Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Elizabeth, New Jersey

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE "NATIONAL REMARKS OF PRESIDENT AT ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY, OCTOBER 7 ARCHIVES AND RECORDS 1948, 5:10 p. m. E. S. T. SERVICE" Mr. Mayor, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, and Democrats of Eliza- beth, New Jersey: I ap reciate very much this very cordial welcome which you have accorded me. This is my first stop in the great State of New Jersey, and it is right in line with the other first stops. In every State, through which I have been, they were all just like this. People want to see their President, they want to hear what their President has to say; and I can't tell you how very much I thank you for that interest. You are here because you are interested in the issues of this campaign. You know, as all the citizens of this great country know, that the election is not all over but the shouting. That is what they would like to have you believe, but it isn't so -- it isn't so at all. The Republicans are trying to hide the truth from you in a great many ways. They don't want you to know the truth about the issues in this campaign. The big fundamental issue in this campaign is the people against the special interests. The Democratic Party stands for the people. The republican Party stands, and always has stood, for special interests. They have proved that conclusively in the record that they made in this do-nothing Congress. The Republican Party candidates are going around talking to you in high-sounding platitudes trying to make you believe that they themselves are the best people to run the Government. Well now, you have had experience with them running the Government. In 1920 to 1932, they had comple te control of the Government. Look what they did to it! They started again in 1946, when two-thirds of the people in the United States stayed at home and allowed a third of the people to send that Congress which we now have down to Washington. They immediately began to try to undo all the good things that the Democrats have been doing for you for the last fourteen years. You get the truth if you listen to your candidates -- Archie Alexander, one of the finest young men I know, is going all over this State telling you the facts. You ought to send him to the Senate. He is the Democratic candidate for the Senate from this great State, and he is so good that the Republican paper, THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, said about Mr. Alexander, that he possesses superior qualifications. Of course, I think all the candidates on the Democratic ticket always do have superior qualifications, or they wouldn't be on the Democratic ticket. This country is enjoying the greatest prosperity it has ever known because we have been following for sixteen years the policies inaugurated by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Everybody benefited from these policies -- labor, the farmer, busi- nessmen, and white-collar workers. We want to keep that prosperity. We cannot keep that if we don't lick the biggest problem facing us today, and that is high prices. I have been trying to get the Republicans to do something about high prices and housing ever since they came to Washington. They are responsible for that situation, because they killed price control, and they killed the housing bill. That Republican 80th, do-nothing Congress absolutely refused to give any relief whatever in either one of those categories. What do you suppose the Republicans think you ought to do about high prices? Senator Taft, one of heleaders in the Republican Congress, said , "If consumers think the price is too high today, they will wait until the price is lower. I feel that in time the law of supply and demand will bring prices into line." There is the Republican answer to the high cost of living. If it costs too much, just wait. If you think fifteen cents is too much for a loaf of bread, just do without it and wait uhtil you can afford to pay fifteen cents for it. (OVER)