I come from a beachhead on the Atlantic Ocean where this country began. To come from old New England to the roaring Northwest for the first time is an impressive experience. Much is different - much is the same. You border on the smoky Pacific - we on the cold Atlantic. You fish for salmon - we for cod. Your rivers are torrents which you have harnessed - ours are only ribbons to the sea. You have great forests of high fir and spruce - our trees fight for existence on the marginal soil of our rocky countryside. Much is different - but much is the same; the industry of our people, their self reliance, their self respect, their character and their courage - these are the qualities, more important than natural resources, which we hope are typical of life in the Northwest and in the Northeast.
This trip is, as I have said, a great experience; but I am not sure that it is necessary - except for my own enlightenment. For I have come to preach the doctrine of Democracy in the State that has prospered under its administrations, which has sent two of its ablest exponents, Senators Jackson and Magnuson, to represent it in the United States Senate, and which will I am confident return Democratic majorities in 1954 and 1956. For this I believe to be essential if the fullest potential of your vast natural, economic and human resources is to be realized.
I find the atmosphere out here very different from that prevailing in Washington today. Here you are enthusiastic about moving ahead, about building new dams, developing new industries, creating new jobs and providing a more abundant life. With youthful vigor and vision, you are not content to stand still, and you recognize the dangers of falling back. After all, why stand still in the country where Paul Bunyan could blow out the lamp in the bunkhouse and be in his bunk asleep before the room was dark.
But in Washington, the Republicans are talking in an entirely different vein. They say that this year won't be as prosperous as 1953, but it will still be good. They say that unemployment is rising, but that it isn't enough to hurt. They say that our gross national product and our capital investment in new plants and equipment will decline from the levels of one year ago; but they explain this by saying that our economy cannot set a new record every year.
It is this sort of sterile, stand-still, status quo philosophy that is threatening our economic prosperity today. In my own New England area, we need new jobs and new orders in order to hold our own and replace industries lost to other areas. Here in the Northwest, you need new jobs and new capital in order to keep moving ahead, to provide markets for your farms and forests, to continue the development of your resources, and to halt the waste of your water power and the failure to utilize your minerals now lying idle in the ground. Nationwide, we need to provide jobs every year for 700,000 additional persons. We need to provide hundreds of thousands of American families with the goods and services which make our standard of living the greatest in the world, not to mention the millions of the world whose markets and needs for our goods and foodstuffs are barely tapped.
To adopt the static attitude of the Republicans is to abandon faith in the potential strength of our nation. It is to fail to understand the nature of our economy as one which must be constantly expanding and constantly more prosperous.
We learned in 1952 that we could no longer campaign against a Hoover depression; but we know that in 1954 we must campaign and take action against a Republican "readjustment'. Despite the many clouds now appearing on the economic horizon, which have already seriously affected the workers and farmers in your State, the Republicans have failed to carry out a single one of their pledges in this field. Thus it seems to me that the Democratic Party both in the Capitol and throughout the country is faced with a most serious responsibility - to endeavor, though a minority party, to fill the vacuum left by the Republican abrogation of leadership in this most critical time in the life of the American Republic. In a two-party system in a country as large as ours, there must of necessity be included within each party's ranks groups that are mutually hostile. This is the source of our strength; without it we should be atomized into many small parties all representing a particular region or economic interest. Thus, it is vital that the groups within each of the parties submerge their special interests to support a general course of action. The Democratic Party did this for nearly two decades, a period during which we changed the face of our nation and wrote into the statute books the legislation that has made easier the lives of countless millions of Americans.
But the strange alliance of the various groups within the Republican Party which has now been given responsibility by the American people scarcely endured a year before the centrifugal force of its warring factions broke it apart - indeed it did not survive the death of Senator Robert Taft.
Thus today we find President Eisenhower at the head of a crusade which party storm and strife has broken and washed upon the beach. His supporters in the Senate have deserted him on crucial issues - powerful elements in his own party have challenged his leadership - legislation which he has opposed has been enacted - legislation which he has supported has been ignored - and in order to carry out a minimum legislative program, he has been forced to rely upon the party against which he led the great crusade little more than a year ago.
All this has happened at a time when the problems facing us at home and abroad are reaching maximum intensity. The sharp increases nationally in unemployment, increases which you have experienced in this area as well, should serve to stimulate action on a variety of fronts to strengthen our built-in stabilizers against further recession. Yet the Republicans have failed to write into law a single one of their pledges in this field.
The functions of the RFC, which made loans to the State of Washington alone, for example, of over three hundred and fifty million dollars have been taken over in part by the Small Business Administration, which in the nine months of its existence has made fewer than one hundred and fifty loans, totaling less than ten million dollars for the entire country. Instead of strengthening the Unemployment Compensation system at this critical time to provide larger benefits over a longer period of time - the Republicans in Congress seek to enact the Reed Bill, which dissipates the jobless trust fund upon which the buying power of our unemployed ultimately depends. The same is true for Social Security. Near the end of the last session, some members of the Democratic Party, including Senators Jackson and Magnuson, introduced a bill to expand and improve our program to give more adequate protection against the hardships of old age. The President himself in his most favorable message to date made recommendations for lesser improvements in the law; but the doors of the Republican Ways and Means Committee are still shut - the only sign of life being when they threw on to the Senate Floor a tax bill to give relief primarily to those who have stock in corporations.
All of these measures and many more need to be acted upon and acted upon right away. Our minimum wage laws must be brought up-to-date, for $0.75 an hour or $30 a week does not in 1954 provide a minimum standard of living. The Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act must be strengthened; and the Taft-Hartley Law replaced by a new and fairer statute, if our workers are to maintain their present wage levels.
