Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Little Falls, New York

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE" REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT LITTLE FALLS, NEW YORK, October 8, 1948 - 11:25 A.M., E.S.T. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. You know, it is very, very encouraging when people are willing to come out on a morning like this to get information on what the issues are in this political campaign. In nearly every place we have been this morning, the weather has been just like this, yet it looks as if everybody in the surrounding territory had come out to look at their President, to see what he looks like, and hear what he has to say. That is most encouraging. You know, this is quite a community. I was in the Senate for about ten years A long time ago, you used to make a. lot of good cheese here. The Senator from Nisconsin -- his name was Ryan Duffy -- brought a cheese down to the Senate that was about that high, and about as big around as a wagon wheel - weighed 300 pounds; and the Senator from New York who at that time was Dr. Royal Copeland, said he knew a place inNew York where he could get a better cheese and that he would get it on his next trip back - and he did. But you make other things here now. Naturally, the world moves along. That is what I am trying to get over to you in this campaign. We don't want to turn the clock back, and go back go back. We want to go forward - go forward. But you can't go forward when you have a legis- lative body that is made up of a lot of pull-backs as that 80th Congress is. Please don't send another Congress to Washington like that, because if you do, you will get just what you deserve. You know, some two- thirds of the people of the United States stayed away from the polls on election day in 1946, and they sent that Congress there by a one-third vote of the United States. That Congress immediately began to turn the clock back. can't turn the clock back. In the 192os, we tried our best to turn the clock back, and go back into our shells, go back to 1908. It didn't work. Now we are faced with another situation where it is necessary to have that clock move forward and in order to have that clock move forward you must have people in charge of the Government who have a forward-looking outlook. Just as soon as this 80th Congress got to Washington, it began to tear up the labor laws, it tried to tie the hands of labor again so they could not collectively bargain effectively with industry. n The Wagner Act, as you know, was named after Senator Wagner of New York which gave labor its Bill of Rights. That Bill of Rights has been successful over this ten- year period. In 1932 there were just about 3 million men who were organized. There are seventeen millions now. In 1932, there were some 12 to 15 million people who didn't have any jobs. There isn't anybody now that hasn't a job if he wants it. There are 61,200, 000 people at work in this country -- the greatest labor force in the history of the world; and that doesn't include the military, or anything like that, that means people who are working pro- ductively for the welfare of this Country. Now, I want to keep that going. I want to keep the clock running forward, I don't want to turn it back. This 80th Congress was not satisfied with trying to cut the throat of labor, it went to work on the farmer. The farmers were in an lawful fix in 1932. 123,000 of them were kicked off their farms because they couldn't pay the interest on the mortgages. Do you know how many farmers lost their farms last year for that reason? Less than 800. The farmers' income at that time, in 1932, was 4 billion, five hundred million dollars. You know what it was last year? It was 18 billion dollars. The income of the whole Nation in 1947 was $217 billion -- the greatest income any country ever had in the history of the world; and that income has been reasonably distributed. That income has been distributed so that labor had its fair share, so that the farmer had his fair share, so that small business had its fair share, and so that big business had its fair share -- but it wants more than its fair share now. OVER