…This is a great occasion for Democrats nationally as well as locally, and I am proud to be with you. For Illinois and Cook County represent one of the most important keys to a Democratic victory in the coming years. When the pollsters said we could not win in 1948, Illinois and Cook County provided the margin of victory. When the pessimists declared that we could not regain control of the Senate in 1954, Illinois and Cook County provided the margin of victory. And thus I have no doubt that you will once again lead the victory march in 1957, 1958 and 1960.
This county is [?] with the [?] of political prophecies. But I am convinced, that no matter what the pollsters or the pessimists or even the setbacks of last November may indicate, our party is strong, determined and our party is going to win. We are going to win in Massachusetts and in Illinois - we are going to win in Boston and in Chicago - we are going to win throughout the country.
I do not say it will be easy - we have to offer more than the old slogans and policies of the past, more than charges against the Republicans we cannot prove, more than promises we cannot carry out. But the Democratic faith that holds government to be the servant of the many and not the few still burns brightly.
The Republicans, of course, are confidently predicting victory for their party - and they say, with an eye on the history books, that prosperity is on their side. But I ask you: prosperity for whom? Where is the prosperity for our farmers, who have seen their prices and income go steadily down as their debts go steadily up? Where is the prosperity for our small businessmen, who have seen their profits decline 52% while business failures jumped to record highs? Where is the prosperity for our working men and women whose average earnings have increased less than 1/6th as much as the increase in the profits of our largest corporations?
Every time President Eisenhower says this so-called prosperity is equally shared by all segments of our economy, I am reminded of the rabbit stew served during the meatless days of World War II … etc….
In addition to problems of prosperity, the Republicans - in their recent series of conferences to determine coming issues - found that their chief concern was with questions of disloyalty and subversion - not within the Federal Government but within the Republican Party. Those Republicans in attendance at these meetings attacked the Eisenhower budget; they criticized the Eisenhower foreign aid program; they condemned the Eisenhower school bill; they expressed dissatisfaction with the Eisenhower farm program; and they attacked Modern Republicanism in general. I even understand that following Mr. Eisenhower's address of two nights ago in defense of his foreign aid budget, the Republicans demanded equal television time to reply.
At the close of one of those regional Republican conferences, National Chairman Alcorn declared: "It will come as no surprise that there is a difference of opinion in the Republican Party." That statement ought to get a Pulitzer Prize for fiction as the understatement of the year!
At all of these Republican meetings, the various speakers struggled manfully to define that unknown and mysterious term "Modern Republicanism". There were already a good many definitions in existence. Republican Representative Mason of your own state says "Essentially Ike's New Republicanism is a form of bribery, a program to buy votes with the voters' own money." Senator Goldwater, Chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, says Modern Republicanism stands for "persistent indulgences of proven extravagance" and "a betrayal of the people's trust". Nebraska Republican A.L. Miller says a Modern Republican is a "free-wheeling free-spender".
But the real clue was delivered by the new Republican National Chairman, Mr. Meade Alcorn. Modern Republicanism, he said in a speech, could be described as "dynamic conservatism" - and that covered everyone from William McKinley to Richard M. Nixon.
"I would like to see us (Republicans) develop," he went on to tell his Lincoln audience, "a greater pride in partisanship - a feeling that anything Republican is good because it is Republican."
I only hope that the Democratic Party never becomes that "Modern." I trust that we shall always put our nation first, that we shall defend the President not only against his enemies abroad but also against his friends at home, and that we shall support the President whenever we think he is right - whether he is a Republican President in 1957 or a Democratic President in 1961.
Perhaps, to obtain a satisfactory definition of Modern Republicanism, we should ask ourselves: What is new and different about the Republicans today? The first thing that comes to mind is Mr. Eisenhower's budget - the highest peacetime budget in the history of our country, a budget with more Federal employees and more alphabet agencies than Franklin Roosevelt ever dreamed of. Mr. Eisenhower's five budgets exceed the last five Democratic budgets under Harry Truman by nearly 74 billion dollars, enough to run the whole Federal Government for an entire year even under a Republican Administration.
