Remarks in St. Louis, Missouri

Mr. Chairman, Governor Dalton:

I'm with good neighbors and good friends whenever I'm in the State of Missouri!

Mrs. Johnson and I feel at home with Stu Symington, one of the great and wise men of the United States Senate, and one you are going to return with a landslide majority November 3d.

We are extremely fond of your junior Senator, Ed Long, who serves Missouri with such distinction in the Senate. We are happy to see Leonor Sullivan and Frank Karsten, who help make the Missouri delegation one of the finest in Congress. I appreciate the welcome of acting Mayor Gunn.

I am glad to see some of my old friends from Missouri on the platform. There are too many of them to mention them all, but I particularly was happy to see Mrs. Freeman, Stan "The Man" Musial, my old friend Tony Buford, and I hope that Morris Shenker is right, that we are really going to get going out here by November 3d.

The events of the past week have made clear the one central issue in this election. That issue is how America is to discharge its responsibilities as the leader of the free world.

These events have brought to the front the underlying crisis of our period of history: the struggle between those who wish to be free and those who want to enslave mankind through a Communist world revolution.

One proposal is to resolve this problem by smashing the Communists once and for all through military means. The trouble with this solution is that we live in a nuclear age. A full nuclear exchange would so devastate the Northern Hemisphere that there would be no victory for anyone.

Hundreds of millions of people would be dead, and the survivors would be organized on a totalitarian basis.

The other course is the one that has commended itself to the great majority of Americans of both parties for more than a half century.

It offers no simple, it offers no easy, solution. It marks out rather the Ten Forces of Freedom that we must draw upon to fight and to defeat communism.

First, we fight communism through a defense--

[At this point there was a general disturbance in the audience.]

Now you folks come on and be happy, come on and be happy. You will find a few like this in nearly any big crowd. But they are getting fewer and fewer as the days go on.

You know, I visited downstate Illinois for a while this afternoon, and we never saw such large crowds. But a good Republican came up to me and said, "I remember when you were Democratic leader and you were serving under a Republican administration, and a Republican President, President Eisenhower.

"And I always believed that you put your country first, that you did what was best for America because you thought that was what was best for all the people, and if it was good for America it was good for you."

He said, "I have noticed in the last 48 hours a trend of Republicans away from the leadership, the temporary leadership, of their own party."

He said, "It is not backlash; that is gone. It is not frontlash. It is the smear lash. Because when some people get desperate they get dangerous, and when they get dangerous they are not cautious. And when they get to fearing and doubting and smearing-why, even some of their own people don't want to go along with them!"

So I want to say to all of you good people, whether you are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, we want to welcome you to a program that puts your country first regardless of your party.

We have no unkind words to say about anyone. We don't indulge in any muckraking or any mudslinging, because we don't think that is what the American people will listen to. We think they want to have the issues discussed. They want to have their leaders tell them what their problems are, and they don't want to deal in personalities.

I was talking to you about the hundreds of millions of people in the world that would be dead and the survivors would be organized on a totalitarian basis. The other course that we can follow, that has commended itself to the great majority of Americans of both parties, is that we mark out Ten Forces of Freedom that we draw upon to fight and defeat communism--Ten Forces.

Now, what are those ten? I want to outline them briefly and hurriedly, because I am grateful for this wonderful, large, inspiring audience and I don't want to keep you too long.

First, we fight communism through a defense establishment that your own man Stuart Symington has had a great deal to do with building, that is powerful enough to make it completely clear that if the Communists themselves resort to war it will lead to their own complete destruction.

Second, we fight communism by strengthening the defense capacity of other nations and other people, who want to be free and who do not want to be enslaved by the Communists.

Third, we fight communism by maintaining superiority in every field of science and technology which does or can affect the security of our Nation.

This applies to the exploration of outer space. We dare not leave this area of our universe to become a monopoly in the hands of those who would destroy freedom. We must therefore obtain and maintain a leadership for the free world in outer space and we are trying to do that.

