Ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for your very generous reception and for the kind words of your President. He and I shared a floor at the Chicago Convention. I was in Suite 1005 and he was in 1005A. I remember one day someone was trying to get in my suite. Finally the phone rang and the voice said, "Senator, I will tell you what we will do. If you will send us all the pretty girl volunteers that you have who are going to your headquarters, I will send you all the delegates who are going to our headquarters."
As you know, I did not make out very well in Chicago, but I never did get a report on whoever was at the other end of the telephone. I suppose every time I think of that second ballot at the Chicago Convention I shall be reminded of the story of the Western pioneer who was a member of a wagon train coming westward. The little band was attacked by Indians, and the pioneer was picked up three days later with some arrows in his back and a piece of his scalp missing. They gave him some whiskey and finally revived him. They asked him if it hurt. He replied, "Only when I laugh."
As you know, the Democratic Presidential Candidate, Mr. Stevenson, is engaged in a hard campaign. What makes it so difficult is that the Republican Party and the Republican spokesman are singing all songs in whatever key they may be sung in, hoping that all of them will bring success to them in November. It is not very difficult for the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Sinclair Weeks and the Secretary of Treasury, Mr. George Humphrey to assure their corporate friends that everything is in safe hands, while at the same time Jim Mitchell, Secretary of Labor, and one of the most respected members of the Eisenhower Administration, Professor Larson, go around telling some of the rest of us that everything is in very good hands. It reminds me of the explanation of the success of a prominent western Governor, who seemed to have the popularity of all people, Republicans and Democrats, and yet the contention was the poor people thought he was a friend of poor people and the rich people knew he was not.
As I say, I like Jim Mitchell, and I think the Democrats like Jim Mitchell. We are sorry he does not speak with a somewhat stronger voice. He likes Ike. The only real question is whether Ike likes him. You may recall that Secretary Mitchell in 1953 told a labor convention that one of his first objectives was to shore up our minimum wage laws. The President asked the Republican Congress to amend the Republican budget for enforcing those laws, and after Secretary Mitchell in 1954 said he categorically opposed the right-to-work laws, the President told his press conference that Mr. Mitchell's views did not necessarily represent the Administration's views. And after Secretary of Labor Mitchell in 1955 appeared before our Senate Labor Committee in support of greater minimum wage coverage, particularly in retail stores, the President told his news conference that he had not specifically recommended extending coverage to any class or group, retail or otherwise, and one of Mr. Mitchell's subordinates came back and told our Labor Committee that they really only wanted the problem studied, not acted upon. I can just see Secretary Mitchell in his office, observing one command after another coming from the White House repudiating his generous offer, saying, "Somebody up there doesn't like me."
From what I read in the newspaper, the secretary seems to have several points. First of all, this is a year of prosperity that is equally shared in by business and labor. It is a fact that the corporate profits of business have gone up 28 per cent while workers' wages have gone up 6 per cent in the last year. That sort of equal division of prosperity is like the rabbit stew that they used to serve during the meat shortage of World War II. One customer challenged it and said, "There must be some horse meat in it."
The butcher said, "Not more than 50-50, one horse for every rabbit."
That is the kind of division of prosperity we have. They have been getting the horses.
The second point Mr. Mitchell has talked about is that the Democratic Platform is a pretty good platform but it cannot be carried out because of the power of the Southern Democrats in the House and Senate. There is some truth in that, although there are some Democrats like Senate Labor Committee Chairman Lister Hill, who led the battle against the confirmation of the Eisenhower Anti-Labor appointee to the N.L.R.B., and Senator Lyndon Johnson, who led our party victories for a higher minimum wage, and Senator Walter George of the Finance Committee, whose tireless battle over determined Republican opposition made possible the payment of retirement benefits to multitudes of disabled workers. But it is true there is a handful of Democrats from various sections of the country who oppose these steps forward and who have prevented a break-through in the legislative program of the last few years.
