Campaign Address in St. Louis, Missouri

I propose tonight to discuss the constructive side of government. I propose to outline something of the principles which must underlie the relation of government to the constructive tasks which confront us. A few nights ago in New York I had occasion to discuss these principles in application to matters which the Government should not undertake. Tonight I discuss them in connection with matters which the Government should and must undertake. Government is only in part a negative function. Its purpose is not merely to stand as a watchman over what is forbidden; government must be a constructive force.

Our country has a political, social, and economic system that is peculiarly our own. It is the American system. It grew out of our revolt from European systems and has ripened with our experience and our ideals. We have seldom tried to express it or define it. It has been the moving force of our progress. It has brought us into the leadership of the world.

The founders of our Republic under Divine inspiration set up not alone a great political system of self-government, but they set up also a revolutionary social system in relation of men towards men.

Our political system is unique in the world. It is unique because of its decentralization of self-government and its checks and balances which safeguard ordered liberty and freedom to each individual. Our social system is unique in the world. It is unique because it is founded not only upon the ideal that all men are created equal and are equal before the law, but also upon the ideal that there shall be equal opportunity among men. We have no frozen classes or stratification of caste in our country. We allow nothing to prevent the rise of every boy and girl to the position to which their initiative and talents will carry them. We have no titles except the descriptions of our jobs.

From our unique political and social ideals we are evolving a unique economic system. We have discarded the original European theory that there is a class struggle between the capital of the few and the labor of the many. Under that theory it was held that labor was a commodity and the laborer in general could never rise far above bare existence, for if he did so the supply of labor would increase and thus constantly pull him back into the cesspool of inevitable poverty.

We Americans have proved this conception wrong. By what amounts to a revolution in ideas and methods, we have developed a new economic system. The dominating idea of that system is that labor on the one hand and capital, which in America means the savings of the people, on the other hand, by joint effort can steadily increase the efficiency of production and distribution. In other words, we find that by joint effort we can steadily increase the production of goods by each individual and we can at the same time decrease the cost of goods. As we increase the volume of goods, we have more to divide, and we thereby steadily lift the standard of living of the whole people. We have proved this to be true and by this proof we have laid away the old theory of inevitable poverty alongside the theory of human slavery.

These three revolutionary American ideas, political, social, and economic, are inter-locked and inter-meshed. They are dominated and cemented by the ideal and practice of equal opportunity. They constitute one great system protecting our individualism and stimulating initiative and enterprise in our people. This is the American system. One part of it cannot be destroyed without undermining the whole. For us to adopt other social conceptions, such as Federal or State Government entry into commercial business in competition with its citizens, would undermine initiative and enterprise and destroy the very foundations of freedom and progress upon which the American system is builded.

By adhering to these principles the Republican Party has played a large part in creating the magnificent progress which shows on every hand today. I do not need to recite the evidences of that progress. I have said before that it in no way minimizes the accomplishments of the American people to point out that without the wise policies which the Republican Party has made effective during the past 7 1/2 years the great prosperity we now enjoy would not have been possible. The Republican Party has ever been a party of true progressivism—true progressivism does not include policies which would destroy progress.

By adhering to these principles we have raised humanity to greater heights of well-being than ever before in history. They are the very essence of progressive government and of self-government. We must apply them to the constructive side of government.

There are three potential fields in which the principles and impulses of our American system require that government take constructive action. They comprise those activities which no local community can itself assume and which the individual initiative and enterprise of our people cannot wholly compass. They comprise leadership of the Government to solve many difficult problems.

The first of these fields includes the great undertakings in public works such as inland waterways, flood control, reclamation, highways, and public buildings.

The second of these is the necessary interest and activity of the Federal Government in fostering education, public health, scientific research, public parks, conservation of national resources, agriculture, industry, and foreign commerce.

The third great field lies in broadening the assistance of the Government to the growing efforts of our people to cooperation among themselves to useful social and economic ends.

