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SPEECH DELIVERED AT INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI, APRIL EIGHTEENTH, 1937 by SENATOR HARRY S. TRUMAN It is a pleasure to be here at home tonight and I heartily appreciate your asking me to come and say something to you about current issues in Congress. We are in the midst of the most useless,most reckless and unnecessary death rate from automobiles in our history. I want it stopped. One way to stop it is to take the crazy driver from behind the wheel of the car. There are more than 24,000,000 automobiles, and 4,000,000 motor trucks in use in the United States. In 1935 one million one hundred thousand drivers were involved in accidents. Thirty six thousand people were killed and 830,000 seriously injured, and more than a million minor accidents were not reported. The property damage ran into ten figures. Every automobile driver should read an article published in the Readers' Digest last year called, AND SUDDENN DEATH. It vividly describes what takes place when cars collide and when a car hits a pedestrian. There are more innocent children killed in America every year than have been injured by the bombing of Madrid, yet the bombing of the TRUMAN NARA Spanish Capital seems atrocious to us, and it is. Twenty two States in thesgreat Union are trying bravely to stop the useless and unnecessary slaughter by automobile drivers. These States require drivers' lincenses with examination and severe punishment if a person attempts to drive who is not qualified. The other States allow any one who can get into a car to drive it. In

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