Address at a Rally in the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, Washington

Mr. Chairman, Governor Langlie--and here I want to extend a very special greeting to the great array of relatives I have, scattered over the great Evergreen State, and I want to say to all the members of the Stover and Lucas families, I am very sorry that we couldn't have a tribal convocation on this visit.

Now, this being a political gathering, I think it is not amiss for me to express some of the political hopes I have for this State this fall--this November. For example, I hope sincerely that you advance your Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Anderson, to the Governor's chair. And I hope you will return to the Congress of the United States one of the finest Republican delegations we have there, and add to it a Congressman-at-Large, which will make it perfect.

And I would sincerely hope that you will find it possible to send to the United States Senate my good friend Arthur Langlie. His great personal integrity, his devotion to public service are well known throughout this whole country, and I assure you he would be the greatest help to me and to the Administration in developing the remaining parts of the legislative program that we believe would advance the best interests of this country, both at home and abroad.

And now, my Fellow Citizens:

Your welcome here in the Northwest makes me feel wonderful.

Perhaps I should put that another way: your welcome reminds me of how wonderful I have been feeling for quite some time now.

For me, there has been something truly notable and forever memorable about the last few weeks. It has been an exciting experience--travelling across this nation of ours. There is nothing more exciting than America itself--what it consistently achieves, what it eternally stands for.

Yet, beyond this truth, I have been seeing everywhere the signs of a vigorous and dynamic people at work.

I have seen the smoky fury of our factories--rising to the skies, and proclaiming to the world that 66 million American workers are more prosperous and secure than ever in our history.

I have seen a farm economy strengthened--and farmers, at last, encouraged--by the knowledge that realistic farm programs are finally at work. They know, these farmers, that these programs are no longer the crude creations of political expediency. They know that the farmer himself is no longer to be insulted as a commodity for which our parties make competitive bids in the political market.

I have seen our cities and towns--where more homes have been built in these last three and one-half years than in any like period in the nation's history. In those same cities and towns, your government constantly presses forward its attack on slums and blighted neighborhoods.

And there are other great things that I have had no need to see--for I know them. I mean--the blasting and the scraping of the earth to open the great St. Lawrence Seaway, bringing the commerce of the world to the heartland of America. I mean also, conservation projects. Just day before yesterday, I pushed a button that started actual work on the Upper Colorado storage project, a mighty work that when completed will add incalculably to America's strength and prosperity. I mean--the roaring of Diesel engines and the pouring of concrete for thousands upon thousands of miles of roads--that are about to signal the beginning of the greatest highway program in all our history. And I mean--the rolling mills, the open hearths, the flaming furnaces-from Buffalo and Pittsburgh to Gary and Birmingham. Everywhere, men--carpenters, bricklayers, machinists and electricians, men at their ledgers and men at their lathes--all are at work, building an America that can be the pride of our fathers, the hope of our children, and the strength of free men everywhere.

Now this, my friends, is what we see.

And yet--and yet in these days of political frenzy--this is not necessarily what we hear. We hear, instead, the angry hum of a locust-swarm of partisan orators. They are singing a strange, sad song--about a feeble and fretful America. Only a few weeks ago, too, they wrote a dark and mournful document--the platform of the opposition. When that document was published, one of the great independent newspapers of this country summed it up thusly: one might have thought, the paper said, that the authors of that platform inhabited some land just lately swept by famine and pestilence.

When I hear such words--when I look at the facts--I wonder one thing. I wonder if the cry of the political opposition is not simply this: things in America are rapidly going from bad--to good.

No--all those grim prophecies of four years ago have not come true. This Administration has not taken "it" away. "It"--the productive power of America--has never been the gift of any political party. "It" could not be "taken away." "It" only had to be released and encouraged. And this--we have done.

No--there has been no "giveaway." We have not dismantled the great dams of the Northwest. We are building still more dams--generating still more power--for all the people.