The first of the particular tasks to which I believe this constructive side of government should be directed is public works.

More than any other section of our country the Midwest is at this time vitally concerned with the advancement of these undertakings. I have stated on other occasions that, due to the shift of economic currents from the war, the Midwest has not had equal opportunity with the rest of our country. The natural increase in freight rates due to the war, the building of the Panama Canal, coincident with the fact that the cost of ocean transportation has remained practically stationary, have contributed to thrust the Midwest into an economic setting greatly to her disadvantage.

Almost exactly 3 years ago at Kansas City I said that this shifting of economic currents demanded a new vision of interior waterway development. I then urged that it was time to reject the old view of inland waterways as a series of isolated projects, and that instead we should consolidate our interior waterways into a great integrated system which I called the Mississippi System.

We have an opportunity to create three great trunk lines of water transportation—one north and south 1,500 miles from New Orleans through St. Louis to Chicago, and thus by the lakes to the northern boundaries of our country. Another east and west 1,600 miles from Pittsburgh through St. Louis to Kansas City. And the third a ship-way through the St. Lawrence connecting Duluth and all the lake ports with the sea. Vital to this system is the improvement of the laterals such as the upper Mississippi connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul, the upper Missouri connecting Sioux City and beyond, as well as the Cumberland, the Tennessee, the Arkansas, and the Red rivers, and lesser streams. When completed, including the St. Lawrence waterway, this entire system will comprise 12,000 miles of most essential transportation connecting 20 States with the gulf on one hand and with the North Atlantic on the other.

Under the direction of Midwest Senators and Congressmen and supported by great civic associations of the Midwest, and with the help given by the Departments of War and Commerce, that conception of our waterway system has now been finally accepted by the country as a great program for national development. Congress has authorized the completion of the system—except the St. Lawrence, concerning which negotiation with Canada is still pending. We have already expended nearly $100 million upon the new program. It is money well spent.

This comprehensive system will not reach full usefulness until it is complete and interconnected. And it is for that reason that I believe it should be completed at the earliest possible moment. When finished it will be a powerful stimulus to the industry of this great section. It means cheaper raw materials, it means cheaper access to the world market for the Midwest; it means the building of industry in the midst of agriculture; it means the improvement of our whole national economy by bringing the consumer and the producer closer together; and it means a vital contribution to the stability of both industry and agriculture. In a measure it will restore the field of our Midwest merchants, who suffer today by competition through the Panama Canal. By cheapening transportation it will increase the price the farmer receives for his products. This increase constitutes a most important element of his profits. He would obtain this increase not alone upon the actual products that may be transported by these waterways but upon his whole crop. The reason is that the price the farmer receives for certain of his products is the world market price less the cost of transportation; and when parts of his crops can be exported at reduced cost, it compels buyers to enhance the price paid to him for his entire production even though most of it be for domestic consumption.

Nor will this impair our magnificent railway system. The growth of traffic in our country will far outstrip the volume which our waterways will carry.

Any engineer, presented with the conclusive advantage of construction of a great works and having the resources with which it can be constructed, has only one conception of it—its earliest possible completion in order that the returns of the works may be quickly brought into being.

No one could have occupied the position and responsibilities which were assigned to me during the great Mississippi flood of 18 months ago and not have become an advocate of adequate flood control. I rejoice at the enactment by Congress of authority to construct these works. The safety of over 1 1/2 million of our people depends upon them. We have already witnessed the temporary shock that came to the prosperity of the whole Nation through that great disaster. Here again is a necessity for all of the energy which can be applied without waste in order that we shall open its wealth of production to the future and that we shall at the earliest moment remove fear from the hearts of all of those who dwell in the great Lower Valley. I am for its completion at the earliest moment.

