Address at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner.

[Delivered at the Statler Hotel in Washington at 10:40 p.m.]

Fellow Democrats, Mr. Chairman of the meeting tonight, Mr. Chairman of the National Democratic Committee:

I certainly appreciate that wonderful introduction. I enjoyed immensely the statements of the Vice President. I think he rather hit the nail on the head when he talked about the splits.

This is a happy occasion for the Democratic Party. I know that all the gatherings of our party, throughout the country, are as cheerful as this one, and I give all of them greetings.

I am happy to be up here talking to you once more from the same old stand.

This is right where I expected to be.

I don't know whether you remember it or not, but I told you on the 19th of February last year that you were looking at the next President. And you are!¹

¹For the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner address see 1948 volume, this series, Item 32. See also the President's remarks at the Young Democrats dinner on page 259 of the same volume.

What I feel tonight is not personal pride or elation; it is a deep satisfaction that our party has served its country so well that the people have endorsed it for the fifth consecutive time.

I am aware that this was something of a surprise in certain quarters. I am told that some people were even making elaborate plans with considerable relish, to bury the Democratic Party and all it stands for.

These persons were like certain friends of Andrew Jackson, whose memory we are honoring tonight.

Once upon a time, there were a number of citizens who thought that Andrew Jackson ought to have a suitable coffin. At great expense, they went to Syria and purchased a marble sarcophagus. A sarcophagus, as you know, is a tomb--a big marble coffin with a marble lid. These citizens then shipped this marble box to Washington, which was quite a job as it weighed four or five tons.

At last, they thought, a suitable resting place had been provided for Andrew Jackson.

Well, the only trouble with the project was that Andrew Jackson wasn't dead. Moreover, he wasn't ready to die. And he did not intend to be hurried to his grave.

Courteously but firmly he wrote to these well-meaning citizens, and said, "I must decline the intended honor."

And they never did get Old Hickory into that thing. You can still see it, if you're interested, out in front of the Smithsonian Institution. It still sits there. Andy wouldn't even be buried in it.

I think that this little story has a moral in it. It is this: Before you offer to bury a good Democrat, you better be sure he is dead.

There is another lesson we can derive from the more recent past: You cannot bury the Democratic Party as long as it is working for the welfare and the advancement of the people of this Nation.

The central issue of the campaign last fall was the welfare of all the people against special privilege for the few.

When we made it clear where the Democratic Party stood on that issue, the people made it clear where they stood with us.

The Democratic Party has had a long and glorious history. Through its founders and leaders, whom we honor tonight, its roots go back to the American Revolution. But however ancient and glorious it may be, our party is not and never has been an end in itself. The only justification for the Democratic Party is its usefulness to the American people in achieving the government they desire.

I am proud and happy to say that never before has the Democratic Party been more firmly dedicated to a program in the interest of all the people. The platform adopted by the Democratic Convention of 1948 is clear and forthright.

Our job now is to enact into law the programs that the people need and deserve.

And that is exactly what we are doing.

We are meeting determined opposition. The special interests are fighting us just as if they had never heard of November the 2d. For them, campaigns and elections are just preliminary exhibition matches--the fight in the Congress is the main issue with them.

The special interests are on the job year in and year out--7 days a week, 24 hours a day. They work through their lobbies and pressure groups, through the editorial pages and the columnists and commentators they control. They twist and misrepresent the measures the people voted for. They are again trying to frighten the people with the old, worn-out bugaboo that socialism is taking over Washington. They have been saying that for 16 years, ever since I have been here. Not a word of truth in it, of course.

This one-sided barrage of propaganda seems overwhelming at first. There are no full page ads on our side. In fact, all we have on our side is the people. Thank God for that!

But that is enough--because the people are aroused.

I did a lot of traveling around the country last fall, and I found that the people were vitally interested in what their Government was doing. Make no mistake about it, there has never been a time when the people were so well informed about the Congress, and the President, and the records of their Representatives and Senators as they are now.

This concern on the part of the people is a fine thing for the growth of democracy and responsible government. I propose to do all I can to help it along. In fact, I may even get on the train again and make another tour around the country. If I get on that train, I am going to tell the people how their Government is getting along. And I know how to tell them.

If we keep the people fully informed, I am confident that they will support the Congress and the President in our fight against the special interests.

It is important that the American people should be aware of the tactics that the special interests are using to obstruct our programs.

Right now the special interests are using every trick they can think of to defeat our labor policy.

After the election, hardly anybody had a good word to say about the Taft-Hartley Act.

But now, when I ask the Congress to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, exactly as I said I would in the campaign, there are great outcries from the special interests. "He can't mean it," they say, "Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act? Repeal that beneficent, charitable, kindly statute--that charter of labor and the workingman's friend! Why, it's unthinkable!"

