That's what I said just four years ago this month.
Well, it doesn't do any good to say I told you so.
There's just one cure for corruption, for maladministration.
In the good old American phrase, throw the rascals out.
That's the cure you administered to the previous Republican administration in 1948, and it's the cure you're going to administer to this one a week from next Tuesday.
You know, I think that one of the most revealing headlines that I ever saw, even in the world's most cynical Republican newspaper, appeared on Chicago's newsstands just the other day.
It was October 9th.
It says, Hodge insists all he stole was $600 ,000.
But you know, if there is any political advantage under Franco Lowell, I think it's interesting that so little notice has been taken in the public press of the relationships of the leaders of Illinois Republicanism with their party leaders in Washington.
We've heard almost nothing of how although Hodge entertained Leonard Hall, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in his Florida hotel, and made heavy contributions.
I wonder whose money that was.
To the National Republican Party war chest.
I wonder, has anyone suggested that maybe this money should be repaid to the Illinois taxpayers? On top of all this, I understand that President Eisenhower wrote Mr.
Hodge a personal note of thanks for his services to the Republican Party.
I wonder what the press of the country would say if it had been a Democratic national chairman and a Democratic state auditor.
I think you have a pretty good idea.
You remember what they did to one stray me.
And for that matter, there was little comment when President Eisenhower's close friend, the secretary of the Air Force, was awarded a medal for his services after Congress and the press had caught him using the influence of his office to promote his private business.
And it is this same Mr.
Hall, who is today refusing to testify before a congressional committee about the charge that large government contracts were given only to Republicans and upon the Republican national chairman's approval.
And it was this administration that called itself, do you remember, a great crusade, that tried to brazen through the Dixon -Yates deal, a deal which the Democrats showed up, which even the Department of Justice has now confessed was illegal from the start, and to quote its words, contrary to public policy.
I'm always abused about one of those errant Republicans in exalted office who defended himself when he confused his private affairs with his public affairs by saying that he never did it except during his lunch hour.
I personally get pretty disgusted with this mantle of self -righteousness that the Republican candidates wrap around themselves.
We need decent government in Springfield.
This knows so well.
Or is it the Quint Cities now? What are you? Anyway, as you here know so well, this isn't just an agricultural problem.
One of the worst things I think that this administration has done is to try to cover up its farm policy failures by setting city people against farmers and farmers against city people.
They tell city people that farmers are really living high on the hog, that a strong farm program is inevitably going to mean higher food costs in the city.
They tell farmers, yet I wonder if you realize, I'm sure you do, that the farmer's share of the housewife's dollar has dropped from about 52 cents to 40 cents while the cost of living has been steadily going up.
And today, by the way, I read in the paper that the cost of living gets another all -time high.
And the price of hogs, by the way, went down 25 cents yesterday in Chicago.
You know, sometimes I wonder how they manage to do it.
And then they tell the farmers that the working man drives around in a Cadillac, and that because of his wages, the farmer must pay higher prices for what he buys.
Yet the administration also points at the same time with pride to the highest corporation profits in history.
They do this, I think, because they know that so long as they can keep laboring the working people of the city from joining forces with the farmers, the working people of the country, then they can harvest votes from the resentment of each and keep themselves in office and keep their special plans, their special interests in the driver's seat.
But I believe that the American people are catching on.
I don't want human terms.
But you know how our Republican friends, I wonder if you noticed, what has always amused and struck me, their passion for statistics, for figures, for averages.
If one big man makes $50 ,000 a year and you make nothing, then on the average you're both making $25 ,000.
Isn't that just awesome? The basic problem, of course, is the collapse of farm income.
When this administration was elected, the figures are familiar.
There's a parity ratio.
Yet President Eisenhower said the other day, and I quote him that, over the nation, the prosperity we are sharing today is at a new height, a new level, even for the United States.
He said that the outlook for the farmer is much better than it's been in the last 10 years.
