Address at a Rally in the Public Square, Cleveland, Ohio

Mr. Chairman, Secretary Humphrey, Senator Bricker, Senator Bender, members of the Ohio Republican contingent in the Congress, Republican candidates for State office--let me pause here long enough to say I wish for each of them overwhelming success where they are standing for election this fall--and My Fellow Citizens in this great throng and over the Nation:

Almost two years have passed since I last visited Cleveland, but I find that even a few hours in this city provide a tremendous tonic for me, as an American. From my heart, I thank you for the warmth of your welcome.

This time I am here in the midst of a political campaign--a political campaign to determine what kind of government this country is going to have for the next four years.

Now let there be no mistake. There are deep and essential differences in the beliefs and convictions of the two major parties as established by the words of their candidates and by their records in office.

Speaking simply and directly to the problem: one of the most vital of these differences is that a dominant element in the other party believes primarily in big government and paternalistic direction by Washington bureaucrats of important activities of the entire nation. Those people have in the past sponsored the Brannan plan and price controls in time of peace. They have flirted with socialized medicine. In general, they preach continuous extension of political control over our economy.

On the other hand, we of this Administration and this Party believe that the great American potential can be realized only through the unfettered and free initiative, talents and energies of our entire people.

We believe that the government has the function of insuring the national security and domestic tranquillity, and beyond this, has to perform, in Lincoln's phrase--all those things which individuals cannot well do for themselves.

We believe that government must be alert--and this Administration has been alert--to every need of our people, especially in those things affecting their health and education and their human rights. A sound nation is built of individuals sound in body and mind and spirit. Government dares not ignore the individual citizen.

But we emphatically reject every unnecessary invasion into the daily lives of our people and into their occupations, both industrial and on the farm.

Let no one tell you that this difference is either merely doctrinal or fanciful. It is practical. It is real. If affects your lives, the life of the nation today and the life of the nation tomorrow.

Now naturally, the busy orators of the opposition deplore-and even attempt to deny--this faith of ours, in you, the people.

Daily I read about politicians--some of them candidates for high office--who go about the country expressing at length their worries about America and the American people. They profess to be alarmed, scared, and convinced that in all ways we are slipping badly. They cry that the country is going to pot and only they--prescribing for our ills from the seat of government in Washington--can save it.

Now I have a simple prescription for their worries and fears. It is this:

Let them forget themselves for awhile, and their partisan speeches. When they visit a city like Cleveland, let them look around at the hustle and bustle; talk to, and especially listen to, the people here. Let these politicians absorb some of the spirit that animates Clevelanders, all of them--whether they work in banks, in factories, in orchards and fields or in kitchens. Their worries and fears of the future of America should begin to sound foolish--even to them.

Now, my friends, despite this good advice, I am sure these men of fretting fear and worried doubt will reject my prescription instantly. They want too much to have you believe in the story of gloom they spread. For, you see, they assert that these fancied ills can be cured only if the government in Washington-with they themselves occupying its important posts--runs the entire country, including Cleveland.

Now, for a few years in the past, they, and men like them, almost succeeded in selling us this philosophy. But, now the shoe is on the other foot and they are extremely unhappy about it.

For Cleveland, and the rural areas in Ohio, and the citizens of all the other 47 States, are not only running their own jobs efficiently, but are doing their part to run Washington. The result is a better America, an America of increasing peace, security and progress.

Together, we Americans have moved a long way forward in the last four years. For, you see, Cleveland is not an island of prosperity in an ocean of stagnation. All America has advanced in the past four years.

Now that advance didn't happen just by accident. Your Government in Washington has adopted policies that have created a tremendous confidence in America's future.

And with that confidence, you people of Cleveland, your neighbors in Detroit and Toledo--yes, all the people of the United States--you have done the rest.

You here in this Square, the tens of millions like you all over the country, are the source of this tremendous advance--not a group of bureaucrats in Washington or a group of politicians bewailing the fix the country is in. And how did you do this? You accomplished this by hard work; by investing your money; by sticking to your job and doing a good job. You did it because you had faith in yourselves, in your community, in your country. You did it by using your Government as a servant, not turning to it as a kindly master who could parcel out to you--in its great wisdom--the measure of prosperity it believes you merit.

Now the results have been wonderful.