This administration has recognized the public necessity of Federal Government contribution to the creation of a definitive system of modern interstate highways. This program is far from completion, and I stand for its continuance. Congress has lately authorized a large program of much-needed public buildings. And there are other important public works of less immediate interest to the Midwest to which I have referred upon other occasions. The whole comprises the largest engineering construction ever undertaken by any government. It means an expenditure of nearly $1 billion in the next 4 years or nearly four times the outlay on the Panama Canal. As I have said before, these undertakings are justified by the growth, the need, and the wealth of our country. The organization and administration of this construction is a responsibility of the first order. For it we must secure the utmost economy, honesty, and skill. These works, which will provide jobs for an army of men, should, so far as practicable, be adjusted to take up the slack of unemployment if it should occur.

There has never been a national campaign into which so large a discussion of the agricultural problem has entered as in this campaign. That is as it should be. It is the most urgent economic problem in our nation today. It must be solved if we are to bring equality of opportunity and assurance of complete stability of prosperity to all of our people.

I have discussed elsewhere the causes which have led to distress in agriculture. Even before the war it was not on a satisfactory basis, and all discussion which deals with putting it back on a prewar basis takes us nowhere. There was then a fundamental difficulty which still exists—the undue effect of seasonal and periodic surpluses upon the price. The catastrophic deflation of 1920 was added to by the fact that the Underwood Tariff had removed protection on practically all farm products. In the year of deflation—that is, the year before the Republican Party came into power and was able to give remedy—agricultural products to the amount of $3 billion poured into the country from abroad and helped break prices already under strain from deflation.

There are many other causes—increased freight rates, increased production abroad, and changes in our production methods at home. There has been a most amazing growth in efficiency of the farmers themselves, who have within 8 years increased our production of all farm products about 20 percent with fewer people employed in the industry and with about the same acreage. This is the answer to any claim that our farmers are not doing their part in the industrial advance. But this increased efficiency has not brought them the same rewards as have come to other professions and callings. The others have marched far ahead of their prewar basis in standards of living and in comfort, while some branches of agriculture still base their hopes on a restoration of prewar conditions.

There are, therefore, ample causes for complaint. The Republican Party has throughout the whole of the last 7½ years been alive to this situation. It has undertaken a long series of measures of assistance. The tariff protection, the revival of the War Finance Corporation, the expansion of Federal farm banks, the establishment of intermediate credit banks, the cooperative marketing legislation, the regulation of grain exchanges and stockyards, together with a score of other constructive legislative and administrative efforts, evidence the interest in the farmers' difficulties. Certain branches of the agricultural industry have made substantial progress. Important branches still lag behind, and the problem is as yet unsolved as a whole.

There have been many reasons for the difficulty of finding a complete solution. Let me offer two or three suggestions. The first is, there has been a tendency to look for solution of the whole agricultural problem with a single formula. The result has been that the leaders of those branches of agriculture to which that formula would not apply or to which it did damage have immediately fallen into opposition. Therefore, on any special plan of relief we have always had sharp disagreement within the industry itself.

The depression in different branches of farming comes from widely different sources and has a wide variety of causes. The industry is not a single industry but is a dozen specialized industries absolutely different in their whole economic relationships. If we would have sound and permanent relief, it can be only through complete determination of the causes which bring about the difficulties of each part. By thus going to the root of the trouble we will find that the methods of solution are not through one line of action but through many lines of action.

And the problem is not wholly an economic problem. It is partly a social problem because the farm is more than a place of business—it is a place of living and a home. So that in addition to finding the solution to the particular difficulty in that particular branch of the business, we must have regard for important social problems involved. The whole foundation and hope of our nation is the maintained individualism of our people. Farming is, and must continue to be, an individualistic business of small units and independent ownership. The farmer is the outstanding example of the economically free individual. He is one of our solid materials of national character. No solution that makes for consolidation into large farms and mechanized production can fit into our national hopes and ideals.