He talked about the happiness on people's faces, and he said, I haven't seen so much happiness in a long time.
I wonder whose faces he was looking at.
I wonder if it was men who used to have jobs in the farm equipment industry.
I wonder if it was housewives paying the highest prices in history.
I wonder if it was teachers in overcrowded classrooms.
But you know, I think I know what it was.
I think it was the faces of his cabinet, or perhaps it was the faces of the board of directors of General Motors.
But it isn't a question of smiles on people's faces.
Sure, we smile.
Of course we do.
That's...
Most of us are pretty well off, and we're grateful for all the blessings that we enjoy in this blessed land.
But we are talking about here the business of government, and one of the questions is what we mean to do about some pretty serious situations that make it mighty hard for some people to smile, and for reasons that are not always their own fault.
We Democrats just don't propose to stand by while people suffer in the distressed areas, any more than we propose to stand by while people suffer on the farms.
We have a program for the distressed areas, as we have a program for the farms.
I wish there were time here to talk about so many of the other specific issues that we face here in America today, even in these comparatively prosperous times.
And yet I suspect that the really basic issues in this 1956 election are of a much broader kind.
We are entering a new age that we sometimes don't think about, I believe.
A new age that requires not only new men, but it requires new ideas.
It calls for a young party, a party of life and of hope, which holds human beings in affection and respect when massiveness and growth and bigness is threateningly precious, all as individuals, as this inexorable monster increases, whether it's communications, whether it's business, whether it's government, whatever it is, it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Yet the purpose of democratic government is the preservation of the individual in society.
A party and an...
I say to you that our difficulties and our dangers in the world are multiplying every minute, as in sewage, and also our opportunities, as in Poland and Hungary, and so it is also here at home.
On the one hand, our deficiencies become more apparent in education, in health, housing, slum clearance, social security, equal opportunities for all, and nothing or next to nothing is being done about them.
And on the other hand, thanks to our natural blessings, thanks to the great technological revolution of this age, the means are now at hand as never before of this mad arms race in helpless terror and in ever expanding hunger and misery and want.
Just because this administration has not been able to make any progress towards safe disarmament or even towards controlling hydrogen development, does not mean that such agreements are forever impossible.
No matter which party wins the election in November, another supreme effort must be undertaken, and if that one fails, then another and another.
For leaders must lead.
I say to you, my friends, that there is much work, much work to be done.
In our land and in our world, great work lies ahead of us.
I believe with all of my heart and soul that this nation is about to cook, is on the threshold of a richer age than man has ever known.
And the question is, shall we press forth? Shall we attain this goal? Shall we use our riches for all of the people? Or shall we stand mute, irritably, silent and alone? Or shall we use them for just some of the people? And can we master these new machines? Or must we serve the new machines? And can we put the atom to our peaceful use? Or will it destroy us? These are great questions, they require great answers, and those answers can come only from the strength and the wisdom of you, you the American people.
And they will not be drawn forth by leadership that fails to lead, that frowns on new ideas.
They will be drawn forth only by leadership that dares to try the new, that meets the crises of our times with an unbeatable enthusiasm.
You remember what Emerson said? He said nothing great on earth was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.
So I say let us go forward, never satisfied with things as they are, and daring always to try the new, daring nobly, doing greatly, and so building the new America of our dreams.
The only hope is a democratic victory in November, a victory for a party which cares about people.
A party that wants to put the human being and not the dollar sign at the center of American life.
And a party in which there is no place for the Richard Nixon's of this earth.
As they first step toward the new America, you gave the Congress back to the Democratic Party in 1954, and the next step is to give the executive branch of the government back to the Democratic Party in 1957.
The new Democratic Party is a party that wants to put the people of America in the same place.
The new Democratic Party is a party that wants to put the people of America in the same place.
The new Democratic Party is a party that wants to put the people of America in the same place.
The new Democratic Party is a party that wants to put the people of America in the same place.
