Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Denver, Colorado

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE TRUMAN REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE LUNCHEON "NATIONAL GIVEN BY THE COLORADO TRUMAN-BARKLEY ARCHIVES AND RECORDS CLUB, SHIRLEY-SAVOY HOTEL, DENVER, SERVICE" COLORADO, SEPTEMBER 20, 1:55 p. m. M.S.T. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mayor, Senator Johnson: I can't tell you how very much my family and I are in your debt for the wonderful welcome you have given us here today. We had not anticipated the turn-out that you gave us. I can't tell you how very much I ap- precista it. It goes to show that the people can't very well be fooled. They went to know facts, and when the people know the facts, the Government of the United States is in safe hands. You know, in 1946, the people were tired. They had been through a long wer. They had to be regimented, their sons and daughters had been in the fighting forces and they felt that they would like to have some relief. A great many of them, in fact, two-thirds of them, did not exercise that great privilege for which our fore-fathers fought from 1776 to 1781, and for which they fought an internecine war from 1861 to 1865 to keep the free ballot. They did not exercise that privilege, and look what they got -- just look what they got! They got a change all right. X Remember the signs all over the country Had Enough? Well, they apperently thought they had had enough and now they have had too much. It is your civic duty, no matter how you feel, to go to the polls on election day, after you have been properly registered on the registration date, and vote your sentiments. Because you are the Government of the United States, the only Republic in the history f the world where the people are the Government. You elect local officials, non-purtisen mayers and councils, non-partis- an judges; and partisan congressmen and senators, and partisan Presidents and Vice-Presidents. In that way, you are the Govern- ment. Now, I want you to tell all your friends and everybody you know, whether a Republican, a Mugwump, or a Democrat, to come out and do his duty civically on the second day of November. Now this is S wonderful club, and they are springing up all over the United States. You know, back in April of this year, they had your President cut in the Atlantic Ocean, so far as poli- tics were concerned. And in May, we heard people deciding that it would be best for the country if certain other persons, many of whom you have in mind, could be named to head the Democratic Ticket. And then, along in July, after the Republicans had had a convention and had written E platform -- which, in my opinion, is the most hypocritical document that has been put into writing -- people begen to understand that for three long years the President of the United States had succeeded to an almost impossible situation. There were 12,800,000 men end women under arms on September months ahead of the estimated tire, and the other one 8 year talk and 2, 1945. Two wars had suddenly come to an end, one of them six six months sheed of the estimated time; and people began to world conflogration like that would, in all probability, be much it down, they did not understand that the period succeeding a more difficult to handle than the carrying on of O war when every- it body WES behind the government putting everything he had into to make it work. OVER