Many factors enter into a solution of this whole problem. One is by the tariff to reserve to the farmer the American market, to safeguard him from the competition of imports of farm products from countries of lower standards of living. Another part of the solution is to provide cheaper transportation to market. Another is to secure to the farmer a larger proportion of the price which the ultimate consumer pays through the elimination of a vast number of wastes that lie in our method of distribution. Another part of the solution must be to secure greater stability in prices which are now unduly affected both by the seasonal surplus and by the periodical surplus over one year to another. Another part of the solution is to maintain stability and high purchasing power for our consumers. Any depression or ill wind which affects the consumer's buying power is immediately reflected to the farmer. Finally, every different agricultural product is affected by different forces, and we must produce a plan of action which will give aid to each as is required.

Adequate tariff is essential if we would assure relief to the farm. The first and most complete necessity is that the American farmer have the American market. That can be assured to him solely through the protective tariff. The tariff is effective today on many farm crops, including wool, flax, sugar, fruit, cattle, dairy products, vegetable oils, and a score of other products. It maintains the premium upon our hard wheat against Canadian imports. The duties are not high enough on some products, but nevertheless the tariff is effective over a considerable portion of our whole agricultural production. And it can be made more effective, for we are still importing something like $800 million per annum of products which could be produced on our soil. One difficulty in our present corn market is the imports of corn to our seaboard points. The tariff wall we erect creates also a profitable pressure to diversify the crop and thereby decrease the surplus problem. The increase in dairying and flax raising, for example, has displaced what would otherwise have been larger and even more unmanageable surpluses of other products.

And beyond this the tariff, in protecting the wage level of the American worker, increases his buying power for the products of the farmer. Our manufacturing industries of the Midwest require protection from lower wages of foreign countries just as much as those on the seaboard. The standards of living amongst our workers, our city populations, is the only standard in the world which permits them to purchase all the food they can eat. The butter consumption in our country has increased by 50 percent in 8 years, although the population has increased by only 10 percent. The tariff holds butter prices today 12 cents per pound over the prices which prevail in Europe.

And while I am on the tariff and before we turn to other phases of the farm problem, let me say that the party which, by the Underwood Bill, removed practically all agricultural products from tariff protection, which withheld that protection for 2 years after the war, which opposed the Republican tariff on agricultural products, and which as late as 9 months ago provided only two votes in the Senate and seven votes in the House to defeat a resolution providing for instant tariff reduction—that party is not the party for the American farmer and the American workman to entrust with revision of the tariff. If you want the protective principle preserved, and if you want it strengthened on farm products, it should be entrusted to the party that has fought for and defended it for 70 years.

I may also add upon the subject of protection that the limitation of immigration is a fundamental part of our protective system because it prevents a flood of labor from abroad which can only break down our wage levels. I stand against any increase of the present quotas and for the principle of the 1890 census, with only such changes as prevent separation of families but would not increase in total numbers.

But to return to the farm question.

In addition to the tariff and cheaper waterway transportation in assistance to agriculture, the Republican Party proposes to go farther. It proposes to set up an institution which will be one of the most important institutions in our government, designed to meet not only the varied problems which confront us today, but those which may arise in the future. We propose to create a Federal Farm Board composed of men of understanding and sympathy for the problems of agriculture; we propose that this board should have power to determine the facts, the causes, the remedies which should be applied to each and every one of the multitude of problems which we mass under the general term "the agricultural problem."

This program further provides that the board shall have a broad authority to act and be authorized to assist in the further development of cooperative marketing; that it shall assist in the development of clearinghouses for agricultural products, in the development of adequate warehousing facilities, in the elimination of wastes in distribution, and in the solution of other problems as they arise. But in particular the board is to build up, with initial advances of capital from the Government, farmer-owned and farmer-controlled stabilization corporations which will protect the farmer from depressions and the demoralization of summer and periodic surpluses.

It is proposed that this board should have placed at its disposal such resources as are necessary to make its action effective.

Thus we give to the Federal Farm Board every arm with which to deal with the multitude of problems. This is an entirely different method of approach to solution from that of a general formula; it is flexible and adaptable. No such far-reaching and specific proposal has ever been made by a political party on behalf of any industry in our history. It is a direct business proposition. It marks our desire for establishment of the farmers' stability and at the same time maintains his independence and individuality.