The cost of living has been remarkably stabilized--only about 2½ percent increase in 3½ years. During the final six years of the previous Administration the cost of living increase was 20 times as great as that.

Today, we have a stable dollar. One man who has powerfully helped to restore its honesty and dependability is your own fellow citizen, your great Secretary of the Treasury, George Humphrey.

You have a right--a definite right--to be proud of him. With the late Senator Taft, he has added stature to the Republican Party in this generation.

Now, my friends, we have balanced the Federal Budget, and have even made some payment on our huge national debt.

We have record high employment--66.8 million jobs in August--and without war.

Just before I left Washington, one of the technicians gave me the latest figures on unemployment in the month of September, and it looks like it's down below three percent--almost a record in our entire history.

Working people have higher wages than ever--for the average factory worker, 12 percent more than when the prior Administration left office--and this worker has greatly increased his purchasing power.

Production of goods and services is at a rate exceeding 400 billion dollars a year.

In the first three years of this Administration there were more single-family homes built in America than in any prior three-year period.

A nation-wide highway construction program is now under way.

Those are the facts--that is where America is today. Now while Americans were accomplishing this--were making these tremendous advances--what has your Government been doing?

In virtually every area of human concern, it is moving forward.

Government has had a heart as well as a head.

Now, my friends, in telling you about some of the things this Administration has been doing, I hope you will not take it that I am boasting. There will never be room for boasting in this regard until there is not a single needy person left in the United States, when distress and disease have been eliminated. I am talking about progress--how far we have gone ahead.

Now here are some things the opposition would like you to forget:

Social Security has been extended to an additional 10 million Americans--unemployment compensation to an additional 4 million Americans.

Our health program has been greatly improved research into the causes of crippling and killing diseases has been markedly stepped up.

The minimum wage has been increased, even though my recommendation for its wider coverage was not acted on in the Congress.

We have had a 7.4 billion dollar tax cut--the largest in our Nation's history. And despite opposition charges, two thirds of that cut was given to individuals.

Sympathetic understanding has been fostered and intelligent progress has been made in civil rights. Segregation has been ended in restaurants, theatres, hotels, and schools in the District of Columbia--ended in Government departments, the Armed Forces, veterans' hospitals.

And we have been vigilant and successful in preserving the nation's security--and peace.

Now let me say, this peace is not all that we could wish, and not all that--with God's help--it will one day be. Centuries of mutual hatreds and prejudices and quarrels cannot disappear in a few short years.

But why this anguished cry of some politicians that we have no peace?

Do they think they can make America's parents and wives believe that their sons and husbands are being shot at?

Do they think they can bring Americans to believe that our nation's powerful voice is not daily urging conciliation, mutual understanding and justice?

That is exactly what we are doing in the Suez problem.

Do they believe that Americans do not know how strong have been our efforts to dedicate the atom to constructive instead of destructive purposes?

Are they so deluded as to believe they can conceal from all our people the steady policies directed toward removing the causes of war?

Let them think of these names: Korea, Trieste, Austria, Guatemala, West Germany. If they so think of them, they will realize that they would be very wise to stop this effort of fooling all the people all the time.

Not only is this Administration dedicated to peace, but we have established a record in behalf of peace that all the world respects.

Now these are just some of the things this Administration has been doing.

Let us look for a moment at a simple question: Which Party, in these recent years, has done more to help all citizens meet the problems of their daily lives? Which Party has helped more-not with words, with deeds?

As an early demonstration of its concern for the human problems of health, education and welfare, the Administration raised that agency to Cabinet level. Now national health, the proper education of our children, and the human welfare of all Americans are discussed at the same table--and with the same exhaustive care--as such great subjects as foreign affairs and national security.

The men of the opposition know perfectly well that one of the main reasons they were thrown out of office four years ago was their tolerance of the thievery of inflation. Just in the final seven years of their tenure of office this economic fever had cut the value of the dollar by almost one-third, damaging the livelihood of the aged--the pensioned--all salaried workers. The opposition did nothing effectively to stop this economic thievery. And they know it.

Take the St. Lawrence Seaway. For twenty years the opposition talked about the Seaway. Yet it was repeatedly shelved, by-passed, and blocked. This Administration acted and got the Seaway going. As a result, two years from now, great ocean ships will dock here in Cleveland.

All the money the Federal government could spend for this purpose won't hold a candle to the increased prosperity the Seaway will bring to the Great Lakes--to the Middle West. This Administration made it a reality. And they--the opposition-know it.

