Harry truman thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] harry truman thank you. Thank you. All right. Please. Thank you. Thank you very much. [background chatter] harry truman i cant, i have to have it up. The microphones have to be where they are. I have to see what im doing. Im always able to see what i am doing. [applause] harry truman i cant tell you how very much i appreciate the honor which you just conferred upon me. I shall continue to try to do true tried to deserve it to try to deserve it. [applause] i accept the nomination. [cheers and applause] harry truman and i want to thank this convention for its unanimous nomination of my good friend and colleague of kentucky. [applause] harry truman hes a great man and a great public servant. Senator barclay and i will win this election, and make these republicans like it. Dont you forget that. [cheers and applause] harry truman we will do that because they are wrong and you are right. I will prove it to you in just a few minutes. [cheers and applause] harry truman this convention is meant to express the will and reaffirm the belief of the Democratic Party. There have been differences of opinion, and thats the democratic way. Those differences have been settled by a majority vote, as they should be. Now its time for us to get together and beat the common enemy. [applause] harry truman we will be working together for victory in a great cause. Victory has become a habit of our party. Its been elected four times in succession, and im convinced it will be elected a fifth time come november. [applause] harry truman the people know the Democratic Party is the Peoples Party and the Republican Party is the party of special interest, it always has been, it always will be. [applause] harry truman the record of the Democratic Party is written in the accomplishments of the last 16 years. I dont need to repeat them. They have been very ably placed before this convention by the candidate for Vice President and by the permanent chairman. Confidence and security have been brought to the American People by the Democratic Party. Farm income has increased from less than 2. 5 billion in 1933 to more than 18 billion in 1947. Never before has the farmers of any other country been as prosperous as the farmers of this country. If it on do their duty by the Democratic Party, they are the most ungrateful people in the world. [applause] harry truman wages and salaries in this country have increased from 29 billion in 1933 to more than 128 billion in 1947. Thats labor. And labor never had but one friend in politics, and that is the Democratic Party and Franklin D Roosevelt. [cheers and applause] and i will say the labor just what i said to the farmers. They are the most ungrateful people in the world. If they pass the Democratic Party by this year. [cheers and applause] harry truman a National Income has increased a less than 40 billion in 1933 to 203 billion in 1947. The greatest in all the history of the world. These benefits have been spread to all the people because its the business of the Democratic Party to see people get a fair share of these things. This congress prove just the opposite for the republicans. [applause] harry truman the record on Foreign Policy of the Democratic Party is that the United States has been turned away permanently from isolationism. Weve converted the greatest and best of the republicans to that subject. The United States has to accept its full responsibility for leadership and international affairs. We have been the backers of the people who organize and started the United Nations. First started under that great democratic president Woodrow Wilson of the league of nations. It was sabotaged by the republicans in 1920. We must see that the United Nations continues it strong body so we can have everlasting peace in the world. [applause] harry truman weve removed the trade barriers in the world, which is the best assets we can have for peace. Those trade barriers must not be put back in again. We have started the foreign aid program, which means the recovery of europe and china in the far east. We instituted the program for greece and turkey. And i will say to you that all these things were done in a cooperative bipartisan manner. We are taken with the full confidence of the president and everyone of these moves. Dont let anybody tell you anything else. As i have said time and time again, Foreign Policy should be the policy of the whole nation, and not the policy of one party or the other. I would like to say a word or two now about what i think the republican philosophy is. I will state from history and experience. The situation in 1932 was due to the policies of the Republican Party control of the government of the United States. The Republican Party favors the privileged few and not the common man. It hase its inception, been under the control of special interests. They have proved it by the things they did to the people. They have proved it by the things they have failed to do. Lets look at some of them. Just a few. Time and time again, i recommended the extension of price control before it expired on june 30, 1946. I asked for that extension in 1945. In november 1945. And in the message in the state of the union in 1946, that price control legislation did not come to my desk until june 30, 1940 six, on the day it was supposed to expire, and it was such a rotten bill i could not sign it. [applause] it is said the prices will adjust themselves for the benefit of the country. Adjusted themselves, all right, all the way off the charts at the expense of the consumer and the people and to the benefit of the people that hold the goods. I called a special session of congress, 1947. November 17, 1947. Fort out a 10 Point Program the welfare and benefit of this country. Priceother things, controls. I got nothing. Congress has still done nothing. Back, 4. 5 years ago, while i was in the senate, we passed the housing bill in the senate known as the wegner taft bill. To clear the slums helpe big cities and to erect lowrent housing. Senate forassed the years ago. It died in the house. That bill was reintroduced in the 80th congress as the taft ellenger wagner bill. It was allowed to die in the house of representatives. The Committee Sat on that bill. It was finally pushed out of the committee. Then the rules committee took charge and it is still in the rules committee. Desperate pleas from philadelphia in that convention that met here three weeks ago could not get that housing bill passed. It passed a bill they called a housing bill which is not worth the paper it is written on. [applause] we needed moderate legislation to promote Labor Management instead,but congress, passed that socalled tafthartley act, which has disrupted labormanagement relations and will cause strife for years to come if it is not repealed. It ought to be repealed. [applause] i tried to strengthen the Labor Department. The republican platform from they would build up a strong Labor Department. Do you know what they have done to the Labor Department . They have torn it out. There is only one bureau left that is functioning, and it cant hardly function. I recommended in increase in the minimum wage. What did they get . Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Schools in that the this country are crowded, teachers underpaid, that there is a shortage of teachers, one of the greatest national needs. More and better schools. I asked congress to provide 300 million to aid the states in meeting the present educational crisis. Congress did nothing about it. Time and again, i have recommended improvements in the Social Security law, including extending protections to those not now covered, increasing the amounts of the benefits, reducing the eligibility age of women from 65 to 60 years. Congress studied the matter for two years, but could not find to extend or increase benefits. It did find time to take Social Security benefits away from 750,000 people. They passed that over my veto. [applause] i repeatedly asked the congress to pass a health program. The nation suffers from lack of medical care. Any Time Congress wants to act upon it. Everybody knows that i recommended to the congress a civil rights program. I did so because i believe it to be my duty under the constitution. Some of the members of my own party disagree with me privately on this matter, but they stand up and do it. You can tell where they stand, but the republicans all profess to be for these measures, but congress failed to act. They did not have to have a filibuster. There were enough people in that congress to vote for cloture. Everybody likes to have low taxes, but we must reduce the National Debt in times of prosperity. When tax relief can be given, it ought to go to those who need it most, and not go to those who need it least, as the republican, rich mans tax bill it over myhey passed veto on the third try. [applause] billsrst one of these tax was so rotten that they could not even stomach it themselves. They passed one that was somewhat improved, but it still thes the rich and it sticks knife into the back of the poor. Ago ande here two weeks wrote up a platform. I hope you have already that platform. That platform. They adopted a platform, and that platform had a lot of promises and statements of what the Republican Party is for and what they would do if they were in power. A lot of things i have been asking them to do and that they have refused to do when they had the power. The republican platform cries about cruelly high prices. I have been trying to get them to do something about high prices ever since they met the first time. [applause] listen to this one. And one is equally as bad as cynical. The republican platform comes out for slum clearance and low rental housing. I have been trying to get them to pass that housing bill ever since they met the first time, and it still is resting in the rules committee, that bill is. [applause] the republican platform favors equality of Educational Opportunity and the promotion of education. I have been trying to get congress to do something about that every since ever since they came there and that bill is at rest in the house of representatives. Platform urges extending and increasing Social Security benefits. Think of that increasing Social Security benefits, and yet when they had the opportunity, they took 750,000 people for Social Security rolls. I wonder if they think they can for the people of the United States with such poppycock as that. Can fool the people of the United States with such poppycock is that. [applause] discussed a number of these failures of the republican 80th congress, and everyone of them is important. Two of them are Major Concerns to nearly every American Family the failure to do anything about high prices and the failure to do anything about housing. My duty as president requires that i use every means within my power to get the laws the people need on matters of such importance and urgency. I am therefore calling this congress back into session on the 26th of july. [applause] on the 26th day of july, which in missouri we called turn of day, iwe call turnip will ask congress to pass laws ,o meet the housing crisis which they say they are for in their platform. Time, i shall ask them to act upon other vitally needed measures, such as aid to education, which they say they are for. A National Health program, civil rights legislation, which they say they are for. [applause] wage,rease in the minimum which i doubt very much therefore. An extension of Social Security coverage and increased benefits, which they say they are for. Ours for projects needed in program to provide public power and cheap electricity. By indirection, this 80th congress has tried to sabotage the power policy the United States has pursued for 14 years. Lobby and the real estate lobby, which is sitting on the housing bill. For adequate indecent laws for displaced persons in place of the antisemitic, anticatholic law, which the 80th congress passed. [applause] now, my friends, if there is any reality behind that republican platform, we ought to get some action out of the short session of the 80th congress. They could get to this job in 15 days if they wanted to do it. They will still have time to go out and run for office. They are going to try to dodge their responsibility. They are going to drag all the red herrings they can across this campaign, but i am here to say to you that senator barkley and i are not going to let them get away with it. [applause] now what is that know what that congress does in its special session will be the test. The American People will not decide by listening to mere words or by reading a mere platform. They will decide on the record, the record as it has been written, and in the record is the stark truth that the battle lines of 1948 are the same as they were back in 1932, when the nation lay prostrate and helpless as a result of republican misrule and inaction. 1932, we were attacking the said of dole of special privilege and greed attacking the citadel of special privilege and greed. Today, we are now the defenders of the stronghold of democracy and of equal opportunity. The ordinary people of this land, and not the favored classes of the powerful few. The battle cry is just the same now as it was in 1932, and i paraphrase the words of Franklin D Roosevelt as he issued the challenge in accepting his nomination at chicago this is more than a political call to arms. Not to winr help, votes alone, but to win in this new crusade and to keep america secure and safe for its own people. [applause] now, my friends, with the help of god and the wholehearted push, which you can put behind this campaign, we can save this country from a continuation of the 80th congress and from misrule from now on. I must have your help. You must get in and push and win this election. The country cannot afford another republican congress. [applause] president s, available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook. From public affairs. It presents biographies of every president , inspired by conversations with historians about the leadership skills that make for a successful presidency. In this election year, as americans decide who should lead our country, this collection offers perspectives into the lives and events that forced each president s leadership style. To learn more about all of our president s and the books featured historians, visit pan. Org the president s cspan note org thepresident s, available wherever books are sold. Look back ate our past president ial conventions. Next, illinois governor Adlai Stevenson except his partys nomination at the 1952 Democratic National convention in chicago. I judge that it is. After the handsome introduction by president truman. The president seated in the back, waiting for the speech to begin. Stevenson mr. President , ladies and gentlemen of the convention, my fellow citizen