This plan is consonant with our American ideals to avoid the Government operation of commercial business; for it places the operation upon the farmer himself, not upon a bureaucracy. It puts the Government in its real relation to the citizen—that of cooperation. Its object is to give equality of opportunity to the farmer. I would consider it the greatest honor I could have if it should become my privilege to aid in finally solving this, the most difficult of economic problems presented to our people, and the one in which by inheritance and through long contact I have my deepest interest.

I am hopeful that in the December session of Congress it will be possible to reach that solution. However, as I have already said, if this is not possible I would call a special session in order that we might speedily arrive at a determination of the question before the next harvest.

I have said that there is a third great group of activities in the promotion of the public welfare where the Government, without abandoning the American system, may develop a new principle of relation with its citizens.

We have in the past quarter of a century evolved a higher sense of organized cooperation than has ever been known before. We have 10,000 examples of this conscious cooperative development in the enormous growth of associational activities. Civic associations, chambers of commerce, trade associations, professional associations, labor unions, trade councils, farm organizations, farm cooperatives, welfare associations—these arc so all-embracing that there is scarcely an individual in our country who does not now belong to one or more of them. They represent every phase of our national life both on the economic and on the welfare side. They constitute a vast ferment toward conscious co-operation. They have become a part of the very fabric of American life. While some of them engage in highly objectionable attempts to wrongly influence public opinion and the action of government, the majority of them recognize a responsibility to the public as well as to themselves; and a large part of them are founded solely on public interest.

Wherever these associations undertake high public purposes I wish to see active cooperation by the Government with them. Without intrusion the Government can serve to bring together discordant elements and to secure cooperation between different industries and groups. It gives great hope of a new basis of solution for many of our problems and progressive action in our people. It should be the response of government to our new economic conceptions. It is consonant with the American system. It is a method that reinforces our individualism by reducing, and not increasing, government interference in business and the life of our citizens.

Such cooperation strengthens the whole foundations of self-government and serves to maintain equality of opportunity and constructive leadership.

This cooperation can take two distinct directions. It can assist in the promotion of constructive projects of public interest on one hand, and it can assist in the cure of abuses by the voluntary establishment of a higher code of ethics and a stricter standard in the conduct of business.

These are not theoretical proposals. Seven and one-half years ago I introduced this relationship between the Department of Commerce and industrial, commercial, and civic organizations of our country for the promotion of matters that were of public importance. We cooperated with these associational groups in promotion of foreign trade, in the elimination of waste, in furtherance of economic and scientific research, in improvement of homes, and in scores of other activities. During this period hundreds of committees have been in active cooperation with the Department of Commerce, not under compulsion and not even under solicitation from the Department, but merely because the Government was willing and ready to assist in bringing together the elements of any movement that would promote public welfare. I perhaps may make my proposals more clear by giving you some illustrations.

First, I may review a case of assistance to labor and business. In 1923, under my chairmanship, there was organized a series of committees representing the manufacturers, contractors, engineers, real estate men, and labor in the building trades. Its purpose was to reduce the loss of time due to the seasonal character of these industries. As a result of the organization set up, the average winter unemployment in these trades has been reduced from about 100 days to about half that number. There has been no decrease in daily wages. The annual income of the workers in these trades has been substantially increased by the decrease in idle days, and the business given greater stability.

Another instance of action of fundamental importance to the farmer, the businessman, and the worker consists of the measures taken in cooperation between the Government and business agencies to mitigate the violence of the so-called business cycle. Booms and slumps have occurred periodically for 100 years. No one suffers more from these periodic hard times, with their hideous unemployment, decrease in wages, and bankruptcy in business, than both labor and the farmers. Time forbids a discussion of the intricate problems involved and the remedies which have been inaugurated. The proof of their effectiveness lies in the fact that we have had a far longer period of stability in industry and commerce, far greater security in employment, and larger buying power for farm products than ever before in our history. The solution of this question was just as intricate as those which we face in agriculture.