Fourth, we fight communism by giving our support to the concepts of liberty upon which our Republic was founded. And this means very especially the determination to be fair, to be just, to ensure that all of our citizens, regardless of creed, religion, national origin, or color enjoy the liberties which are inherent in the notion of freedom.

Fifth, we fight communism by building a Great Society here at home. We must show the world that the processes of freedom can contribute more to human dignity and human well-being than can the Communist totalitarianism. The Great Society is a powerful weapon against man's enslavement.

Sixth, we fight communism by uniting nations and uniting people in their determination to be free. You do not divide your forces. People who would defeat us want to divide us, and conquer us. They want us to hate each other instead of love each other. They want one group going one direction and one group going the other direction. Now is the time for all good Americans to come to the aid of their country, and unite behind their country.

In this hemisphere we had a vote the other day in the Organization of American States, and 19 out of the 20 countries in this hemisphere voted together. This means in the Western Hemisphere that we must have support for our Alliance for Progress. The alliance represents a commitment to help the people of this hemisphere achieve economic and social development.

Seventh, we fight communism by supporting the Peace Corps. The young men and women that I see out there in that audience, the young men and women that I have seen all around the world, have put on their hats and rolled up their sleeves and gone out into the world to show them what American life is like.

They are tonight, as we meet here, demonstrating in the villages and in the countrysides of dozens and dozens of countries what we in America as a people are all about. They are stimulating the young people of other lands to commit themselves to public service in the interest of their own freedom. And we need more young men and young women in the service of this country.

And when I am elected your President November 3d, I am going to send out special talent teams to bring young men and women into the service of their country.

Eighth, we fight communism by expanding world trade. The free world has demonstrated its capacity to perform economically far beyond the capabilities of the muscle-bound Communist economies.

The bonds of trade can tie free men together and give them a community of interest. Do you know, I looked at the figures yesterday, and since this administration came into power, our exports to foreign countries have increased by more than 25 percent.

So what we want to do is not only have peace in the world, and avoid a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out 300 million men and women overnight, but we want to have peace at home.

We want the capitalist who invests his dollar to know that it is not going to be confiscated and that he has a right to expect a reasonable and fair return.

We want the manager that manages that dollar and that worker who gets up at daylight and outlines his plans, and sometimes works until midnight and develops stomach ulcers--we want him to have a good bonus at the end of the year so that he has an incentive and something to work for.

And to the worker who stands there putting those rivets in the cars as they come down the assembly line every 27 seconds, he has to have his job done; to the workers of America--and we want them to have their social security program, and not a voluntary one, either--we want them to work fewer hours per day and fewer days per week. We want them to have more leisure and more recreation for themselves.

We now have the average manufacturing pay in this country up to $104 a week, the highest in the history of any nation in the world. We tonight have 72.5 million people employed. We have today the businessmen of this country earning $12 billion this year, the year I have been President, $12 billion more than they did last year after taxes.

We have the stocks on the exchanges today worth $100-odd billion more than they were worth last November 22d, when we took over. We have the workers of America tonight, this year, drawing $60 billion more after taxes than they did last year.

That is the kind of country we want. We want peace between the capitalists, we want peace between the management, we want peace between the workers.

Do you know that we have lost this year less time due to strikes than we have lost in any year in our national history, except during the war years when they had no strikes ? We haven't lost 1 percent of the hours worked because of strikes, not one-half, not one-quarter--fourteen one-hundredths of 1 percent of our time has been lost.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we have the capitalist, we have the manager, we have the worker, and we have the Government--all working shoulder to shoulder, not fearing, not doubting, not hating, but hoping and believing and producing and leading the rest of the world. We are going to fight communism by building a family of free men through the widest opportunity for international exchanges, in the fields of all human activities.

We have our scientists on their way to the Soviet Union this month to sit down and talk to them and try to evolve ways and means to convert the sea water of the oceans and take the salt out of it so we can make the deserts of this country bloom. We are trying to understand mankind instead of destroy mankind.