Take agriculture. They--the opposition--had 20 long years to do something for the most needy families on our farms. At the end of those 20 years, they had done nothing--except to bypass the small farmer as they made corporation and big area farming more profitable than ever before. And the Administration's new rural development program is the first--I repeat the first--full-scale and integrated Federal effort to help these lowest-income families. Another Administration program enables the small farmer--often a young veteran--to get full and comprehensive credit in financing his farm and buildings and equipment and seed. And he can refinance his existing debts in the same way as any other business or industry. That's another "first" for this Administration. And the opposition knows it.

Now, let's take small business. Just 18 years ago small business people from all over America gathered in Washington at the request of the Administration then in power. They made 23 recommendations--appeals--for action. Yet for the next 14 years--for all the years when the opposition held power--virtually nothing was done. This Administration is the first Administration that has made a major attack upon the problems of small business. And they--the opposition--know it.

Take labor. The opposition say that they alone truly care for the working men and women of America and that the Republican Party is really a vague kind of political conspiracy by big business to destroy organized labor and to bring hunger and torment to every worker in America.

This is more than political bunk. It is willful nonsense. It is wicked nonsense.

Let's see what the record shows about this:

The record shows: Organized labor is larger in numbers and greater in strength today--after these years of Republican Administration--than ever in our Nation's history.

The record shows: Not under the opposition's leadership, but under the leadership of this Administration, the workers of America have received the greatest rise in real wages--the kind of wages that buys groceries and cars and homes--the greatest rise in 30 years.

The record shows: We--not they--have made the most successful fight to stop inflation's robbery of every paycheck.

The record shows that this check upon inflation is most vital-not for the few who are rich--but for the millions who depend upon salaries or pensions, those who are old, those who are sick, those who are needy.

The record shows: We--not they--have brought a reduction in the cost of Federal Government and a reduction in taxes--a reduction benefiting, not a favored few, but every taxpayer in the land. In fact, 11 out of 12 increases that have been made in the individual income tax since it started were made under our opponents, while 5 out of 7 reductions were made under Republican Administrations.

And now I want to add this simple fact. We have given to our Nation the kind of government that is a living witness to the basic virtues in a democracy--public morality, public service, and public trust. In this Administration you cannot find those ugly marks of the past: Special favoritism, cronyism, and laxity in administration.

You have here in Ohio a vigorous exponent of the Administration's program--George Bender.

Two years ago I came here to add my voice to his campaign for the United States Senate. He ran on one basic platform pledge--to support the President and his Administration in Washington. In this he has a splendid record.

He has done an effective job for this State and for all the States of the Union. He has served with vigor and forthrightness. He has shown us a great dedication.

And this Administration is dedicated to the welfare--the peace and the prosperity--of 168 million American citizens. This dedication is equal for all. It is equal for all regardless of race or color or creed--regardless of region or section or of occupation-and regardless of social or economic fortune.

This is the kind of government that we have been developing for the past four years.

Now the Republican Party does not base its appeal on sectionalism, on playing worker against manager, housewife against storekeeper, farmer against manufacturer.

The Republican Party believes that none of us can truly prosper unless all of us prosper. It believes we cannot be secure unless we are strong; that no nation can enjoy true peace unless all nations are free from war.

If the Republican Party were not this sort of Party, I would not belong to it. I would not belong to it and I would not be running as its candidate. What benefits America benefits farmers and industrial workers, the school children and the aged, the West and North and South--all of us. We are one people, one Nation.

And finally, let me say this to you. One of my chief objectives and my greatest hope prior to taking office was to restore the respect of the American people for the Government of the United States. I think you agree with me that honor and integrity have been the landmarks of all that we have done during the last four years. But much remains to be done in the cause of good government for the future of America.

I sincerely and devotedly want to continue the job. To be successful two things are necessary: time; and your help.

With your help between now and November, we can gain the time for the next four years in which we can permanently establish an understanding of these truths--in Washington and throughout the country. There will be restored the faith and belief of the American people in our national processes.

The confidence of the American people in our institutions and our leaders must be strong and secure, if we are to lead the peoples and the nations toward the lasting and just peace, which we all so devoutly seek.

Friends, again I thank you for your welcome and for your courtesy in listening to me so attentively. Thank you very much.