Address at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago

I appreciate that ovation very much, but I want you to bear in mind that there is only so much time available on these machines here, and while I like the ovation and would like to continue it all night, if you want to, I would like to get this message over, if you will allow me to do it. I appreciate what you have done, however. It is very, very

I have been informed that people are inquiring how they can help win this election for the Democrats. I will tell you how you can do it. Report to your local Democratic chairman. If you don't like him, report to the Stevenson-Sparkman Club chairman. Anyway, take off your coat and do something to get the voters out on election day. A voter at home is of no use to the party or the country.

Now it is a very great privilege for me to be able to speak tonight in the home State of Adlai Stevenson.

Once before, in an hour of crisis, the State of Illinois gave us a great President. Abraham Lincoln did not campaign by trumpeting abroad that he was more virtuous, more honest, and better fitted for leadership than the ordinary man. He presented himself as he was--a man who had tried to serve the people faithfully in his own community, and to walk humbly with his God.

Those basic qualities of his character stood the test of fire in our Civil War, and saved this great Union.

I feel that those same qualities of integrity and humility that made Lincoln great, are present in this other citizen of Illinois, who is now the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.

He did not seek the nomination.

He did not believe that a man should thrust himself forward to seize the greatest honor and the greatest responsibility that exists under our form of government. The Democratic Party turned to him spontaneously because he was the best qualified candidate. He was nominated without commitments and without any strings attached to him whatever.

Here in Illinois I do not have to tell you about Adlai Stevenson's career.

You know him as your Governor. You know what he has done to clean up the administration of the State Government, to replace waste and corruption with economy and honesty, to expand the health and welfare services of this great State, and to assure equal rights among all its citizens. You know that he has a deep understanding of our foreign problems--the problems of war and peace. You know that he is honest and courageous, and that he will not compromise his principles to get votes. You know that he will not betray his friends or his ideals under political pressure.

Adlai Stevenson owes nothing to me, but I shall be happy to turn the Office of the Presidency over to him on January the 20th. If I can do that, I know that I will be leaving our Government and the welfare of our country in good and competent hands.

During this campaign, I have gone back and forth across the country trying to tell the people the basic issues. I have been pointing out to them the basic differences between the Democratic and the Republican Parties. I have been explaining the hard facts of our struggle for peace. I have been pointing out to the best of my ability that the Republican Party has a bad record in the past, and a bad program for the future-that the Republican candidate, while he had a good record as a military man, is not a good choice to be the civilian head of our Government.

That is what I have been campaigning about, but you'd never guess it if you read the papers. When I stayed in Washington and took no part in the campaign, the Republican candidate and the one-party press felt free to vilify me as a traitor and a corruptionist. When I replied and carried a campaign of truth around the country, their only retort was to accuse me of slander and abuse. They don't want the truth. They don't like it. It hurts too bad.

The Republican leaders and the Republican press are desperate in this campaign. From the beginning, they had planned to win by using the "big lie" and the "big doubt." When these tactics were exposed, there was nothing they could do but cry "foul."

One of the things that the Republican candidate has said about the Democrats is that we are waging a campaign of fear. He has said that we are trying to create fear of what the Republicans would do if they were elected.

I want to make this very clear. We Democrats have not tried to create any baseless fears. But I am very genuinely afraid of what the Republicans might do to this country if they were elected. I have a very profound fear of Republican policies, both in the domestic field and in the field of our foreign affairs. This fear is not groundless. This fear is based on the facts.

I want other people to see this as clearly as I do. This is one of the main reasons I have been out campaigning.

The issues that confront us are large and complicated. They require a lot of study and a lot of work and a lot of thought--on the part of the candidates and on the part of the people. At least, that is true on the Democratic side. We Democrats believe in taking a position on these issues, and telling the people exactly where we stand.

But that does not appear to be the case on the Republican side.

Judging by recent performances, a Republican candidate doesn't have to think about the issues. He is not expected to think about anything. And he doesn't expect his audiences to think either. But he is going to be fooled on that.

Now everything is simple for a Republican candidate, especially if he happens to be a general!

Sometimes I think it would be a lot easier to be a Republican candidate for President, than it is to be a campaigner for the Democrats.

Take this issue of prosperity, for instance. We poor Democrats have to think and talk about wage rates, and take-home pay, and price supports for farmers, and income distribution, and business investment--and how to keep all these things working together for a higher national output and a bigger national income.

But the Republican candidate doesn't have to bother with such petty details-especially if he is a general.

All he has to do is to say: "Our pledge is this: we will enlist all the resources of the Federal Government to insure that this great Nation is never again paralyzed by a great depression."

And that takes care of the depression problem. You heard what the General said, didn't you? Depressions are hereby abolished!

It is certainly easy for these Republicans.

Now, take the problem of civil rights.