No--our whole nation's soil and farm lands are not returning to wilderness. They are richer and more productive than ever. And while a few politicians may go on implying that the sagebrush and the prairie dogs are taking over the land, they cannot make the American people believe any such things. You know, I seriously doubt that they have even been able to convince the prairie dogs.

No--this is not a sick America, but a healthy America--not a weak nation, but a strong one--not a fearful people, but a confident one. This I have seen with my eyes. This I believe with my heart. This I know in my mind.

II.

My fellow citizens--even though we may smile at much of the partisan oratory of these days, even though we may doubt if much of it was ever worth uttering--yet some of it is worth examining. It is worth examining--not in a spirit of anger--but rather in a spirit of learning.

Now, let students of political science take a few notes.

First: We have had some new examples of an old device--the half-truth.

The opposition spokesmen loudly lament a rise of less than 3 percent in the cost of living over the past three and one-half years. But--they remember not to mention that this cost of living has soared 50 percent, almost, in the last 7 years of their Administration.

They express every American's concern for the plight of our low-income families. But--they are careful not to mention that today's prosperity has reduced the number of such families to an all-time low in America's history.

They sorrow--as any American does--for the trials of any fellow citizen who is unemployed. But--they are careful not to mention that unemployment--now--in September--the latest month on which we have any figures--in September of this year, unemployment had fallen to a rate lower than any peacetime September in their twenty years of political rule.

I think we may leave to the philosophers the question: Is half a truth better than none?

But I believe most Americans would ask: Why not tell the whole truth?

Second: We meet the device of the hit-and-run statement.

They gave us a stunning example of this when they charged the present Administration with loaning vast sums of money which was later used to build up the personal fortune of an exiled Latin American dictator, they said. They made only one mistake: they were peering into the barrel of their own gun when they pulled the trigger. For it was their Administration that made those loans.

Now, they have fled from that particular scene of this issue-in headlong silence.

They have run out of sight--taking flight, no doubt, far, far down the high, high road.

Third: We meet the political tactic of the big straddle.

They bravely denounce inflation in the cities--and they go to the countryside with their extravagant promises of the loose credit that makes for inflation.

They promise a stout national defense, or a bold role in world affairs--and they urge us to start planning to stop our military draft.

They promise lower taxes--bigger Government spending on virtually every front--and a nicely balanced budget--all constituting the biggest--and the boldest--three-in-one sale in recent American politics.

It is difficult to see how they can do these things all at once. Now, we have been called the exponents of a middle-of-the-road philosophy, and I admit it. And if these people want to pass us on the left or on the right, that is their political privilege, but how do they expect to pass us on both sides at once?

Now, the fourth, and finally: In this strangely confused course in government that we are taking, we see put to new use the old-fashioned double standard--otherwise known as the rubber yardstick. By this convenient device sense and nonsense become happily confused. Thus:

In 1952 the Republican Party's vigorous internal debate made the Party--we were told by these opponents--a two-headed monster. In 1956, they find us a one-headed monster. We are guilty of the crime of unity.

When Republican spokesmen candidly differ among themselves, our opponents say that we prove that our party lacks true leadership. But when opposition leaders aspiring to the highest office in the land denounce one another as unfit and unqualified for the Presidency--and that, my friends, in terms that we would never dream of using--why, then it's just good, clean, boyish fun. Then, when the former enemies finally embrace in public--they point to the scars they inflicted on one another, as if they were badges of qualification for public office.

In 1952, we were denounced as a probably military-minded, saber-rattling party of war. In 1956--having brought an honorable end to a war we inherited--we are again denounced--now they say we talk too much about peace.

All these things, my friends, I mention in no spirit of anger or outrage. They are simply oddities and curiosities--they are political fables that tell of a political wonderland. It is a land of the opposition's own confused making. And it was this wonderland that the opposition candidate himself was describing-perhaps more truly than he realized--with his recent remark that I am merely fighting "straw men."

