The Democratic Party can aford to be frank and truthful, because it is working for the general welfare of all our citizens. It does not serve any narrow group or clique. This makes it easy for the Democratic Party to put its program before the country openly and completely. We have nothing to hide from the people. Our strength lies in explaining our program and our policies to the people. And the more thoroughly we explain to them what the Democratic Party is trying to do, the more certain we can be of their continued support.
There are many diferences between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. But I think the greatest diference is that the Democratic Party is the party of afirmative action--it is for measures to achieve prosperity and progress. The Republican Party is the party of negative inaction--it is always against things.
You know, I think the principal thing the Republicans are against, of course, is the Democratic Party. They just can't win on that plank alone. They must try to find reasons for being against the Democratic Party. They must persuade the people to vote against the Democratic Party. And that is getting harder and harder to do year by year.
One of the reasons it's hard to do is that the Republican Party has no afirmative program of its own. It refuses to face the problems of our economy. It refuses to take thought and to make plans for the future. Instead of presenting a positive program of their own, the Republicans sit around waiting for us to make a proposal, and they react with an outburst of scare words. They are like the cuttlefish that squirts out a black cloud of ink whenever its slumber is disturbed. We have disturbed the Republican sleepers many times in the last 18 years.
Right now, the main problem of the Republican leaders seems to be to find some new scare words. They have not had much luck along that line, lately. They tried using the phrase "welfare state" as a scare word for a while, but they discovered that the people are in favor of a government that promotes their welfare. So they dropped that one as a scare slogan. Then they tried "statism." But my good friend Governor Lehman took care of that one in the New York election--and so they had to drop it, too.
Now, the Republican leaders have to go back to an old standby. Frankly, I don't think it's as good as some of the others, but it appears to be the best they can think of. Their current scare word is "socialism."
It's perfectly safe to be against "socialism." The dificult thing is to make the country believe that the Democratic Party stands for socialism. How in the world can the Republicans persuade people that all you Democrats at all these dinners are socialists? I just don't believe they can do it.
I know it can't be done. But the Republicans will try it just the same. That's what they've been trying to do ever since 1933. For the last 17 years they have called every new Democratic measure "socialism" or "communism," and they have made constant predictions of doom and disaster. The plans and proposals that we have advanced for improving the conditions of the people of this country have been greeted by these same old scare tactics during all these years. And I'm going to prove that to you.
Let us take it step by step. This is most interesting.
In 1933, this country faced some of the greatest problems in its history--the problems of providing food and work for millions of jobless persons and their families, of saving millions of farms and homes from foreclosure, of restoring a banking system that had collapsed, of placing the entire economy on the way to recovery.
The Democratic Party rolled up its sleeves and went to work. It took steps to provide relief and jobs, to save farms and homes, to restore banks and businesses. Bit by bit the economy responded to these vigorous measures. Income began to grow, confidence returned, business activity mounted. This was the response of the economy to our farm and labor and business programs-our programs for resource development and public works and the building of homes.
As this miracle of recovery unfolded, what was the attitude of the Republican Party?
In 1934--and I ran for the Senate in 1934, and I remember this well--the Republican National Committee issued a policy statement--a policy statement. And in that statement they said:
"American institutions and American civilization are in greater danger today than at any time since the foundation of the republic."
That sort of talk may have frightened the members of the Union League Club. But it didn't frighten the people who had been saved by the New Deal from breadlines and bankruptcy.
In 1936, the Republicans thought the danger was worse. That was when President Roosevelt was running for his second term. In that year, the Republican platform cried out:
"America is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake .... The New Deal administration"-- this is from the 1936 Republican platform--"The New Deal administration has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment, and prolonging the depression."
People weren't scared by that one either. They knew it just didn't make sense, because the national income had risen more than 50 percent in the previous 4 years, and it was still rising.
In 1940, the Republicans tried to scare us again. This time their platform said:
"The Administration has imposed upon us a regime of regimentation which has deprived the individual of his freedom and has made of America a shackled giant .... The New Deal administration has failed America."
That's what the Republicans said, but the America that the New Deal had saved--the economy that the New Deal had freed and made productive again became the arsenal of democracy that overwhelmed the forces of totalitarian aggression.
But that still didn't teach the Republicans anything. In 1944, when we stood at the peak of our wartime production--the economic bulwark of the free world--the Republican Party platform proclaimed: "The fact remains that under the New Deal, American economic life is being destroyed." That's what they said in 1944--"American economic life is being destroyed."
