Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Elkhart, Indiana

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IATE RELEASE REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT ARCHIVES "NATIONAL RECORDS AND ELKHART, INDIANA, October 26, 1948 SERVICE" 10:15 a. m., C. S. T. good Governor, I appreciate that prophecy, and I think you are a prophet. You are going to be the next Governor of Indiana and I am going to be the next President of the United States -- I am sure of that. It is a great pleasure to be here in Elkhart this morning. This is a fine turnout. It proves that the people of Elkhart are concerned about the great issues facing the Country, today, Just as the people are every place I have been on my trips in the last six weeks. This campaign has made two facts perfectly obvious to everyone. The first fact is that the Republicañ candidate for President is in complete sympathy with the desire of the reactionary Republican leaders of the 80th Congress to run this country backwards to the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover days when the Government in Washington was run for the benefit of the wealthy, privileged, special interests. The second fact in this campaign is that the Democratic Party is always fighting on your side -- on the side of the people. That has been the case ever since the Democratic Party was organized by Thomas Jefferson. It has been the party for the people and not for special privilege. We are determined to keep our Government a people's Government. We believe that the Government should work for the prosperity of the farmer, of the laboring man, of the small businessman, and the white-collar man. The Democrats believe that everybody should have a fair share of the national income. We do not believe, as the Républicans do, that the rich should skim off the cream and leave the left-overs for the rest of us. They tried it once and it didn't work. The money just did not rickle down as they said it would. Now, for two long years, I had to fight the Republican 80th Congress to keep them from selling out, look stock and barrel, to the lobbies of big business. I used to think that the election of the 80th Congress was a tragedy for this country. Now I think maybe it was a blessing in disguise, because it has brought home to all of us exactly what the Republican Party stands for, and it showed us exactly where the Republican candidate for Fresident stands today. He is standing squarely on the record of that do-nothing 80th Congress. He boawts about it. Now, the Republicans refused to pass a housing bill. They refused to pass a health bill. They refused to extend social security. They refused to increase the minimum wage. They refuxed to do anything about the crisis in education. And they refused to do anything about high prices. But they did exempt the railroads from the anti-trust laws. They did try to tear down our public power policy. They did take social security away from nearly a million workers. They knocked the props out from under the farmers' prosperity. They did all they dared to crush the strength of organized labor by passing the Taft-Hartley Act. Every time big business snapped its fingers, the Republicans leaders in Congress obeyed orders. Now you know what the remedy is. You must get out to the polls on November the second and vote the Democratic ticket straight, and then you will have the remedy. We got the 80th Congress because only a third of the voters in this country took the trouble to go to the polls in November, 1946. I have here in my hand a report of an interview by one of the leading public opinion experts in this country. This man said, and I quote: "If everyone in this country voted, it would be hard to elect any Republicans." OVER