We are the mightiest nation in all the world. We have more power than any other nation in the world to destroy. But we don't want to destroy. We have more power than all the nations put together. But we don't intend to bury anyone. We just don't intend to be buried.

We are not going to rattle our rockets and bluff with our bombs. We are going to always be alert, and cautious, and careful, and realize that we are dealing with the lives of 3 billion people that live in the world and that we are a small minority of 190 million. We are going to keep our guard up, but our hand out.

We are willing to go anywhere and talk to anybody that offers us any hope of promoting better relations between nations. We would rather talk than fight.

We will not withdraw from the United Nations. We will strengthen it. We will make firm the Atlantic partnership, and we will build new bridges from it to the other nations of the free world, and we won't do it through a task force; we will do it through the official channels of our Government.

This course has been charted over a half century by the Presidents of both parties. President Woodrow Wilson saw it, but he died a martyr to his frustrations. A few men doubted and feared and hated, and they blocked his plans for a successful League of Nations.

President Herbert Hoover, whose passing sobers us tonight, pushed that course forward. So did the four great Presidents who followed him, Democrat and Republican alike. And this is the course which we must follow if the fight for freedom is to be won without the destruction of the civilized world.

This is the course that I propose to follow as your leader with the help of your Congressmen, with the help of your two great Senators, with the help of your Governor, and all of those who treasure peace in the world.

I hope that you folks will try to help us, try to remember that one of the best ways that you can help us is to send Sid McClanahan, the Democratic candidate, to Congress to help us in the next session.

It was about 11 months ago when we had a terrible tragedy and in the matter of moments I had to assume the responsibilities of the Presidency. I said that night--when I walked into the White House--to the people of this Nation and to the people of the world that with God's help and your prayers I would do my dead level best.

Our beloved President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had sent to the Congress 51 major recommendations that were pending on November 22d. Many of them he had worked on--long and hard. Many of them had proceeded through this committee or that. But there were 51 there that needed acting upon. I talked to your Senators, they talked to their colleagues, I talked to your Congressmen and they talked to their colleagues, sometimes men of both parties.

The other night when the Congress was leaving, I sat there late in the White House waiting to receive the call, and I looked over that list of 51 unfinished matters that were left to my stewardship, and left to the Congress. Together we had passed every one of the 51 through the United States Senate. We didn't get the Appalachia bill, we didn't get the coffee agreement bill, and we didn't get medical care through the House. But we are going to do that when we get back to Washington next year.

No one man can lead this country. No dozen men can lead it. We have 50 states with 50 different populations, with almost that many religions, with men of many colors, of different atmospheres, of different environments, of different training, of different education.

Theodore Roosevelt, the great Republican President, once said, "The President of the United States is the steward of all the Nation." And I want so much to be the President of all the people.

I want a government that will encourage business instead of harass it, but I don't want a business government.

I want a government that will lend a helping, encouraging hand to labor and the workingman, who never has too much, but I don't want a labor government.

I want a government that is fair and just and equitable with the farmer, but I don't want a government that is run by the farm bloc.

I want a government of business, and labor, and farmer, all of them working shoulder to shoulder, doing what is best for their country, because when you do what is best for America, you do what is best for yourselves.

November the 3d you are going to have to do your duty. You are going to have to stand up there as good American men and women should and walk in that polling place and make that decision for your Nation.

The rest of the world is looking at the kind of government that you are going to provide, the kind of leadership that you are going to select.

I didn't come out here to tell you what you ought to do or what you would do. I have too much confidence in your intelligence to have any doubt about what you are going to do.

But I do want you to know since I was a little boy that went to the post office, in the general store, the first time and put on my first pair of Buster Brown shoes that were made here in St. Louis, I have always had great faith in the people of Missouri.

I know they are going to do their duty, and I know when they do their duty on November the 3d that I am going to get a telephone call down at my little ranch on the banks of the Pedernales saying, "Everything went all right in St. Louis and Missouri today."