Still another instance of these activities and one in which I have felt great concern has been the effort to build up safeguards for the independent businessman. The preservation of his independence and individuality is just as important as maintaining the individuality of our farmers. Through various cooperative measures we have made a start to give to the independent businessman many of the services of bigger business aggregations.

An illustration of another direction of these activities has been in eliminating abuses in a particular industry without resort to legislation and regulation. For a great many years legislation had been debated in Congress providing for the regulation of the lumber industry somewhat on the lines of the pure food laws, in order to protect the honest manufacturers and dealers and the public. In 1923, however, we created a series of committees amongst associations in the lumber industry at their request. In the course of a gradual extension over 5 years we finally perfected a system for the grading of lumber and for the guaranteeing of these grades to the public, which is now carried out wholly within and by the lumber industry itself. Consequently during these last few years there has been no suggestion of such legislation from Congress. The savings to the public in the elimination of waste and fraud have been estimated by the industry as upwards of $250 million a year. This is a clear case where by cooperative methods we have avoided the necessity of regulation with the bureaucracy and interference that flow from it. It is also a clear case of building up of self-government.

I could describe a great number of such cooperative actions carried through to success. They involve such things as the Better Homes movement, with its 5,000 committees covering every city and village in the United States, engaged in promoting home ownership and betterment of home construction. They involve the American Child Health Association, which has been built up to bring about cooperation between national, State, and institutional health authorities for the promotion of better health surroundings for our children. I could relate to you at great length the vast cooperative machinery we have erected for the promotion of foreign trade, through which the growth of our trade has outstripped that of any country in the world.

In this broad field of cooperation by government lie potentialities which have been barely touched. The Government can give leadership and cooperation. It can furnish scientific research. It can give prestige and influence. All of these call for but trivial expenditures. They require no increased bureaucracy. They are of first importance to every branch of American life.

It is by this means of cooperation by the Government that we contribute mightily toward business stability and greater productivity in industry. And it is stability that every businessman needs that he may thus work out for himself his own destiny without those ill tides over which he has no control.

It is by means of this sort of cooperation from the Government that we may contribute greatly to the very foundations of economic progress, that is, to provide continuous and full employment. General employment comes not only with sound policies of government but equally from vigorous cooperation by the Government to promote economic welfare. It is by these means that we can build such organization of our economic system as to provide a job for all who have the will to work.

I believe we can apply to agriculture the principles and activities in this direction which we have applied to commerce and industry during the last 7½ years. I believe we can solve a very large number of the problems of agricultural distribution and marketing through such methods. To that end I wish to have an effort made to secure the coordinated action of all of those interested in the distribution of farm products. I look forward to the day when our farm organizations will be as cooperatively and as advantageously linked to governmental encouragement and service as many of our industrial organizations are now.

It is from this cooperation of government with the great agencies of public welfare that we may inspire and build up the contributions to stronger family life, better homes, more recreation, and general well-being.

Before I conclude I should like to review to you some thoughts on the broader issues which we have before us.

For several years we were engaged in war. Since its close we have devoted ourselves largely to reconstruction of the losses from it. We have now entered upon the period of constructive action.