And they keep this up night and day in an effort to convince the people that the Taft-Hartley Act is a good law. But it's no use. It isn't any use.

All the oratory in the world won't change a bad law into a good law.

When the Taft-Hartley Act was before the Congress, a Republican Senator called it "a device for making unions so weak they cannot carry on effective collective bargaining." And that Senator is running around trying to keep it from being repealed right now.

That was true then, and it is true now.

The Taft-Hartley Act is an insult to the workingmen and women of this country and they won't rest until it is repealed and destroyed.

After the election, I thought we would have the cooperation of our Republican friends in this effort. I felt sure that the Republican Party would be anxious to throw the Taft-Hartley Act overboard faster than the sailors got rid of Jonah. I am beginning to think maybe I was wrong about that.

But no matter what the Republicans do, the course that our party should follow is abundantly clear.

The Democratic Party, in its platform, is solemnly committed to work for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act.

We are working for its repeal; and with the support of fair-minded Americans, regardless of party, we will continue to work for its repeal until it is replaced upon the statute books with a labor law that is fair and decent.

The same diehard reactionaries who want to cripple the labor unions have also started a campaign of confusion against all other measures for the welfare of the people.

They say they are for extending and improving social security--but they call our proposals a bureaucratic system that will destroy the character of every American.

They claim to be in favor of housing--but they say our low-rent housing program is a mistake because it does too much for low-income families. Can you beat that?

They make speeches about the American home--but they encourage landlords to lock out their tenants until rent control is repealed.

They say they are in favor of good wages-but they argue that the minimum wage should be held down to a starvation level. They are making exactly the same speeches now against the 75-cent minimum wage that they made back in the thirties against a 40-cent minimum wage.

They claim to be in favor of developing our great river basins--but they raise the old cry of "superstate" against every practical step we propose.

We will not be deceived by their propaganda. Despite their efforts to confuse, we will enact the programs to which we are committed.

We can and we will provide a better life for all our people.

At the heart of our program lies our determination to preserve the health of our economy. We know that the welfare of the whole Nation depends upon keeping our economy well balanced--seeing to it that each group gets its fair share of the goods we produce.

The special interests have attacked every governmental measure we have devised to keep our economy on an even keel.

As an example, last year some selfish groups tried to destroy our farm price support program.

It is a good thing for the country that they failed in that.

These farm price supports are actually supports of our entire economy. In the twenties, the collapse of the farm prices brought on a depression in agriculture which ultimately spread to the whole economy and dragged the country down to breadlines and bank failures.

But this time the farmer and the economy are protected from such a collapse by the farm price support program. I ask you to remember these facts when the special interests begin to raise their usual hue and cry about the cost of price supports.

In further support of nationwide prosperity, we have submitted to the Congress proposals for maintaining full production and full employment.

The proposals I made are designed to aid business in increasing production and eliminating bottlenecks; they are designed to keep price movements balanced, and to prevent shortages from driving certain industrial prices higher while farm prices are leveling off.

These proposals are being attacked by those special interests who are making excessive profits out of present shortages. And the usual outcries about regimentation are now filling the air.

It is easy to be misled by a small group of special interests engaged in a campaign of misrepresentation. We must not let the selfish demands of special groups blind us to the common good.

The success of every business enterprise depends upon the prosperity of the whole country. Your Government is pledged to use all its resources to maintain the economic health of the country and to prevent depression. To do this means that the Government must act--act wisely and judiciously-but it must act.

A government able and willing to act in the interest of the whole economy is a better friend of free competitive enterprise than a "do-nothing" government ready to let the economy slide down into a depression.

The great problem of the free western democracies is the problem of boom and bust. The future of the world depends upon our ability to master that problem. During the last 16 years, this country has made great progress toward solving that problem. This progress has been made over the protests of selfish and shortsighted people. We have not let them stop us in the past.

And we will not let them stop us now.

In his first inaugural address, 148 years ago, Thomas Jefferson said that this country was in "the full tide of a successful experiment." He called our Government "the world's best hope." Today we are again in the full tide of a successful experiment-the experiment of achieving economic abundance and basic human rights in a society of free institutions and free men. Today this experiment is again the world's best hope. Today it is the hope of a world confronted by greater dangers and greater possibilities for good than were dreamed of a century and a half ago.

Great as our responsibilities are, we have nothing to fear if we rely upon the energy, the resourcefulness and the commonsense of the American people. So long as the people understand the issues of the day, the special interests cannot prevail against the general welfare.

With the understanding and energy of this mighty people, our Nation can move confidently toward the goals of prosperity and peace.