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    "label": "Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Toledo, Ohio",
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    "title": "Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Toledo, Ohio",
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    "ocrText": "IMMEDIATE RELEASE\nIMMEDIATE RELEASE\n(As actually delivered)\nTRUNAN\nREMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT THE\n\"NATIONAL\nCIVIC AUDITORIUM, TOLEDO\nARCHIVES AND\nRECORDS\nLIBRARY\noHTo, October 26,\nSERVICE\"\n1948\nGOVERNMENT\n2:02 p. m. E. S. T.\nThank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, I thank\nyou most sincerely for that cordial welcome. I appreciate most\nhighly the introduction of your next Congressman from this Dis-\ntrict.\nThis. is not my first visit. to Toledo. I have been here\non several occasions, and I have always had a most cordial welcome.\nThe last time I was here it was late night, and there were\nmore than seven thousand people down at the station from Toledo\nto greet me. And I think that shows that people are interested\nin this campaigh and the campaign issues. Now, I have been in\nnearly all the great cities of the country -- and I will be in\nthe rest of them before this campaign is over -- and I haven't\nhad any more cordial welcome than I had here in Toledo.\nNow, here in Toledo, in the heart of the \"Arsenal of\nDemocracy, \" I want to talk to you about national defense. I don't\nmean bombs and ships, and I don't mean guns and planes. I mean\npeople -- you people right here in Toledo, and your neighbors.\nThe basis of our national defense isinot weapons -- it is the\nspirit of the men behind them -- the spirit of the men and women\nwho make up this great Nation.\nIt is the American spirit, not our wealth, that gives\nus strength. It is the spirit of a free people, devoted to\nliberty and justice. It is the spirit of a people who are peace-\nful -- peaceful and unafraid.\nThat is the kind of national defense I believe in. This\nis the kind of national spirit which makes America's strength SO\nimportant a force for peace in the whole world.\nNational defense begins at home. It begins with the\nthings that make life worth while for the average industrial work-\ner, for the average f rmer, for the average small businessman.\nNow the leaders of the Republican Party just don't\nunderstand that sort of defense. They may understand munitions\ncontraçts on a cost-plus basis, but they don't understand human righ\nrights on a man-plus basis.\nI sometimes wonder what would have happened if Pearl\nHarbor had come nine years earlier, 1932, when the Republicans were\nin power --- when we had twelve million unemployed; when the farm-\ners were desperate, losing their ferms, thousands a day; when the\nbanks were being closed you were afraid to go into a bank in\nthose days, afraid it would blow up in your face; when our whole\nfree enterprise system was tottering and there was talk of revolu-\ntion.\nWe would have pulled ourselves together, of course, and\nwe would have won the war just the same. But it would have taken\nmuch longer and cost many more thousands of American lives.\nFortunately, when the war did come, we were better pre-\npared. We were better prepared because this Nation had been made\nstrong by a. great Democratic President -- Franklin Roosevelt.\nPresident Roosevelt knew that national defense started\nwith the welfare of the people. He knew that a nation is best de-\nfended by people who have a stake in that nation.\nIt is exactly the same today as it was in the 1930's.\nThe strength of America in the world-wide struggle against\nhunger and hatred, against fear and distrust, lies in our eager-\nness to defend a form of democracy that has given us SO much to\nlive for.\n(OVER)"
}