New Republicanism is breaking some other records, too. The cost of living is at an all time high, so high that it will cost the American people nearly 7 billion dollars more just to live through 1957 than it did in 1955. There are more monopolistic business mergers than ever before, more small business failures and bankruptcies under Modern Republicanism. There are more children going to school part-time, more farms being foreclosed, more national resources being given away under this Modern Republican Administration - like man's wife asking for money, money, etc….
The only real way to determine whether the Republican leopard has really changed his spots is to look at the record - and on the whole, the Republican record hasn't changed much in twenty-five years. In fact, if you measure the President's actual record against his speeches and philosophy, there's some doubt as to whether Mr. Eisenhower himself is an Eisenhower Republican. Most members of his party are still just as negative as the 95 year old Republican … etc….
More will be accomplished, I can assure you, during the present Democratic Congress - new legislation to bring prosperity and opportunity to businessmen, farmers, workers, teachers, and all the people. We will take action to protect the rights of labor - including, let me emphasize, the protection of those rights and labor's good name from the racketeering, profiteering practices of [?] and wrongdoers who are preying upon the labor movement as a whole for their own personal gain. I can assure you that in this sense the investigation of the Special Senate Committee on labor racketeering is pro-labor, not anti-labor; and to the extent that legislation is recommended by the Senate Labor Subcommittee of which I am Chairman, it will be in the interest of the millions of honest trade union members.
Up to this point I have not commented tonight on the Republican record in foreign affairs.
The great difficult I have in criticizing the Eisenhower foreign policy is that it has all been said before - by Republicans. I do not agree with all of these attacks - I have often defended the President not only against his enemies abroad but also against his friends at home. But it is difficult and dangerous for this nation, the leader of the free world, to attempt to carry on a foreign policy when the party of the Administration is continually being undermined from within.
This bitter dissension in high places may make it easier for us as Democrats - but it poses sobering dangers for us as Americans. For these are times too perilous for factional confusion, too complex for easy solutions. The nation and the world cry out for leadership in Washington - courageous, determined, imaginative leadership that will not be easily deterred or misled.
Permit me to mention one critical issue where division and dissension within the Republican Party have contributed to dangerous indecision and delay. I refer to the Administration's attitude with respect to assistance for Poland. Here was an opportunity to dispose of 200 million dollars' worth of our agricultural surpluses without cost to the taxpayers [?]. Here was an opportunity to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and her satellites without the use of troops. Here was an opportunity to demonstrate to all the enslaved peoples behind the Iron Curtain that we have not forgotten their hopes, their needs, their historic aspirations.
And yet this unprecedented opportunity has been so badly missed by our foreign policy makers that it may now be too late to obtain its maximum benefits. For it was last October when the new, more independent Polish Government, emerging defiant from the riots at Poznan and elsewhere, turned for the first time to the West for friendship, economic assistance and particularly credit. Mr. Eisenhower, in the middle of a political campaign here at home, made bold declarations about America's willingness to give assistance. But five months passed before the welcome-mat was haltingly extended to a Polish delegation - and nearly another three months passed before our Government was reported to have agreed on less than one-third of their original request. Even now, the negotiations continue to drag out; the impact of what might have been a dramatic offer of assistance has been all but lost; and the goodwill we might have built among the Polish people and their neighbors has been all but frittered away.
The chief reason for the doubt, the delay, the failure to match bold words about "liberation" with bold deeds, is the sharp division within the President's own party. Several Republican meetings have opposed all assistance to Poland. Senate Minority Leader Knowland has denounced all proposals for a Polish loan, restating his objections and the risks involved here in Chicago less than a week ago.
I also realize that there are risks involved. I realize that Poland is still within the Soviet orbit, still patrolled by Red Armies and still the source of irritating anti-Western statements. I realize that there is a danger that our aid will simply strengthen the Communist bloc, relieve pressure on the Soviets, and divert to armaments those resources now devoted to staving off Polish discontent.