That has been with us for quite a long time. We Democrats have studied it thoroughly, we have made improvements through the States, and through the activities of the Federal Government. We have worked to enact fair employment practices legislation, against Republican and Dixiecrat opposition. We are going to keep on working for that legislation until we get it. But we know it will be a tough fight. Of course it is going to be a tough fight.

It is much easier than this, though, for the Republican candidate. He says, "I will confer with the Governors of the 48 States. I will urge them to take the leadership . . . in guaranteeing the economic rights of all our citizens ....I will myself be at their disposal....What is sorely needed to deal with the problem of race relations, to provide equal opportunities, and to end racism is .... " Well, what do you suppose? FEPC? Not on your life. No. He says it takes "leadership."

And who will provide the leadership? You guessed it--the Republican candidate, and Governor Byrnes--the Dixiecrat Governor of South Carolina, and Governor Shivers--the Shivercrat Governor of Texas, and Governor Kennon of Louisiana--the Dixiecrat Governor of Louisiana. And if you think that's a funny kind of leadership in the fight for civil rights, you're just a low down mudslinger like I am!

But don't you see how much easier it is to be a Republican candidate?

Now, let's take the problem of agricultural policy.

Here we poor Democrats have been talking and studying and planning for years about price supports, farm credit, and conservation payments. While we've made tremendous progress, we admit we still haven't solved all the problems.

But it's easy for a Republican candidate, especially if he is a general.

All he has to do is say that he will mobilize the best brains of agriculture to work out long-range policies and programs, adding, after more of the same guff, "Most important we must be prepared to do the right thing at the right time."

There you are--there you are--there's your farm program! No fuss, no mess, no dishpan hands. No questions asked--or answered. Just do the right thing at the right time. But what is the right thing and when is the right time from the Republican policy viewpoint. I don't know. I don't think the General does, either.

Now take small business.

The Republican candidate says, "Whatever I can do to help small business, and to provide diversified industry in each locality--that I shall do!" Applause! Cheers! Everybody goes away satisfied.

You see how easy it is to be a Republican candidate.

Now let's look at some harder problems.

It would be hard for me--it would be hard for most of us, I believe--to make the Korean conflict a partisan political issue.

I think of the fact that this whole Nation was practically unanimous on June 26, 1950, that we must stop aggression in Korea. I think how that fight has protected our beloved country from the graver dangers of greater war and invasion. I think of the battle lines where we have not only Republican boys and Democratic boys fighting side by side, but men from many free countries around the globe all fighting side by side in the cause of humanity. And it is rather hard for me to make a partisan political issue out of that.

But it is easy for the Republican candidate for President. He just steps right up to it, and says we are "in that war" because of the mistakes of the administration. For him it's just as simple as that.

Somebody must have asked him a question about it, however, because in a speech at Detroit the other night he set out to prove that the Korean aggression was all the fault of the Democrats. That would have been hard for most people. Most people think it was due to the evil designs of the Kremlin. But it was easy for the Republican candidate. All he had to do was change the facts of history, and he did that just as easily as rolling off a log--and just as easily as he deserted General Marshall.

In his speech he tried to prove that the conflict resulted from the withdrawal of our troops from Korea in 1948 and 1949, and that the State Department was solely responsible for that decision. The fact is, my friends, that he himself recommended that withdrawal in 1947. His view prevailed; and, in accordance with it, our troops were finally withdrawn.

In his speech, he said that another great general, General Wedemeyer, had advised against withdrawing our troops from Korea, and that the administration had ignored his report and suppressed it. The facts, my friends, are just the opposite. General Wedemeyer recommended that we withdraw our troops if the Russians withdrew theirs, and that we undertake a policy of aid to Korea. His report was not ignored. It was carefully considered and virtually all its recommendations were adopted.

The Republican candidate for President, in his effort to prove that the State Department was to blame for everything, took quotations out of the official records of Congress, and twisted and distorted them. It makes me sad when a man of whom I thought as much as I did of the General will do a lowdown trick like that in order to get votes. It is just a distortion of the facts. It is something terrible. That's the reason I am trying to put it over to you. He tried to make it appear that the Secretary of State said something that he never did say. What's more, he deliberately took something that the Secretary of State had said in 1950 and made it appear that he had said it before a different committee, in 1949, 8 months earlier, for an entirely different purpose and with an entirely different result.

And so far I haven't read a single editorial calling the Republican candidate a mudslinger, and a misrepresenter of the facts.

You see how much easier it is for him than it is for us ordinary Democrats. He has no more trouble changing the facts of the past than he has in settling the problems of the present.

Now, what about the future?

We are facing, all around the world, the great and menacing danger of Communist imperialism and its threat of war.

We have moved in to stop outright aggression in Korea--and we have stopped it, in a long and hard and bloody struggle. By that sacrifice, we have saved the free world and ourselves, and we ought to be proud of what our brave men have done there. And I am proud of them.

But we face a continuing problem. The danger is still there--the fighting continues.

There are only three possible ways to handle this problem.

