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

IMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE TROMAN REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT AT BROCKTON, "NATIONAL MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 28, 1948 at ARCHIVES AND RECORDS 8:20 a. n., E. S. T. SERVICE" Thank you very much. I appreciate that prophecy, and I think it is going to come true. It is a great pleasure indeed to be here in Brockton this morn- ing. I have been hearing about Brockton's shoes for a great many years -- and now I an well fixed. I not only have two pairs of shoes for myself, but I have two pairs for my wife and daughter. Isn't that nice -- just think what that will nean for the "old nan". Your record of production for shoes of the armed forces during the war was almost unbelievable. Nobody knows more about that than I do, because I had to make an investig tion of the shoes sent out to the Arny when I was in the Senate of the United States. I think you turned out 18 million pairs of shoes for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. You know, that is a wonderful record. But prices are now so high that many prople in the country are finding it difficult to buy the necessities of life, like good shoes. I think you all know who is to blane for it. The blane rests on the leaders of the Republican Party - and no where else. The National Association of Manufacturers put on a great campaign to fool the American people into believing that we would have more production and lower prices if we got rid of price control. The Republican leaders took part in that conspiracy just to deceive the every-day person. Right in the halls of Congress, Republican leaders made the flat state- ment that prices would fall, if controls went off. Well, you know what happened. Prices have been going up and up and up, they have one all the way off the chart. These fellows running the Wall Street Journal can tell you just what things are doing. The Republicans always seen to be willing to do what the lobbies of Big Business want then to do. Here in Brockton, like nearly every city in the country, there is a hous- ing shortage. The Democrats believe we ought to have a comprehensive Federal Housing Law. We believe that the Federal Government ought to help the cities and the States clear away slums and build large-scale and low-rent public housing projects. The Real Estate Lobby does not want such a law, because the real estate owners couldn't make so much In ney if there were plenty of housing. Under the prodding of the Real Estate Lobby, the Re ublican leaders in that do-nothing 80th Congress killed the housing bill which we need so badly. Now, another lobby is getting ready to start to work on the next Congress to kill rent control. This lobby, the National Apartment-Owners Association, is getting ready to spend a quarter of a million dollars to influence Congress- men against rent control so that the Congress will not extend rent controls next year. The awful and most dis-raceful thing about that 80th do-nothing Congress -- as I call it -- was the fact that it was controlled absolutely by lobbies. There were more lobbies in Washington and more money spent in Washington by lobbies during the 80th Congress than in all the history of preceding Congresses. It is shameful and a disgrace to this country that a Congress would let a lobby tell it what to do. They did not work for the people, because that is the reason I have been fussing at them all over the United States, and it is beginning to hurt. People are beginning to find outwh athe truth is. Now, the Apartment Owners are getting ready to spend all that money to take rent controls off. If you return the same leadership to the 81st Congress that we had in the 80th Congress, they will succeed in it. If you folks here in Brockton want your rent raised 20 per cent next Spring, stay at home and don't vote -- like two-thirds of you did at the last election. If you don't want that, you had better go to the polls on election day and vote for yourselves. Vote for the Democratic Party and then you will be right. (OVER)