Remarks at Dinner Honoring Michael V. DiSalle.

I CONSIDER it a privilege to be here tonight to do honor to two wonderful men. When Mike came down here, Paul Porter and Chet Bowles and all the men who had been through hell in the Second World War discouraged Mike in every way they possibly could. They told him all the mean things that had happened to them, that he could expect to go back to Ohio scalped, skinned, drawn, and quartered.

But Mike fooled them. I think he has made a wonderful public servant, and that is the reason I am here tonight. And Mike didn't do his successor like Paul Porter and Chet Bowles did him; he made this position of his a bed of roses, and something very easy for an able and distinguished Governor like my friend here, who is going to succeed him. We succeeded in getting him to accept the position.

I know he will do a good job, because he has never had one, in my recollection, that he did not do well. And he will do this one all right. Of course, he is succeeding a wonderful guy, and he will have to do a lot of things to put himself in the same class, but I am sure he will do it.

You see, one of the most wonderful things that Mike did--and something that is very difficult here in Washington--he took the Congress into camp, and I can't do that myself. Mike has been able to get things out of those "birds" that I can't even start to get. And that is an asset to the administration when a man can do that. And I think Ellis Arnall can do the same thing--I am sure he can.

Mike, I hope you will have a wonderful time this fall in Ohio, and I hope you will succeed in helping the Democrats to retire a distinguished Senator in that State.

I have known the Governor for a long time, and he is one of the finest looking men in the United States. And you know, that has great appeal to the feminine part of the population. But Mike, I want to tell you something. If you will just take this beautiful lady of yours along on your campaign, you will get all the men. I know from experience, because I tried it in 1948 and it worked.

This accomplishment that Mike has done here is really something that we ought to be very proud of. The job he has had is not a pleasant one, not a bed of roses--it's like a policeman. The life of a price controller is not a happy one. Somebody, though, has to do it. And when people find out that you are fair, and honest, and earnest, and try to do a job in the interest of all the public, they will support you no matter how much they hate to be themselves controlled.

They all know that we are faced with a real emergency. One of the difficulties in getting people now to realize what a tremendous emergency we are faced with is because they can't realize it, due to the fact that it has not as yet personally touched the vast majority. But we are faced with a situation which, if we do not meet it, can bring us into terrible disaster.

My only objective, and my only hope, as President of the United States, is peace in the world. And in order to attain that peace, we must do the things necessary to attain it. It will cost us some money. It will cost us some sacrifices. And I hope that every one of you will inform yourselves completely with what we are faced. If you will do that, you will find that the objective at which we aim is simply peace in the world.

I don't want to be in a position of having to cause the destruction of whole populations. I don't want to be in the position of having to send our young men into an all-out war to be slaughtered. I want the people of the United States to realize that if they will meet this emergency as they should meet it, we won't have to do that.

I am just as sure as I stand here that we can win this peace, just as we won the war, if the people of this great Republic of ours will get behind the program which we are trying to carry out.

And it is not a partisan political program. I think you will find that the thing is being carried out on a bipartisan basis. I think you will find that there are just as many men in the key positions from the other party trying to do this job, as there are from my own. All these people have been brought here on account of their experience and ability. They haven't been brought here because they are political henchmen of mine. They are here as public servants to do the job, to keep this great Republic alive, and to keep peace in the world.

I hope that all of you will give the same cooperation to the new Price Control Administrator as you have given to the last one. I hope you will all get behind the program--which is headed by Charlie Wilson, the man who went through the Second World War in the same position in which he is now, who knows what he is doing, who knows where he is going, and who is doing one of the finest jobs that has ever been done in the history of this country.

We have avoided most of the mistakes which we made at the beginning of the Second World War. Our production program is much further along over the last year and a half than it was over the 3 years in the emergency during the Second World War.

For that reason I think we can attain our goal, and if we attain that goal you needn't worry about the welfare of the world. We will be facing the greatest age in history.

I have said to the kids that come to see me--the future farmers, the Boy Scouts-that I would give anything in the world if I were a 16-year-old boy now, because then I could live to see the next 50 years. We think we have done great things in the last 50 years, but it will be nothing compared with what will be done in the next 50 years, if we escape this terrible threat of a third world war.

I hope you will help us meet that situation. It is up to you. The whole people have got to be interested in this. They have got to help to meet the situation. If they will do that, we can meet it as we always have done in times past.

Thank you very much.