Now, I am ready to make Secretary Mitchell a fair offer in four categories that he talked to you about yesterday. The first was the Taft-Hartley Act. You can tell it is election year because they talk about repealing the Taft-Hartley Act. I have been a member of the Labor Committee for ten years. I was a member, as was Mr. Nixon, of the Labor Committee that wrote the Taft-Hartley Bill, although I voted against it. And the Taft-Hartley Bill, except for one minor change in 1950, as you know, has not been amended. Now, if Mr. Mitchell will give us one-third of the votes of the Republicans in the House and the Senate we can promise that we will amend the Taft-Hartley Bill basically; if he will give us one-third of the Republicans to amend Section 14-B, which will end all of these infamous right-to-work laws. There is no sense in trying to go from state to state repealing them. All you have to do is repeal Section 14-B, and that would be an end to it. And if the President will recommend it or if he will give us one-third of the votes in the House and Senate in the Republican Party we can end the right-to-work laws and there will be no longer any necessity for him to speak to Union conventions all over the country.
Secondly, he talked yesterday about the minimum wage. I have been Acting Chairman of the Senate Labor Subcommittee on minimum wage and I know something about the Administration's position on it. We finally passed a dollar. The Administration wanted 90 cents. If Secretary Mitchell will recommend extending the coverage to millions of workers of the United States who are not covered by minimum wage laws we can do something really important in the Congress. I think it is most important, because, even though your wages, as you know, are well up in the scale at least comparatively, you know that there are millions of your fellow workers who are not protected by the minimum wage law, particularly in the retail stores, particularly women who are not protected and deserve protection. Therefore I think it is the responsibility of the Republicans and Secretary Mitchell to mean what they say to come before us next January, and we will pass a decent minimum wage law and extend the coverage.
The third thing he talked about is the Republican program to aid distressed areas which is especially important, as Martin Walsh knows from firsthand experience. Last year we held hearings on a Democratic program which did not vary much, but I thought importantly, from the Republicans', and we passed it in the Senate with only five Republican Senators voting with us for this program. The last two days of the session it came up in the House and I called the Administration and I was referred, not to Mr. Mitchell but to the Under-Secretary of Labor who told me that unless we took all of the Republican bill that bill would not be passed.
So I don't blame Secretary of Labor Mitchell. He just does not speak with the voice of the Republican Party in the Congress and in the Administration.
If we could carry out that sort of a program which I believe is vitally important, and if he will support us, and if the Republicans will, I believe that we can really do a good job next year.
The last point I wanted to mention, which he talked about not only here and on other occasions, is this question of unemployment compensation, because I think what has happened in this regard is the key to this whole Republican program of promising liberal legislation, but not doing anything about it. In 1954 the President sent up a recommendation which asked all of the States to pass a law which would give any worker who is unemployed two-thirds of his wages or one-half of the average wage of the State, whichever is the less. No State in the Union at that time was doing it. We waited about six months and no State put the program into effect. I offered an amendment when the Social Security Bill was up on the floor, not to write in a bill better than the President, but to write in the law the recommendations of the President. And when we finally came to the vote we had almost two-thirds of the Democratic Senators and we had four Republican Senators for the President's own program. So there is no sense to come before you yesterday or to come before other working people all over the country and say what you are going to do in view of this record.
I think there is a great opportunity for Democrats and Republicans. We can't put forward any of these programs without their support in the Congress, but we don't need very many votes. All we need is a few, and I think this Congress in the coming year will do a great job. To make it more secure, however, I think we need Democratic Congressmen and Democratic Senators, a great many more.
As you know, we have been handicapped by the fact that for about ten years we have enjoyed hairline majorities in all committees in both houses of Congress. But if you can give us a strong Democratic Senate, a strong Democratic House, I think for the first time since the end of World War II - in fact, the first time since almost 1938, the United States can really begin to move forward to really expand all of the gains which were made 15 or 20 years ago. I think that is the big job of the next Congress, because it is not that we are not enjoying prosperity today, but there are going to be big problems with increasing populations in the years to come. And our job, I think, is to make sure that all these people, particularly those on the bottom of the scale who don't have unions now, who don't enjoy union wages, who don't have unemployment compensation, who don't have social security, - to expand all these programs to them. And I think this is a program in which you are vitally interested, and I think you have recognized that in all of your work, not only for the welfare of your own members but for the welfare of all people, all Americans.
This is what your Union under the leadership of Mr. Murray and now Mr. McDonald has stood for. And therefore I am very proud to have been extended your invitation today and I wish you and I know you wish all of us who are working for the Party great success in the months ahead. Thank you.
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