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    "label": "White House Press Release, Rear Platform Remarks of President Harry S. Truman at Terre Haute, Indiana",
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    "title": "White House Press Release, Rear Platform Remarks of President Harry S. Truman at Terre Haute, Indiana",
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    "ocrText": "276\nIMMEDIATE RELEASE\nJune 17, 1948\nRear Platform Remarks of the President at Terre Haute, Indiana,\n4.45 p.m.,c.s.t.\nMr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of this great Indiana\nCity of Terre Haute, I am certainly glad to see you, and happy\nto see so many of you out here today. I have been through this\ncity and stopped here on numerous occasions. When I was in the\nSenate, and I was there for ten years, I used to drive back and\nforth from Independence, Missouri, to Washington by way of highway\nnumber forty -- usually always stayed on that highway in Terre\nHaute going one way or another, so I am very well familiar with\nyour city and its environs. And I like the location. This city\nis located in the richest farming area in the world. This city\nis interested in the products of the farm as well as in manufactures,\nmany of which are located here in this town.\nWhen you come right down to fundamentals, it takes the\nagricultural background to make any country great. And this country\nhas made a contribution to agriculture unequaled by any other\ncountry in the history of the world. We raised enough food during\nthe war years to feed our own people, our own forces, and to contri-\nbute immensely to the forces of our Allies.\nSince the war we have been feeding not only ourselves\nand many of our Allies, but we have been keeping people alive\nin the devastated areas, where otherwise millions of these people\nwould have starved to death.\nNow the agricultural situation in this country is the\noutgrowth of a policy which was pursued over the last 12 years.\nIn 1932 the income of the farmers of the United States was 4\nbillion, 700 million dollars, and last year it was 30 billion\ndollars -- 30 billion dollars! More than five times as much as\nit was in 1932.\nThe farmers had on deposit in banks in the United States\nin 1947, 23 billion dollars. In 1932 they didn't have much of\nanything but mortgages that were-coming due SO fast we couldn't\neven pay them. And insurance companies who owned the mortgages\nwere taking the farms over so fast, the farmers didn't know which\nway to turn.\nNow the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the policies\npursued by the Administration over the last 12 years are the reason\nfor the prosperity of the farmers, as well as the immense demand\nfor food. The farm support program will expire on December 31, 1948.\nI have been asking the Congress to remedy that situation.\nNothing so far has been done. The farm bill has been passed by\nthe House. I don't know whether it will pass the Senate or not.\nIf it isn't passed, the farm support program which has done SO\nmuch to help make the farmer prosperous in the last 12 years will\nexpire; that is, the floor under prices for the farmer will come\nto an end, just as the ceiling on prices for the consumers came\nto an end on June 30, 1946. These two situations balance each\nother. A floor under farm prices and a floorunder wages, and a\nconsumer price control, has been necessary to prevent inflation\nin this country. We can't stand inflation in this country. We\nshouldn'thave it. This country never passed through a more pros-\nperous three years than the last three years, and everybody said\nwe wouldn't have any jobs, or that we would be on the edge of a\ndepression.\nThe national income in the last year was more than\n200 billion dollars, and I had hoped while we were prosperous that\nwe might reduce the national debt from the surplus which we had\nbeen accumulating over the last two years.\nBut this Congress saw fit to pass a rich man's tax bill\nwhich will wipe out that surplus in 1949, and in all\nOVER"
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