Remarks at a Buffet Supper for Democratic Members of Congress.

THANK YOU very much. I would like to know what chance a country man from Missouri has after that and that [Pointing to Vice President Barkley and Speaker Sam Rayburn ].

I heard the Vice President say that he and Sam considered themselves statesmen when they came into the Congress in 1913. I have an old definition for a statesman, a very old one: A statesman is a dead politician.

I have no desire yet to be in that class. I don't want to see my friend the Vice President, or my friend the Speaker in that class, either. But they are living statesmen. They have done a job for their country that is unequaled in its history. As President of the United States, I am one of the luckiest of the Presidents to have a Vice President and a Speaker such as Mr. Barkley and Mr. Rayburn. There have been Vice Presidents and Vice Presidents, and there have been Speakers and Speakers, but I don't think there has ever been a team as close together, and as anxious to do the country the best job possible, as is now presiding over the Senate, and presiding over the House of Representatives.

I have just received an engraving of a picture presented to Henry Clay in 1821, and they were presenting that picture to Henry Clay on account of the fact that he had succeeded in having a resolution passed in the House of Representatives, authorizing the then President of the United States to recognize the provinces of South America, when in his judgment they had become independent republics. Just a short time before that, Mr. Clay had been responsible for the Missouri Compromise which made Missouri a State along with Maine on a compromise basis--Maine got in first, Missouri almost never did. But in 1850 Mr. Clay agreed to another compromise, which in the middle fifties he changed into the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and brought on the War Between the States.

In going over these various things, and the people who have occupied these positions, you will remember that Andrew Jackson had about as much trouble as any President that was ever in office. He had a Vice President from South Carolina, and his name was Calhoun. And when Jackson was on his deathbed, someone asked him what were the two things he had left undone that he wished he had done while he was President; and he said one was that he should have hanged John C. Calhoun, and shot Henry Clay. Well, now, there is no such parallel here.

But you know, the Presidents of the United States who have apparently had the most trouble, and who have been most viciously attacked in the public prints, are those whom we class as the great Presidents. There never was any man as bitterly attacked as George Washington. You should go down to the Library of Congress sometime, and get out the papers from New York and New Orleans, and other places around all over the country, and read the things that were said about George Washington. They were terrific and terrible. The same thing was said about Jefferson. Of course, nobody has been as bitterly attacked as old Jackson was, and he didn't care--and neither do I.

And one of the most misrepresented Presidents in the public prints was Abraham Lincoln. He went to Gettysburg one time, and made about a four-paragraph speech. And there was a gentleman there who spoke for 2 hours, and I'll bet there is hardly a man here who can name that gentleman who was the main speaker at the celebration.

On that day, when Lincoln made that famous speech, old Horace Greeley, and Dana and Medill in Chicago, said Lincoln had disgraced the country by the terrible speech he made on that day. There isn't a man here who has not at one time or another memorized that Gettysburg address. I'll bet you can't say a word of what the other gentleman said, and I'll bet you can't name him--Edward Everett.

Well, another man who was viciously mistreated while he was President was Grover Cleveland. You should read some of the things they said about Grover while he was President of the United States.

And they hounded Wilson to his grave.

But those men made the impression on the country that has made the country great. I don't think I can make any such impression, but I want to say to you that I have the responsibility which belongs to the President of the United States. I am exercising that responsibility to the best of my ability, and I expect to do the very best I can for the United States of America, and for the world. That's all I can do.

In order to accomplish the purpose which I think Almighty God intended this country to carry out, we must, as the Government of the United States--and you are just as much a part of it as I am, and you are elected for that purpose--we must work together, not only for the welfare of the United States itself, but for the welfare of the whole world.

Since Mr. Rayburn and Mr. Barkley have deemed it wise to go back into history, I am going back a little further than they did and draw analogies to the situation we face now.

All of you remember what happened to Xerxes when he attempted to pulverize the Greek Republics. You all remember what a terrible time the Roman Republic had when Hannibal was winning victories for 21 years in Italy. I don't know whether you remember it, but if it had not been for Charles Martel there would have been no Christian Europe. He prevented the downfall of Christian Europe at Tours. Then along about 500 years after that, there was a certain Mongol--and we are troubled with Mongols right now--who got as far west as Vienna; but he was stopped at Vienna and never got any further. The Christian world survived.

We are faced now with those people who believe in the individual, and who believe in a moral code based on the Sermon on the Mount--which is the best exposition of what a man ought to be that has ever been enunciated; and on the other side we are faced with those people who do not believe in a moral code, who only make commitments to break them. They are--I can't say they are immoral, because that has a definite meaning in our language--but they are unmoral. They believe in the material things and not the spiritual.

Now this country, and the free countries of Europe and Asia, must band together to make an effort to put morals above materials. That's all I am striving for.

I want peace in the world. But I don't want peace at any price. I want peace with freedom and justice.

I don't think there is a citizen in this country of ours who does not believe that, if he has been raised right--had the right sort of mother, and most of us have.

I hope--I sincerely hope--that this great organization, the Congress of the United States, will remember that honor and justice are greater for the welfare of your children and mine--and I hope my grandchildren-than fat and ease.