Statement on Topics to be Discussed in TV Speech by the Vice President of the United States, Upon Arrival in Columbia, SC

(These will be among the topics discussed by the Vice President in s televised speech from Columbia, S.C.)

I know of no prior time when a candidate for the Presidency pitched his campaign on the proposition that America is second rate - that we are second best in science - second best in education - second best in effort - second best in productivity - generally run down, decrepit, and disrespected.

I know of no prior campaign in which in three successive attempts to solve grave foreign problems a candidate made a critical mistake each and everytime - mistakes so serious that in each instance, had he been President, our Nation could have been bungled into war.

Nor do I know of any party platform in all history as radical, as contradictory, as dangerous to our governmental system as the one adopted in July at Los Angeles, yet my opponent endorses it 100 percent.

Having campaigned in every one of the Southern States; I have gained a clear understanding of what the people of the South are not going to do.

The South will refuse to gamble on untried, uninformed leadership in foreign affairs.

The South will indignantly reject a candidate who believes that a U.S. President should apologize or express regrets to a Communist dictator for taking essential security measures.

The South cannot support a candidate who would hand over to Communists any of freedom's outposts - who would bumblingly intervene in the internal affairs of our Latin American neighbors - who would discontinue the gathering of intelligence information whenever Communists might agree to hold a meeting.

The South will resentfully reject a candidate who keeps insisting that America is second rate.

I have seen in the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of people that the people of the South will put principle before label, conviction before party.

In a choice between the principles of Jefferson and Jackson and Wilson and the principles of Schlesinger, Galbraith, Bowles, and Reuther, I have no doubt that the South will stick with its time-honored beliefs. There is no place for radical federalists in the Southland.

From the Los Angeles platform it is clear what these men stand for. They stand for rampaging federalism in housing, education, urban affairs, natural resources, labor affairs, agriculture They stand for wild spending, higher taxes, higher prices and they stand for the political abuse of our currency.

They stand for seizure of industry, for raiding the Treasury. They stand against States rights. The South can never accept such men or such a platform.

Moreover, the people of the South will not swallow their convictions, forgive the insults, accept fiscal irresponsibilities, submit to Federal interference, and take untried leadership merely because a southerner turned westerner, turned northerner, suddenly ended up embracing an easterner.

All of us have come far these past 8 years under the wise leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower. We have moved from war to peace, from retreat in the world to forcing the Communists to abstain from force, from ruinous inflation to a stabilized dollar, from a stagnant economy to prosperity unmatched in history. We have built more hospitals, more schools, more highways, more homes, more water-resource projects that ever before - we have created more jobs that ever before and had less labor disturbances than ever before - we have been earning more, saving more, spending more, and investing more than ever before - and we have achieved all this without the crutch of a war, without inflation, with taxes reduced, with four balanced budgets and one more on its way.

This is progress unexcelled in all our history. I say no citizen would wish to scuttle such progress in favor of programs of the kind that produced the mess in Washington 8 years ago

An example is what my opponent thinks about the textile industry which, apparently, he considers expendable. On October 12 he said in New York that Federal funds should be used to retrain employees presently out of work in the textile and garment industries so they could qualify for other employment.

This program would require, in most instances, moving the worker and his family to communities distant from his home. That is not my idea of effective help. I do not accept the proposition that the textile industry ought to be forced to curtail or to close.

I would use the power the President has under existing law to minimize the damage to the industry so that textile workers would not be forced out of their jobs.

Considering the dangerous foolishness in the Los Angeles platform - considering the dangerous off-the-cuff proposals of, my opponent in world affairs - considering the contemptuous cynicism toward the South reflected in putting Senators Kennedy and Johnson on the same ticket - there can be no question as to the sound course for our country.

Six days from now the South will truly rise again. The South will help prevent disastrous consequences for America and will support our ticket. It will do so because Democrats who are truly loyal to the principles of their party in the South and throughout the country will recognize that the national leadership of the Democratic Party has forfeited any right to ask for their votes on the basis of party loyalty. The principles for which Dwight Eisenhower and I have fought and will continue to fight are the ideals not only of Republicans but of Democrats as well.