, from one end to the other -- north and south and east and west -- and you understand exactly where I stand; and I have tried to make it perfectly clear to you where the Republicans stand too. I defy you to say what the Republicans S tand for -- what the Republican candidate for President stands for except for the Republican Party. And if he can stand for that, he can stand for anything! In the last 16 years your Government has been headed by men who have done everything possible to promôte the welfare of the people as a whole. By the people" I mean all the citizens of the United States. We don't restrict our sympathies to the people who make $100 thousand dollars a year. We mean everybody in the country. We want to build millions of low-priced houses for working men and their families. We want to get rid of the vicious Taft-Hartley Law, passed by the Republican Congress under the whip of the millionaire manufacturers. We want to pro- vide federal aid to ducation SO that all our children will have a chance to get a decent schooling. We want to put a national health program into effect so that all Americans can get good medical care and good dental care. We can do all these things if everybody goes to the polls and votes the Democratic ticket straight in November. You c an vote for a Federal Housing Program, a Federal Aid-to-Education Program, a Federal Health program, by marking your ballot for the Democratic candidates. You have a stake in this election. It will affect your job, your chance to get a raise, your chance to get a better home, your chance to control the high prices that rob you of all gains you had before those prices went up. It will mean the difference between moving ahead and going backward. The people's campaign is rolling to victory. I can assure you of that. The West is with us, the Central States are with us, and the East is swinging into line. If you would see the peopl I have been talking to since I came East, you would understand what I mean when I say the East is beginning to find out what side its OVER