Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Il EDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT FROM STATION PLATFORM AT PITTSFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS - OCTOBER 27, 1948 TRUNAN 8:14 A.M., E.S.T. ANNYN "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS LISBARY SERVICE" GOVERN Mr.. Mayor, Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Guests, and my good friends of Pittsfield: It's good to be back in this great State again. I have always had a great respect for the citizens of Massachusetts. It's good to be in a State that has given every Democratic Presidential candidate for the last 20 years a majority -- and I think you're going to do it again, And I am most happy to have with me today in this great State its former Governor and my Secretary of Labor, Maurice Tobin. He is an able and distinguished public servant, and it is an honor to any President to have him in the Cabinet. I am particularly pleased to be in Berkshire County. The Republicans probably are trying to keep it a secret. But you know, it was always here in Western Massachusetts that the real progressive movement began in this country, and it began just after the Revolutionary War. I remember hearing about a Congressman from this District who represented you for a long time in the Congress, and they tell me that that Congressman was very astute -- that was before the invention of the radio and television and things of that kind -- and he used to tour the mill towns of Berkshire County and tell them how strong he was for Roosevelt and the New Deal. Then he would go up in the hard-shell Republican hills and tell them he was against it. I think that is where the Republican candidate got his ideas this year -- that the smart way to campaign is to be on both sides of every issue and never discuss it. But W e have learned a good deal about the world since your old Congressman used to get himself elected with double talk. This year you should Pat O'Malley down to Washington to help me in the big job of cleaning out the special interests and their lobbies down there in Washington. And I'm very sure that's what you are going to do -- I mean, cleaning out the mess made by the Republican 80th Congress. "The Great Lobby Congress," I call it. There were more lobbies in Congress with more money than ever before in the history of this great Nation, and it's a disgrace. You ought to clean them out. I think you' re going to do it. I would like to tell you a little bit about what this Republican Party did to mess up your interests, the interests of the people. I want to tell you what they did to the United States Department of Labor, to which I have just appointed Maurice Tobin. The Democratic Party sponsored the creation of the Labor Department way back in 1913 under a Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson. The Democrats in Congress passed the law that created the Labor Department against the viilent opposition of the Old Guard Republicans. Woodrow Wilson named a Pennsylvánia Democrat, William B. Wilson, to be the first Secretary of Labor. And after World War I, when the Republicans gained control of the Government, they favored, as they always do, labor- baiting, union-busting, open shop, yellow do.g contract policies. That is the Republican history whenever they get control of the Government. The gains made. by the working men and women under 8 years of Democnatic Administration , from 1913 to 1921, were lost. 12 years later, in 1933, when we had 12 million able-bodied Americans out of jobs as a result of Republican misrule, we elected a great Democratic President, Franklin Roosevelt. The new Democratic Administration began immediately to build up the Labor Department. One of the first steps was to create the United States Employment Service in 1933 to deal with un- employment. And I want to say to you that I set up the United States Employ- ment Service in the great State of Missouri. Miss Perkins called me up and asked me if I wouldn't set.. it up on a-dollar-a-year basis -- and I never got the dollar. This Service did great work during the 1930's, finding jobs for men and women and jobs they were best fitted to fill. During the war the United States Employment Service placed 39 million workers on war jobs. That Service helped to win the war. After the war it helped to shift ten million workers from war work to peace employment. In the reconversion period that United States Employment Service did a wonderful job for the welfare of this country. OVER