III

Now, my friends, let us return to the world of reality. Possibly we can do it with a sort of sigh of relief. Here we can survey the scene much more quickly--and more constructively.

I speak now of facts--rare commodities on the political market today.

And I offer you ten clear facts.

(1) Labor today is the biggest--and the best organized-working force in American history; and its share of our national income--70 cents out of every dollar--is the highest it has been in twenty years. Labor is receiving its highest hourly and weekly wage in all our experience.

(2) Production has surged well beyond the history-making mark of 400 billion dollars a year; and this production-pace will soon be providing 70 million jobs for Americans.

(3) Farm prices this year--the first full year in which this Administration's programs have operated--have begun to rise without the cruel assistance of wartime demands--for the first time--and this is the first time this has happened since World War II.

(4) Conservation, wise use and development of our natural resources, have been put on a sound, long-term partnership basis--enlisting full state, local and private effort alongside massive Federal Government effort.

(5) The menace of inflation has been successfully met for the first time in a generation--as we have achieved, these last three and a half years, the most stable living costs over a like period in twenty years. These remarkably stable living costs, let me explain, are vital--not to great banks or massive corporations--but to all citizens--especially our older people--depending upon fixed income, life insurance, pensions or social security payments.

(6) We have brought to your government--both to its fiscal policies and to its whole operation--qualities long absent and badly needed--consistency and integrity.

(7) We have helped to advance the cause of civil rights with human understanding, with reason and with consideration. We have acted on the sound principle of talking less and doing more. This Administration has erased all vestiges of segregation in all areas clearly within the authority of the Federal government-and this for the first time in our history.

(8) Social security has been extended in coverage--and its benefits increased--to give to tens of millions of citizens the greatest promise and protection they have ever known.

(9) Our national defense today rests upon the strongest peacetime force--and the strongest deterrent power--that we have ever possessed. Let us not forget, my friends, we keep defense forces to keep the peace. The only way to win the next world war is to prevent it. This is the principle that guides that great corps of devoted and dedicated military leaders that we have in Washington, as well as every single individual civilian official that has to do with this great subject.

(10) Now we have proven that our quest for peace with justice does not require repetitions of the Korean tragedy to deter further Soviet military aggression. In this quest--our continuing, persistent and most difficult quest--we have achieved one thing perhaps more important than the solution of many local crises. And it is this: we have made known, in ways understood by men everywhere in the world, America's uncompromising devotion to the cause of peace. We have done this at a series of world conferences--rising to the climax of the Summit at Geneva. And we have done this with our repeated and specific proposals for world disarmament--our "open skies" offer of mutual inspection of Soviet and American defenses--and with our program of atoms for peace.

From the very beginning of this Administration, my friends, we have urged all the powers to devote this new nuclear science to man's constructive purposes and not to his destruction. We have asked only that we have safeguards that we can trust as well as others can trust, so that this path of peace toward universal disarmament can be traveled by all. We want to turn nuclear science to the production of power, to assist the doctors in their medical research, to agriculture, to industry, and so on. We simply refuse to do it all alone. Until others do it with us, we are going to stay strong.

There is one old truth I should like to repeat here: it has often been said and said truthfully, that the world must cooperate or in the long run it will perish. That I believe. But I want to bring this point out, my friends: weakness cannot cooperate with anything. All that weakness can do is beg. Strength can cooperate. That is what we intend to do. We will hold out the hand of friendship to every single nation and people in the world--anyone that will grasp it honestly we will be glad to take them within the circle of our friends.

Now, all these things we have done to serve one steadfast purpose: to lead mankind to dedicate its skills and its strength--no longer to the demands of war--but, at last, to the arts and needs of peace.

IV.

I have stated the record of facts.

I do not believe it needs any added ornament of oratory or exhortation.

I commend it to your scrutiny.

I am confident of your judgment.

Thank you, my friends.