Apparently, they never learn anything. Today, when we have a national output of over $250 billion a year and a higher standard of living than ever before in the history of the world, the Republican Party still cannot see anything good about the situation. In their policy statement issued 10 days ago, the Republican National Committee declared: "The major domestic issue today is liberty against socialism: . . . Basic American principles"--they said--"are threatened by the administration's program . . ."
It's the same old story--the same old words, the same old music--the same empty and futile attempt to scare the American people--in complete contradiction of the plain facts that are visible to every citizen in his daily life to see. The country is not going to let them get away with it. Don't worry about it.
For the past 17 years, the same outcry has greeted every proposal advanced by the Democratic Party--whether it has been for better housing, social security, rural electrification, farm price supports, minimum wages, or any other program for the general welfare of the people.
They have been against all these proposals, but now they are for all of them. But, are they? Are they? I think they showed you conclusively what they would do if they had control of the Government when they had the 80th Congress.
In 1944, Representative Joseph W. Martin, Jr.--who was the Republican leader in the House, and who is the minority leader now-- summarized the Republican attitude toward all these progressive steps in one brief paragraph when he said:
"For 11 years we have been steadily drifing into a regimented nation, with absolute control vested in a power-mad group of bureaucrats and social planners. Unless there is a change in government this year we can be reconciled to some kind of totalitarian government." That was in 1944.
That is what the Republicans said about our program in 1944. That is the way they talked about our programs in 1948. That is what they are saying about them now.
Today we are proposing further development of our resources, further strengthening of our economy, new measures for the welfare of the people. And what do we hear? The same old story. It is all repeated in that latest statement of the Republican National Committee:
"This program"--they said, and they were talking about the program of the Democratic Party--not their own, for they haven't one-"This program is dictated by a small but powerful group of persons who believe in socialism, who have no concept of the true foundation of American progress, whose proposals are wholly out of accord with the true interests and the real wishes of the workers, farmers, and businessmen." That is a quotation from their very solemn policy statement.
Well, let's look at the record. What is our program? Where did it come from? Our program is the platform adopted by the Democratic Party at its Convention in 1948. And it has been voted on by the people of this country, including the workers, farmers, and businessmen.
If our program was dictated, as the Republicans say, it was dictated at the polls in November 1948. And it was dictated by a "small but powerful group" of 24 million voters.
And I think they knew more than the Republican National Committee about the real wishes of the workers, farmers, and businessmen. What do you think?
Now, of course, this program is not socialism. It is based upon a firm faith in the strength of free enterprise. It is designed to strengthen the markets of free enterprise and to expand the investments of free enterprise. It will make our citizens economically secure, well educated, and confident of the future. Only in a nation of such citizens can free enterprise grow and expand and reach its full possibilities.
The program of the Democratic Party is aimed to promote the prosperity and welfare of all the American people. It is aimed to increase the freedom of all the American people.
Freedom is not an abstraction. Freedom is a reality in our daily lives. The programs of our party have freed workers from the economic subjection of their employers. These programs have freed farmers from the fear of bankruptcy. These programs have released farm wives from bondage and ceaseless drudgery. These programs have freed older people from the fear of a dependent old age.
These programs--our programs--look forward to the day when our people will be freed from fear of inadequate medical care from crushing medical expenses. They are aimed at freeing our young people from ignorance and a poor education.
This is the record and the promise of the Democratic Party in expanding the freedom of the American people. But when the Republican Party proclaims that we are engaged in restricting freedom--that we are enemies of freedom--I ask, "Whose freedom?'' Let the American people look into their own lives and ask themselves whether they enjoy greater freedom or less than they did 18 years ago.
About the only freedom we have limited is the freedom of Republicans to run the country. I have an idea that is what they are complaining about.
For the Republicans to drag out the same old moth-eaten scarecrow of "socialism" again in 1950--afer having used it, or something very like it, in opposition to every progressive step the Nation has taken since 1933--is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Out of the great progress of this country, out of our great advances in achieving a better life for all, out of our rise to world leadership, the Republican leaders have learned nothing. Confronted by the great record of this country, and the tremendous promise of its future, all they can croak is "socialism!"
The Democratic Party is going right ahead to meet the needs and carry out the aspirations of the American people.
Our objective is to advance in freedom-to create a system of society that is even more responsive to the needs of the people--to establish democratic principles so firmly in the hearts of the people that they can never be uprooted.
In the present anxieties and troubles of the world, the real strength of our country lies not in arms and weapons, important as they may be, but in the freedom of our citizens in their faith in a democratic society. Among the nations of the world we stand as an example of what free men can do when they are in control of their own afairs and dedicated to the concept of a better life for all.
— President Harry S. Truman . excerpt from the Address at the Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner . February 16, 1950 . https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/public-papers/39/address-jefferson-jackson-day-dinner