Government has the definite and manifest obligation of giving constructive leadership to the people. In doing so it must not lessen their initiative and enterprise upon which we must rely for the progress of the race and of the Nation. Our system has been built upon the ideal of equality of opportunity. For perhaps a 100 years after the foundation of the Republic, the opportunities of a moving frontier preserved that equality of opportunity. Now with the settlement of the country and with the astonishing speed and intricate complexity of industrial life, the preservation of equality of opportunity becomes yearly and yearly more difficult, and for that very reason is of higher and higher importance. If we would maintain America as the land of opportunity, where every boy and girl may have the chance to climb to that position to which his ability and character entitle him, we shall need to be on increasing guard. If I could drive the full meaning and importance of maintained equality of opportunity into the very consciousness of the American people, I would feel I had made some contribution to American life. It is the most precious of our possessions that the windows of every home shall look out upon unlimited hope. Equality of opportunity is the right of every American, rich or poor, foreign or native born, without respect to race or religion. By its maintenance alone can we hold open the door of full achievement to every new generation and to every boy and girl. Only from confidence that this right will be upheld can flow that unbounded courage and hope which stimulates each individual man and woman to endeavor and to accomplishment. By this principle we should test every act of government, every proposal, whether it be economic or political. I insist upon the most strict regulation of public utilities, because otherwise they would destroy equality of opportunity. I object to the Government going into business in competition with its citizens because that would destroy equality of opportunity. And equality of opportunity is the flux with which alone we can melt out full and able leadership to the Nation.

The first step to maintained equality of opportunity amongst our people is, as I have said before, that there should be no child in America who has not been born, and who does not live, under sound conditions of health; who does not have full opportunity for education from the kindergarten to the university; who is not free from injurious labor; who does not have stimulation to ambition to the fullest of his or her capacities. It is a matter of concern to our government that we should strengthen the safeguards to health. These activities of helpfulness and of cooperation stretch before us in every direction. A single generation of Americans of such a production would prevent more of crime and of illness, and give more of spirit and of progress than all of the repressive laws and police we can ever invent—and it would cost less.

I have said often before in this campaign that we need always to interpret our discussions of economic and material proposals by how they affect the peace, the happiness, and the security and prosperity of every American home. I have tried to interpret to my fellow countrymen what government means to that home. I stand for a prosperous country because I want good homes. You cannot divide those things that are seen from those that are unseen. The things that we call material are the foundation stones upon which we build the temple of those things that we call spiritual. Prosperity, security, happiness, and peace rest on sound economic life. Many of the subjects with which we have had to deal are intricate and complex. We must support the maintenance of peace amongst nations, economy in government, the protective tariff, the restriction of immigration, the encouragement of foreign trade, the relief of agriculture, the building of waterways, and a score of other great governmental policies which affect every home in our land. Solution of these questions is not always easy. Only the inexperienced can be positive in offering solutions of great problems. The first necessity in the handling of such problems is the assembling of the facts in their proper perspective. The truth must be forged from the metal of facts.

Let me in closing repeat a part of my message to the Kansas City convention in reply to the telegram from its chairman. I said:

"You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the Presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope.

"My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay. It conferred upon me the mission to administer America's response to the appeal of afflicted nations during the war. It has called me into the Cabinets of two Presidents. By these experiences I have observed the burdens and responsibilities of the greatest office in the world. That office touches the happiness of every home. It deals with the peace of nations. No man could think of it except in terms of solemn consecration.

"A new era and new forces have come into our economic life and our setting among nations of the world. These forces demand of us constant study and effort if prosperity, peace, and contentment shall be maintained.

"You have manifested a deep concern in the problems of agriculture. You have pledged the party to support specific and constructive relief upon a nationwide scale backed by the resources of the Federal Government. We must and will find a sound solution that will bring security and contentment to this great section of our people.

"But the problems of the next 4 years are more than economic. In a profound sense they are moral and spiritual.

"Shall the world have peace? Shall prosperity in this Nation be more thoroughly distributed? Shall we build steadily toward the ideal of equal opportunity to all our people? Shall there be secured that obedience to law which is the essential assurance of the life of our institutions? Shall honesty and righteousness in government and in business confirm the confidence of the people in their institutions and in their laws?

"Government must contribute to leadership in answer to these questions. The Government is more than administration; it is power for leadership and cooperation with the forces of business and cultural life in city, town, and countryside. The Presidency is more than executive responsibility. It is the inspiring symbol of all that is highest in America's purposes and ideals."

In that spirit I began this campaign. In that spirit I end it.