Press Release, Speech of President Harry S. Truman, Superior, Wisconsin

IMMEDIATE RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE REAR PLATFORM REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT TRUMAN "NATIONAL AT SuperIOR, WISCONSIN ARCHIVES AND RECORDS OCTOBER 13, 1948, 2.40 PV CST SERVICE GOVERNMENT Thank you -- thank you very much. I appreciate very much that introduction of Dan Holmes, and I think he is a good prophet -- I am pretty sure he is a good prophet. You know, I am more than happy to cone to Superior today. One of my greatest friends was born and reised here in Superior. He has now passed on, but he was a great public servant, and that was DEW Schwellenbach. he was Secretary of Labor, and he made a great Secretary of Labor. I think of him every time I think of Superior. This is my first opportunity to congretulate you people personally on the great job you dil during the war. The trenendous amount of shipping that you handled here at Superior was one of the big reasons why we won World War Two. The unbroken production record in the mines, on the forms, and in the forests gave us the material we needed to win that great war. Now you are doine an equally good job in producing for peace. The fine record of cooperation of labor and management here is a record you can all be proud of . Your cooperatives here have brought benefits to the whole area, and this part of the United States is now enjoying greater pescetime prosperity than ever before in its history. As a matter of fact, after 16 years of Democratic adminis- trations, the whole Nation is prosperous. I want to see the United States stay prosperous. The Democratic Party is fighting to keep it prosperous. But the leaders of the Renublican Party, who are terribly anxious to get their hands on the Government this election, haven't yet learned one basic lesson. That lesson is simply this: We can stay prosperous only when all groups of our people -- labor, the farmer, the small business man, the white collar worker -- when oll of them get their fair share of the national income. The Republicans don't see it that way. Their record proves it. In November 1946, two-thirls of the people stayed at home and didn't vote for the candidates for Congress in that election. We got the Republican controlled do-nothing 80th Congress as a result. That Congress passed a rich man's tax bill, so the rich could get relief from taxes, at the expense of the working man. That Republican Congress passed the Taft-Hortley Act, to weaken organized labor, so that labor would no longer be in such a good position to bargain for better wages and working conditions. Now I vetced that bill, which I cught to have, and I told you exactly what that bill would do to labor, but the Congress passed it over my veto by more then a two-thirds majority; and I have to enforce the laws. So long as they are laws and I em President, I enforce the laws, for I am sworn to do that, and I have to do just that as long as I am the President. But I want you to do something about this terrible law. I want you to send a Domocratic Congress to Washington and repeal it. That is the best thing you can do. That Congress knocked the props out from under permanent fare prosperity. They tried their best to strangle coopera- tives.