Our farm program must be revitalized, not plowed under, for farm prosperity in the Northwest means jobs in the factories of New England; and factory jobs in New England mean farm prosperity in the Northwest. All of these Democratic dinners have been helping Secretary Benson "eat our way out of the livestock surplus"; but they haven't caused the voters to forget what General Eisenhower said when campaigning, that "the Republican Party is pledged to the 90% parity price support and it is pledged even more than that to help the farmer obtain his full price, 100% of parity." The President now says that he never promised 100% of parity; and if you read his speeches carefully enough, you have to agree. It just sounded that way around election time.
Another example of where the General's pledge has resulted in nothing more than a general hedge has been public power. Out here in October 1952, he said that any claim that he opposed Federal participation in power development was creating "imaginary devils." Now that the campaign's gone - and forgotten, at least in Washington, D. C. - the Department of the Interior and the Federal Power Commission suddenly seem to be full of these anti-public power "devils", and I don't think they're figments of your imagination. That same static "do nothing" policy is delaying construction of your big dams on the Columbia, eliminating new transmission lines, and giving away the great Hells Canyon dam site on the Snake River. Perhaps I should be careful in criticizing the operations of the Idaho Power Company at Hells Canyon, inasmuch as I am told that some of the major owners of this corporation - which is profiting from the new policy of "local interests" development - are residents of New England, not Idaho. I wish that, instead of using their efforts to prevent the people of the Northwest from developing your power resources, they would use it in New England where our power costs are three times as high and where we don't have a single Federal hydroelectric project.
New England is envious but not resentful; we want to see the Northwest develop, to see your power costs reduced, your factories expanded and your minerals utilized. Those of us who reject the stand-still policy of the Republicans believe in the future greatness of this country; and we know that new ideas, new leaders, new industries, and new economic developments are going to come out of the West. For these reasons we refuse and you should refuse to be satisfied with a mild readjustment; we want action by the Federal Government that will keep more factories humming and more power turbines singing.
Perhaps the President is right when he says it is not yet time for any "slam-bang" action, such as a large public works program. But when will that time come? First, we were promised action if there was no upturn by the middle of March. Now we are told that the March figures won't be available until the middle of April. Then no doubt we will be told that these figures won't be properly interpreted until the middle of May. It seems to me that anyone who understands the dynamic and progressive nature of our economy could not fail to see that action is needed today to keep us moving ahead. It may not be "slam-bang", but we can certainly use a little shove.
We need something more then a program of psychological confidence; and something more than a program aimed primarily at benefiting investors and others in higher income brackets, as the current Republican tax bills propose. For unless we increase the purchasing power of the consumer, and his demand for the goods and services of our factories, there is little value in stimulating greater industrial capacity when today's capacity is not being used.
The Republicans today are carrying on a psychological warfare the intention of which is to conceal inaction by giving the impression of action. It thus becomes difficult for us to criticize a policy which is known as the "new look"; which says that we are "seizing the initiative" in foreign policy. It is difficult to criticize domestic policies which emphasize such popular slogans as "states rights", "federal-state partnership" and "middle-of-the-road". It is not easy to arouse people to action against a "rolling readjustment" which needs no "slam-bang" action. It is difficult to be on the side of "creeping socialism", "prophets of doom and gloom" and, what is worst of all, "egg heads". The fact is that the American people have more frequently been the victims of the administration's stepped up psychological warfare than have our enemies abroad. Some of the ashes from its detonations have fallen upon us and our policies have suffered.
I am confident of the future success of our Party - our victory is as certain and inevitable as the changing tides. But for the country's sake and for our own, I do not want the Democratic Party to gain office on the basis of cleverly worded promises or by raising false hopes. As Adlai Stevenson so wisely stated, and as the Republicans by now should realize: "It is better that we should lose the election than to deceive the people." For victory won in this fashion contains the seeds of subsequent disaster. We must indeed "talk sense to the American people", make only those promises we can carry out, and frankly state the difficulties and dangers which confront us. If we now make promises we can not carry out the people will see we are no different than the Republicans. If we now blame the Republicans for ills that time and circumstance have brought, the people will expect the impossible from a Democratic victory. If in seeking office, we now make charges or state facts which exceed the limits of fairness and validity, then the people will soon find us out, too. We would be deceiving the people to claim that the problems of expanding our economy and maintaining our national security are not difficult tasks. They will require the unified effort of our own Party, North and South, East and West. But as Democrats, we know where we are going. We cannot promise the American people easy solutions to difficult problems, but we can offer them action and specific proposals.
The Democrats will provide in 1954 and 1956 a factor which has been generally lacking under the Republican regime and that factor is leadership; in our case, positive, purposeful and progressive leadership; a leadership which this nation badly needs.
The old catch words and slogans which brought us success in the 30's and 40's have worn thin with the passing years. But the Democratic faith that holds government to be the servant of the many and not the few still burns brightly. With that faith we can tackle the new problems that are demanding new solutions. If today we use the years of our minority for the best interests of the American people, then tomorrow it is certain that we will be called upon again to assume positions of responsibility and leadership. And that leadership will be to further the interests of America as a whole and not a favored few.
Let us demonstrate to a disillusioned nation that promises can mean performance - that responsible opposition can mean constructive legislation - and that the Democratic Party does not forget the people. If we remain close to the people, the people will remain close to us, and together we shall again make real and meaningful the promise that for all of us is America.
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