One is to give up, and pull out of Korea. That would be dishonorable and dangerous. It would weaken the alliance of free nations, and endanger our own national security. We won't do that.

The second way is to go on from Korea to a bigger war, attacking China and Russia, expanding the theater of conflict to include Japan, the Pacific, and possibly the whole world. We have also rejected that alternative.

The third way, my friends--and the right way-is to build up more support from the United Nations, as we are doing; to train and equip more Korean troops, as we are doing; and to apply every pressure to bring about an honorable truce, as we are doing. As a Nation, we will be able to bring this about if we remain united and firm in our determination to build up our defenses and see this thing through. This is a hard way to end the Korean conflict, but, my friends, it is the only way that will not involve us in far greater dangers.

Now before he knew how easy it was to be a Republican candidate, the General had just as much trouble as the rest of us in finding a quick and easy way to end the Korean conflict. In June of this year he said, "There is no clean-cut solution to the Korean war." That is an exact quotation from General Eisenhower.

But today he has found out the privileges and prerogatives of his new position. Now he can find a solution for anything. Now he can handle the Korean problem easily. Now he says, "I shall go to Korea. That is my pledge to the American people."

As a Republican candidate, that appears to be all he is required to say. That's the answer. Nobody asks, "What is he going to Korea for ?" Nobody says, "What will you do when you get there ?" Nobody says, "Are you sure you're that much better than your old colleagues--General Bradley, General Ridgway, General Van fleet, General Colfins, General Clark, and General Vandenberg?" All of them have been to Korea, and none of them have found how to bring about what the Republican candidate appears to promise--"an early and honorable end" to the fighting.

And when somebody does suggest that perhaps the answer to Korea lies not in Korea itself, but in the plans of the Kremlin in Moscow, and in the combined and growing defenses of the whole free world--then the Republican candidate handles that by shouting "appeasement!"--which, of course, it isn't.

I have been wondering, for some time, how the Republican candidate is able to solve all our gravest problems in this simple, easy way. Not every Republican can get away with it. I have come to the conclusion that there is a special element in his case. I think it may lie in his military training, what they call the habit of command.

This habit is well developed in some generals. During the war they used to tell about an order posted in some of our overseas areas which said, "On the following days the sun will rise and set at such and such times--by order of the Commanding General."

You see, if you have that kind of training, you can solve any problem--nothing's too tough. Just give an order. The only trouble is that the orders posted on the bulletin boards don't always have the desired effect. In the Army, you don't talk back to a general, but what he says doesn't always come true either.

Perhaps the reason for the Republican candidate's astonishing ability to solve all problems does not lie in his military training, after all. Perhaps it lies in the Republican advisers who are telling him what to say, and who have such towering contempt for the intelligence of the American people that they think we will swallow all this stuff.

I don't much care what the reason is. I know that the business of democratic government is serious, difficult, and complicated. And nobody knows it better than I do. I know the only way that business can be carried on in a democracy is by facing the issues, by having differences of opinion about them, arguing about them, and voting on them. We have to reason together, as the Bible says; and when we have come to a conclusion we have to work together to carry out our decisions.

No general order is going to eliminate our problems. No superman is going to solve our difficulties for us. Anybody who poses and talks like a superman is just a plain fraud.

I stated at the beginning, and I wish to state again, that I have the gravest apprehensions about the future course of our country if the Republican Party is returned to power.

As far as our internal progress and prosperity are concerned, the Republican Party has not changed from its 20 years of blind and selfish opposition. Behind the bland assertions of their candidate lurks the same old hatchet crew. Their clear and announced purpose is to hack away and hew away at the New Deal and the fair Deal, to limit and restrict the things Government can do for the average man, to return the control of our economy to selfish private interests.

And as far as our hopes for peace are concerned, I think the prospect under the Republicans would be even worse than in the case of the domestic problems.

There are men in the Republican Party who are not isolationists. But they are not in control. Across the country, as a whole, they are in the minority. In the Congress they are few in number and lacking in seniority. The old isolationist wing has the seats of power, the posts of leadership.

The aim of the Old Guard is what it was in 1946--reduce the rich man's taxes. Reduce the rich man's taxes. That is all they sing about. They will slash anything that stands in the way of that objective, including our national defense and our foreign policy. If you want proof of that, look at what they have been doing in the Congress in recent years.

If you add to this controlling group a Chief Executive who is experienced only in the military profession, the results, my friends, may be disastrous.

'If you take as Chief Executive a man who believes that negotiation is appeasement, and give him a Congress that wants to reduce the size of our defenses and the strength of our alliances, you have a formula for disaster. Tough talk and weak defense spell war and defeat.

The leadership we need is not military. The leadership we need is one that will knit our people together, strengthen our belief in our deepest spiritual values, and help us understand our great responsibility, under God, to lead the world to. lasting peace.

We will get that kind of leadership from Adlai Stevenson of Illinois.