Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Matton, Illinois

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE Rear Platform Romarks of the President at Mattoon, Illinois, October 30, 1948, 4.53 p.m. c.s.t. TRUMAN Sonator Lucas, ladies and gentlemen. of Mattoon: I wish I ARCHIVES RECORDS NATIONAL were half as good as the distinguished Senator from Illinois says I am. SERVICE" LIBRARY Ho and I served in the Senate for a long time together -- eight years. GOVERNMENT You have an able public servant in Scott Lucas, and I hope you will send a Junior Senator from Illinois to Congress with him by the name of Paul Douglas:- and a Democratic Governor, Adlai Stevenson, to Springfield. Now, I have been in this groat State on a lot of occasions. I was here about a month ago, and drove through southern Illinois, and stopped at a number of cities in southern Illinois - and the welcome was just like this ore down here today. You know, it warms your heart when people will come out in a drizzle like this to listen to me discuss the issues of the campaign. I can't toll you how very much I appreciate that. I wish I had time to discuss all the issues with you, but I made key speeches in Carbondale, in Springfield, and in the great city of Chicago, not long ago - last week, in fact -- the 25th of October. But, I am going to say just a word or two about some of the things that the Republicans intend to de to you, if they get control of this government. You know, the Democratic party took over the government in 1933, and they began a positive system of approaches that would help every section of the population to get what is coming to them.in this great nation of ours. We inaugurated a farm policy - we inaugurated a labor policy - and we inaugurated a policy for small business. We are against monopolies. We believe that every man ought to have the opportunity to go into business if he wants to, and to work it out to his own satisfaction. The farmers were about as low as they could possibly get in 1932. Their income at that timo - their net income was about two and one-half billion dollars that year. Their gross income was a little over four billion dollars. Last year, theffarmers net income was eighteen billion dollars - their total income thirty billion dollars. Labor is getting three times as much for their work by the hour now, as they got in 1932 -- and then, overybody was hunting the streets looking for work. There were twelve million people hunting for jobs then. Now jobs are hunting for people. Thore are sixty-one million people at work in this country today. As soon as the Republicans got control, they began to tear up the farm program and the labor program. They seem to think that labor is a commodity and that the farmer can get along as best he can, no matter what the government does. That is not true, as has been conclusiv ly proven by the incomes of labor and the farmers now as compared with 1932. One of the first things they did was to pass a law to tear up lab r's bill of rights. They passed the Taft-Hartley Law, with the idea in mind of taking the collective bargaining power away from labor which had been given to them under the Wagner Labor Relations .ict. Then they rechartered the Commodity Credit Corporation, and they rechartered that Corporation in such a way that the Corporation cannot lend storage for the grain on which to make loans. When I was in southern Illinois the other day - a month ago- corn was selling at 47$ below the support price, because the Commodity Credit Corporation could not got storage on which to make the loans. That is the way the Republicans treat you when they get control of the government. What would they have done if they had had complete control? over