But how, I ask you, after all our bold words and promises, can we turn the Polish delegation now in Washington away nearly empty-handed, after they have braved the Soviets' wrath to come? We will either be forcing a suffering nation into another fruitless revolt - as in Hungary, which we will not help - or we will be forcing the Polish people to again become hopelessly dependent on Moscow. Very possibly we will be causing the collapse of the present, more independent government - the new government which since last October's rioting has reduced terrorism and thought control, decentralized and denationalized industry and agriculture, and turned for the first time to the West for trade, friendship and credit.
If we fail to help the Poles, who else will dare stand up to the Russians and look westward? If, on the other hand, we provide a dramatic, concrete demonstration of our sympathy and sincerity, we can obtain an invaluable reservoir of goodwill among the Polish People, strengthen their will to resist, drive still a further wedge between the Polish Government and the Kremlin, and encourage similar moves by the Czechs, the Lithuanians, the Germans and others. For the satellite nations of Eastern Europe represent the one area in the world where the Soviet Union is on the defensive today. The Communists have scored gains in the Far East, in the Middle East and in Africa - but they are having trouble on their own border and they know it. The question is whether we know it and whether we are going to do anything about it.
Unfortunately legislation now on the books divides the world into two categories - those under Soviet domination and those friendly to the United States. But what these laws do not recognize is that countries like Poland can be moving out from under Soviet control but do not dare to be pro-Western yet - that people like the citizens of Lithuania and Czechoslovakia and East Germany can hate their masters in the Kremlin with a passion, but are still not able to demonstrate to the Free World their basic friendship for us. I only hope that the Administration's indecision will not cause us to fail this important opportunity in Poland today. And I hope that the Democratic Party, unafraid of complex and controversial problems, will take an active lead on this issue.
For the Democratic Party, on this or any other issue, must not place popularity or convenience ahead of principle. The Democratic Party, in its quest for votes, must not become a pale imitation of the Republicans, blurring the issues or trimming our sails. Rather, the Democratic Party must move ahead with the same spirit of foresight and progress and imagination that has moved us in the past.
I would rather see us abide by the spirit of a man who a century ago was a Senator from Illinois whom the Republicans drove out of office, an Abraham Lincoln Republican who was ousted from his party by those who traded on Lincoln's name - Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois. When the Senate was asked to convict President Andrew Johnson after the Civil War of charges brought against him under impeachment, Trumbull was one of those seven Republicans from whom the radical Republicans needed the one vote to oust the President. A Republican Convention in Chicago said that any senator of their party who voted "not guilty" would be dishonored; and a Republican leader warned Trumbull that if he voted against their wishes his constituents here in Chicago might "hang him to the most convenient lamppost." But Lyman Trumbull, convinced that the issues was one of Constitutional checks and balances, refused to be swayed by popular emotions and prejudices - and these are the words he left for us to recall tonight:
"At the hazard of the ties even of friendship and affection, til calmer times shall do justice to my motives, no alternative is left me by the inflexible discharge of duty."
Lyman Trumbull was never [?] and eventually he joined the Democratic Party and supported William Jennings Bryant.
We need throughout the country today the courageous and determined spirit of Lyman Trumbull - and I believe that the Democratic Party is best equipped to provide that kind of spirit and leadership. For we, too, have learned that calmer times do justice to our motives - and that all those who heaped abuse and ridicule and slander upon our programs and policies a generation ago now recognize their inherent value to the nation.
So long as there is one child without milk, so long as there is one family without a decent home, so long as there are aged persons without pensions, working mothers without fair wages, struggling farmers without income, so long as there are overcrowded schools, inadequate hospitals and families on relief, so long will the need for the Democratic Party continue - and so long will we be called upon to assume the responsibilities of leadership.
I do not pretend to say that the future will always be easy, even under a Democratic administration. But only the Democratic Party has the enthusiasm and the determination and the new ideas necessary to meet those problems. We can build the schools and the hospitals and the homes that our nation needs. We can wage unrelentless war against drought and poverty and illiteracy and illness and economic insecurity. We can build, through strength and justice and realistic leadership, a lasting peace. And we can go forward to a new and better America, never satisfied with things as they are, daring always to try the new, daring nobly and doing greatly. It is in this spirit that we meet here tonight. It is in this spirit that we will sweep the nation in 1958 and 1960.
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