Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Keyser, West Virginia

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND AT KEYSER, WEST VIRGINIA, OCTOBER 16, RECORDS SERVICE" 1948 at 12:34 p.m., E. S. T. Thank you. Thank you very much. Harley Kilgore and I have been friends a long, long time. We had quite an association together in the United States Senate during the war, and I want to say to you that Harley Kilgore ably represents West Virginia in the Senate -- and I hope you send Matt Neely there this time so you have some real representation in the Senate. When I see crowds like this, I know the Democrats are going to win. I appreciate very highly your turning out to see the President and hear what he has to say. I am very sorry I didn't have a chance to visit you the other night, but we were on a very tight schedule and it just wasn't possible. I do appreciate your being here this morning. It means that you people are aware of what is at stake in this election. It means that you want a Democratic administration and a Democrátic Congress. I think you are going to send Matt Neely to the Senate and Okev Paterson to the State Capi- tol, and of course you're going to send Harley Staggers to the Congress as your Representative from this District -- Harley the name-sake of my good friend here, Harley Kilgore. And I think Harley Kilgore in the Senate and Harley Staggers in the House ought to make this part of the Country well represented in thosę two great bodies. You know, crowds have been greeting me áll over the Country just like this. I think they mean that the American people don't want -- and aren't going to have -- a Government in Washington next year that will make the shameful record that the 80th Congress did. For the last two years the Republicans in Congress have been try- ing to tear up the great laws which were passed during the Democratic ad- ministrations since 1933. There are a lot of farmers around Keyser, so I am told, and every one of them knows how much better off he is today than he was in 1933, after 12 yearş of Republican misrule. You know, a funny thing about this campaign is that you never hear any Republican candidate make any reference to any Republican administration. He is running on a "me too" policy. He wants to take over and do what the Democrats have done but he says he can do it better. Soil conservation, rural electrification, farm price supports -- these and many other forward-looking laws have brought West Virginia farm- ers to the most prosperous condition they have ever known. But what did the 80th Congress try to do? It slashed the funds for soil conservation so much that the whole program was nearly wiped out. It refused to provide money for public power transmission lines. And it refused to pass a housing bill which would have provided better housing for farmers and city people alike. It refused to pass an education bill or a health bill. Those bills would have meant more and better schools and hospitals in farm areas. The Republican 80th Congress has hurt labor just as much as it has hurt farmers. The Republicans in Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act for just one reason: to weaken the power of the la- bor unions so that the working man would not be able to fight for better wages and working conditions. They passed that law over my veto. And when they pass laws and put them on the books, the President of the United States is sworn to support the Constitution of the United States and the laws. And he has to enforce the law. So the best thing you can do is to elect a Democratic Congress and take some of these horrible laws this 80th Congress passed off the books. The Republicans weren't content to hurt the farmers and the work- ers. Now they are going around telling the farmers that we have high prices because the working men are getting too much money; and they are telling the workers that high prices are due to the fact that the farmer is getting a fair price for his crops. That's just not so, Prices are going up, and up, and up, because the Republican leaders refused to pass a price control law that I asked for time and time again. They refused to do anything about