Pastxt, we look back at president ial Convention Speeches from the major president ial candidates president harry. Truman at the 1948 Democratic Convention in philadelphia. Our leader and the next president of the United States. [cheers and applause] president truman thank you. Thank you. President truman thank you. Thank you. All right. Please. Thank you. Thank you very much. [background chatter] president truman i cant. I have to have it up. Im sorry the microphones are underway. They have to be where they are. I have to see what im doing. As i am always able to see what i am doing. [applause] president 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 deserve it. [applause] i accept the nomination. [cheers and applause] president truman and i want to thank this convention for its unanimous nomination of my good friend and colleague, senator barclay of kentucky. [applause] president 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] president 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] president truman this convention met to express the will and reaffirm the beliefs of the Democratic Party. There have been differences of opinion, and thats the democratic way. Those differences happened 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] president truman that is up to you. 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 next november. [applause] president 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] president 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 keynote speaker, 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 4. 8 billion in 1947. Never in the world were the farmers of any republic or any kingdom or any other country as prosperous as the farmers of the United States; and if they dont do their duty by the Democratic Party, they are the most ungrateful people in the world. [applause] president truman wages and salaries in this country have increased from in 1933 to more 29 billion 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. Applause]d president truman and i say to labor what i have 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] president truman the total National Income has increased from 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 it is the business of the Democratic Party to see that the people get a fair share of these things. This last, worst 80th congress proved just the opposite for the republicans. [applause] the record onan Foreign Policy of the Democratic Party is that the United States has been turned away permanently from isolationism, and we have converted the greatest and best of the republicans to our viewpoint on that subject. [applause] the unitedruman states has to accept its full responsibility for leadership in international affairs. We have been the backers and the people who organized and started the United Nations, first started under that great democratic president , woodrow wilson, as the league of nations. The league was sabotaged by the republicans in 1920. And we must see that the United Nations continues a strong and growing body, so we can have everlasting peace in the world. [applause] weve removedan trade barriers in the world, which is the best asset we can have for peace. Those trade barriers must not be put back into operation again. We have started the foreign aid program, which means the recovery of europe and china, and 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 and bipartisan manner. The Foreign Relations committees of the senate and house were taken into the full confidence of the president in every one of these moves, and dont let anybody tell you anything else. [applause] as i have saidn time and time again, Foreign Policy should be the policy of the whole nation and not the policy of one party or the other. Partisanship should stop at the waters edge and i shall , continue to preach that through this whole campaign. [applause] president truman i would like to say a word or two now on what i think the republican philosophy is, and i will speak from actions and from history and from 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, as i said a while ago, favors the privileged few and not the common everyday man. Ever since its inception, that party has been under the control of special privilege, and they have completely proved it in the 80th congress. [applause] president truman they proved it by the things they did to the people, and not for them. They proved it by the things they failed to do. Now, lets look at some of them just a few. Time and time again i recommended extension of price control before it expired june 30, 1946. I asked for that extension in september 1945, in november 1945, in a message on the state of the union in 1946. That price control legislation did not come to my desk until june 30, 1946, on the day on which it was supposed to expire. And it was such a rotten bill that i couldnt sign it. And 30 days after that, they sent me one just as bad. I had to sign it, because they quit and went home. [applause] president truman it was said when opa died, that prices would adjust themselves for the benefit of the country. They have been adjusting themselves all right. They have gone all the way off the chart in adjusting themselves, at the expense of the consumer and for the benefit of the people that hold the goods. [applause] president truman i called a special session of the congress in november 1947 november 17, 1947 and i set out a 10point program for the welfare and benefit of this country, among other things, standby price controls. I got nothing. Congress has still done nothing. Way back foreign have years ago four and a half years ago while i was in the senate, we , passed a housing bill in the senate known as the wagnerellendertaft bill. It was a bill to clear the slums in the big cities and to help to erect lowrent housing. That bill, as i said, passed the senate for years ago. It died in the house. That bill was reintroduced in the 80th congress as the taftellenderwagner bill. The name was slightly changed, but it is practically the same bill. And it passed the senate, but it was allowed to die in the house of representatives. The banking and Currency Committee sat on the bill, it was finally forced it out of the committee, and the rules committee took charge, and it still is in the rules committee. But desperate pleas from philadelphia in that convention that met here three weeks ago couldnt get that housing bill passed. They passed a bill they called a housing bill, which isnt worth the paper its written on. [applause] president truman in the field of labor we needed moderate legislation to promote labormanagement harmony, but Congress Instead passed that socalled tafthartley act, which has disrupted labormanagement relations and will cause strife and bitterness for years to come if it is not repealed, and the democratic platform says it ought to be repealed. [cheers and applause] president truman i tried to strengthen the Labor Department. The republican platform of 1944 said, if they were in power, that they would build up a strong Labor Department. You know what they have done to the Labor Department questio . They have simply torn it up. Only one bureau is left that is functioning, and they cut the appropriation of that so it can hardly function. I recommended an increase in the minimum wage. What i get . Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I suggested that the schools in this country are crowded, teachers underpaid, and that there is a shortage of teachers. One of our greatest National Needs is more and better schools. I urged congress to provide 300 million to aid the states in the 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 protection to those not now covered, increase the amount of benefits, reduce the eligibility age of women from 65 to 60 years. Congress studied the matter for two years, but couldnt find time to extend or increase the benefits. But they did find the time to take Social Security benefits away from 750,000 people, and they passed that over my veto. [applause] i havent truman repeatedly asked the congress to pass a health program. The nation suffers from lack of medical care. That situation can be remedied any time the Congress Wants to act upon it. Everybody knows that i recommended to the congress the civil rights program. I did so because i believed it to be my duty under the constitution. Some of the members of my own party disagree with me violently on this matter. But they stand up and do it openly. People can tell where they stand. But the republicans all professed to be for these measures, but congress failed to act. They had enough men to do it, they could have had cloture, they didnt have to have a filibuster. They had enough people in that congress that would vote for cloture. Now everybody likes to have low taxes, but we must reduce the National Debt in times of prosperity. And when tax relief can be given, it ought to go to those who need it most, and not those who need it least, as this republican rich mans tax bill did when they passed it over my veto on the third try. [cheers and applause] president truman the first one of these was so rotten that they couldnt even stomach it themselves. They finally did send one that was somewhat improved, but it still helps the rich and sticks the knife into the back of the poor. Now the republicans came here a few weeks ago, and they wrote a platform. I hope you have all read that platform. They adopted the platform, and that platform had a lot of promises and statement of what the Republican Party is for, and what they would do if they were in power. They promised to do in that platform a lot of things i have been asking them to do that they have refused to do when they had the power. [applause] president truman 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. T truman now this is equally bad, and 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 is still resting in the rules committee, that bill. [applause] the republicann platform favors equality of opportunity and promotion of education. I have been trying to get congress to do something about that ever since they came there, and that bill is at rest in the house of representatives. [applause] the republicann platform urges and extending increasing Social Security benefits. Think of that. Increasing Social Security benefits. Yet when they had the opportunity, they took 750,000 off the Social Security rolls. [applause] president truman i wonder if they think they can fool the people of the United States with such poppycock as that. [cheers and applause] there is aruman long list of these promises in that republican platform. If it werent so late, i would tell you about all of them. I have discussed a number of these failures of the republican 80th congress. Every one of them is important. Two of them are of major concern to nearly every american family. They failed to do anything about high prices, they failed 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 july 26. [cheers and applause] president truman on the 26th day of july, which out in missouri we call turnip day, i am going to Call Congress back and i am going to ask them to pass laws to halt rising prices, to meet the housing crisis which they are saying they are for in their platform. [cheers and applause] at the same time, i shall ask them tacked upon other measures. A National Health program and civil rights legislation. An increase in the minimum wage, an extension of Social Security coverage and increased benefit. Funds for projects needed in our programs to provide public power and cheap electricity. The indirection, this 80th congress has tried to sabotage the power policy with the u. S. Lobby is sitting on the housing bill. For it and decent displayed persons. [cheers and applause] my friends, if there is any reality hide that publican platform, we should get some action out of the short session. They can do this job in 15 days, if they want to do it. They are going to try to dodge their responsibility. They are going to drag all of the vent hearings across this campaign. We will not let them get away with it. [cheers and applause] what they do in this special session will be the test. The American People will not decide by listening to mere words or by reading your platform. They will decide on the record that has been written. The stark truth of the battle lines are the same as they were back in 1932. In 1932, weaver attacking the citadel of special privilege and agreed. Against theting money arises in the temple. Defenders. Are the the battle cry is just the same now as it was a 1932. I paraphrase the words as they issued a challenge. More than a political call to arms. Help not to win votes a loan alone but to keep america safe for its own people. [cheers and applause] now my friends, with the help of push, butwholehearted you can put behind this campaign , we can save this country from misrule from now on. I must have your help. Affordntry cannot another republican congress. [cheers and applause] telling his life story. This film is part of the library of Congress Screening room. Announcer tom deweys public career was launched in 1931 when crime was a national scandal. Four years later, he was appointed special prosecutor to war on organized crime in new york