Address at El Paso, Texas

Mr. Chairman, Governor Jester, Honorable Mayor of El Paso, the Attorney General of the United States, and distinguished guests on this platform, and fellow Democrats of Texas:

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to come back to El Paso once more. I have been here on a number of occasions, and I have spent here some of the pleasantest hours of my life.

I want to talk to you very frankly about some of the vital issues in this campaign, issues in which you are interested. You all know what the Democratic record has been in building up the West. In 1933 the Democrats took the reclamation program out of moth balls and put it into practice. This was because the American people had elected a president who believed in the West--Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Today, reclamation projects irrigate 4 1/2 million acres of land and provide more than 3 million kilowatts of power.

You people in El Paso know how important these things are. Over $20 million has been spent on the Rio Grande project. Right here in your area, it irrigates 160,000 acres.

The Republicans have consistently fought this program for the development of the West. That is why I have been amazed in this campaign to hear spokesmen for the Republican Party claim that the Republican Party is a friend of reclamation. The record proves that that is not so. There is not a word of truth in that claim. The record shows that the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives cut the reclamation program for the West by more than 50 percent in 1948. You people here in the West rose up in anger at this slaughter.

Now, what do you suppose the Republican Chairman of the Appropriations Committee thought about your protests? "Well," he said, "the West is squealing like a stuck pig." That is what the Republican leaders thought about you. That same Republican Chairman squeals himself every time he has to make an appropriation that would be helpful to this part of the world.

The Democrats in the Senate and in the House succeeded in restoring some of the necessary funds. Ninety-five percent of the Republicans in the House voted against providing the money I said was necessary for reclamation. Ninety-two percent of the Democrats voted for the restoration.

By their votes ye shall know them. That is the difference between the Republican and the Democratic attitude toward the West.

These are hard, cold facts. That is why I am amazed when I hear Republican campaign orators trying to take credit for a program that the Democrats had to save from the Republican meat axe.

That is just one example of what the Republicans tried to do to the West last year.

Now, what do you suppose they are planning to do if they gain complete control of the Government next year? Let me give you one example of that. Let me tell you about their plans for electric power, which is so vitally important to the continued growth and prosperity of all the West.

You know how public power from publicly constructed dams has helped bring new industries out here. The Republicans don't like to see cheap public power, because it means that the big power monopolies cannot get their rake-off at the expense of the public.

The Republican Congressman, who would be Chairman of the Committee on Public Works in the House of Representatives, if we get another Republican Congress, has just written a very revealing article for a magazine. That man's name is George A. Dondero, and he comes from Detroit, Mich. His article is entitled, "Wanted: A New Federal Power Policy." It is printed in the "Public Utilities Fortnightly." I can't give you the chapter and verse, and I am going to give you some quotes from it. If you want to read it in full, you can get it. The date is September 9, 1948, and it is called, "Public Utilities Fortnightly." I am going to read you some of the things that this committee chairman says in that article.

He says, and I quote: "We can stop the trend toward increasing the number of publicly owned power facilities .... "

That is vitally important. I am going to read it to you again: "We can stop the trend toward increasing the number of publicly owned power facilities .... "

Now, he will be the chairman if the Republicans get control.

Here is another quote: "The Government should follow a policy of selling the power at the bus bar, or at the dam, to all comers, without favoritism or discrimination."

Now you know what that means--that means that these public utilities fellows and the public utilities lobby who will have control of that committee, if you elect a Republican Congress, want to turn this electric power over to the hijackers; so they can stick you with high prices. That is what it means.

Congressman Dondero goes on to say that our present laws, which let the Government build lines to get power from public dams to the users at the lowest possible rates, and I quote him again: "can and should be changed by the next Congress."

This "do-nothing" 80th Congress changed it by cutting off the money to build the powerlines.

Mr. Dondero says that he has every reason to believe that the Republican candidates will go along with this policy.

Listen to this, and I am still quoting from this article in this public utilities magazine: "We Republicans are divided on many issues, but on this one issue, we are of one mind."

Of course, they are of one mind. They want to give the big interests the control of the Government once more. That is only a start. They are trying to turn the clock back.

Why you know, in 1947 this country had an income of $217 billion--the greatest in the history of the country--of any country; and that income was distributed fairly to the farmers and the workingman and to small business, and everybody else got his fair share of that income. That is not what these Republicans want. They don't want a fair distribution. They want the special interests to have control, and let a little of it trickle down to you.

What Congressman Dondero means by this article, which was published only 2 weeks ago, is that Republicans believe that the benefits of low-cost power at the Federal dams should go to private utilities who will get the power cheap from the dam from the Government, and sell it to you at a high profit.

If that is public interest, then I don't belong in the Presidency.

I think that these facts give you people of the West a clear idea of how you ought to vote next November. You can vote for the party that will slow down--or maybe even stop--the construction of Federal reclamation and power projects; you can vote for the party which promises to give the benefits of Federal power to the private utility interests so they can get rich at your expense--the record proves that is what the Republican Party believes, and there isn't any question about it; or you can vote for the party which promises continued development of the West for the benefit of the whole country.

This is the party that believes that all the people, not just a few, should receive the benefits of low-cost public power. The record conclusively proves that this is what the Democrats believe. It is a record of action. You have men on this platform here with me who have contributed to the carrying out of that action for the Democratic Party.

When Speaker Rayburn was Speaker of the House of Representatives, he put his foot down on this special interest business, and he had to do it time and time again. I am hoping Sam will be the Speaker in the next Congress too.

If you stay away from the polls, as you did in 1946, you will get the same crew of men who tried to wreck, and did cripple the western resource program. I am confident that the citizens of Texas will study the record and vote for the best interests of themselves and the country.

I am hoping that they won't do like a great many people did in 1946. In 1946, in a great many States, people stayed away from the polls, and one-third of the voters elected this good-for-nothing, "do-nothing" Both Congress.

You know, a Congress is as its leaders direct, and the leaders of this Congress are Republicans--backward looking Republicans. There are a great many good men who want to go forward in that Congress but they haven't a chance so long as the publicans control it.

Now!--listen to me! On November the 2d, get up early and go to the polls and be sure you are right by voting the straight Democratic ticket--and I won't be troubled with the housing shortage.