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498052497
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Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Olive Hill, Kentucky
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1
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id
498052497
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document
title
Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Olive Hill, Kentucky
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collections
President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)
Speech Files
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498052497
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1
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1948-10-01
month
10
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1948
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TRUNNE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
OLIVE HILL, KENTUCKY, OCTOBER 1, 1948,
1:21 P. M.,c.s.t.
Mr. Chairman, you know, I like that prophesy very much, because I'm as
sure as I can be, after this trip around the country, that the people aren't
being fooled at all by Republican propaganda. We're going to have a
Democratic Congress and a Democratic President for the next four years.
I can't tell you how very much I appreciate the wonderful welcome I have
received in Kentucky. It's been just like this everywhere I have boon for
the last two days. And I c an't understand why you do it, unless you'ro
intorosted in the things I have to tell you.
I've been trying to tell the people what the issues are. I have been
trying to give them a cross-section of why it's necessary for the President
of the United States to make a campaign like this.
Well, I'll tell you why it is. I want you to know the facts and the
truth about tho issues that are before the country at this time. And if
you
know the facts and the truth you can't help but vote the Democratic ticket
straight.
There is just one issue, and that is the people against special privilego.
You know, the first thing they did, when the Republicans got control of the
80th Congress, was to begin to take away the rights of labor. You see, when
the Democrats took over the Government in 1933 they passed a Magna Carta
for labor, known as the Wagner Act, and that act gavo labor the right to
bargain collectively with their employers and gave thom a fair chance for a
fair distribution of the profits and the wages in industry.
Woll, the first thing this 80th do-nothing Contress did was to try to
tear up that Wagner Act by the Taft-Hartley law. I like to say "Taft-Hartley"
becauso Mr. Taft said, in the last election year in Kentucky, that how that
election want would show what would happen in the country. Well, you elected
a Democratic Governor by the biggest majority that Kontucky ever gave any
Governor, and I know that's a baromator to what you're going to do this fall.
(VOICE: What has the Taft-Hartley Act doma?")
Well, the Taft-Hartley Act has done a disservice to labor. I did everything
I possibly could to keep it from becoming a law, and if you'll read my veto
message on it you 11 find exactly what it will do in the future.
And not only were they not satisfied with doing what they could to labor,
but they began to undermino the farmer. They did everything they possibly
could to take the farm price support program away from the farmer. In 1933 the
Democrats inaugurated a farm program which has made the farmer prosperous. The
Republicans want to do away with the parity price program. They are unfair
to farmers, they are unfair to the laborer, and they are unfair to little
business, because they want big business to get all the profits and let a
little of it trickle down to the common, every day man.
I want you to study the issues in this campaign. I want you to use
your own head and judgment and vote for your own interests -- voto for yourselve,
And if you do that you'l send Virgil Chapman as the Democratic Senator from
Kentucky, and you'll sond Joe Bates back to the Congress -- and then I'll have
somebody I can work with in tho next administration and I won't be troubled
with the housing shortage -- I'll still be in the White House.