Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Before the State Democratic Convention at Jefferson City, Missouri

TRUMAN Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman before the S. ARCHIVES SERVICE" AND "NATIONAL State Democratic Convention at Jefferson City, Missouri, on September 13, 1938. RECORDS TO BE RELEASED ON DELIVERY. c is FELLOW DEMOCRATS: I consider it an honor and a privilege to be called upon to say a few words to this Convention. We have been through one of our usual Missouri Democratic Primaries where every one did all he could for his candidate, just as he had a right to do. Of course, the Republican Press would be most happy to see us continue our quarrels in November, but we are not doing that in Missouri these days. We have a very excellent ticket -- one that any Missourian should be proud to support. It is going to be a pleasure for me to do everything I possibly can to make the majority in November so large that the Republicans will con- tinue to be as thoroughly discouraged as they have been in past elections: since that memorable one in 1932. The Republicans have neither leader nor policy. They know not if they are Hooverites or Landonites. They have Glenn Frank on one limb and Vandenberg on the other. They are against everything and for nothing the Party of Progress proposes. Their sympathizers still control the metropol- itan press and the big money sources of of the nation. That situation is not unknown to the everyday citizen. They fool no one but themselves. They accuse us in one breath of wanting to create a dictator and in the next of delivering the country to communism. They make the most of the President's desire to have a Congress elected in sympathy with the ideals and platform of the Democratic Farty. They raise every smoke screen possible to obscure the real issue, which is the titanic struggle between the reactionary forces and the progressive or liberal forces of this nation. What is left of the Republicans and the followers of greed and oppression, are trying by every means at their command to regain control of the Government. It is necessary that we have a Congress in