“GIVE ‘EM HELL” HARRY TRUMAN, IN A WHISTLE-STOP
CAMPAIGN SPEECH, BLASTS A KNOW-NOTHING, DO-NOTHING
CONGRESS. ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY, OCTOBER 7, 1948.
You are here because you are interested in the issues of this campaign. You know, as all the
citizens of this great country know, that the election is not all over nothing but shouting. That is
what they would like to have you believe, but it isn’t so—it isn’t so at all.
The Republicans are trying to hide the truth from you in a great many ways. They don’t want you
to know the truth about the issues in this campaign. The big fundamental issue in this campaign
is the people against the special interests.
The Democratic party stands for the people.
The Republican party stands, and always has stood, for special interests. They have proved that
conclusively in the record that they made in this “do-nothing” Congress.
The Republican party candidates are going around talking to you in high-sounding platitudes,
trying to make you believe that they themselves are the best people to run the government. Well
now, you have had experience with them running the government. In 1920 to 1932, they had
complete control of the government. Look what they did to it!
This country is enjoying the greatest prosperity it has ever known because we have been
following, for sixteen years, the policies inaugurated by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Everybody
benefited from these policies--labor, the farmer, businessmen, and white-collar workers.
We want to keep that prosperity. We cannot keep that if we don’t lick the biggest problem facing
us today, and that is high prices.
I have been trying to get the Republicans to do something about high prices and housing ever
since they came to Washington. They are responsible for that situation, because they killed price
control, and they killed the housing bill. That Republican, 80th “do-nothing” Congress absolutely
refused to give any relief whatever in either one of those categories.
What do you suppose the Republicans think you ought to do about high prices?
Senator Taft, one of the leaders in the Republican Congress, said, “If consumers think the price is
too high today, they will wait until the price is lower. I feel that in time, the law of supply and
demand will bring prices into line.
There is the Republican answer to the high cost of living.
If it costs too much, just wait.
If you think fifteen cents is too much for a loaf of bread, just do without it and wait until you can
afford to pay fifteen cents for it.
If you don’t want to pay sixty cents a-pound for hamburger, just wait. That is what the
Republican Congress thought you ought to do, and that is the same Congress that the
Republican candidate for president said did a good job.
Some people say I ought not to talk so much about the Republican 80th “do-nothing” Congress
in this campaign. I will tell you why I will talk about it. If two-thirds of the people stay at home
again on election day as they did in 1946, and if we get another Republican Congress like the
80th Congress, it will be controlled by the same men who controlled that 80th Congress— the
Tabers and the Tafts, the Martins and the Hallecks--would be the bosses. The same men would
be the bosses, the same as those who passed the Taft-Hartley Act, and passed the rich man’s tax
bill, and took Social Security away from a million workers.
Do you want that kind of administration? I don’t believe you do—I don’t believe you do.
I don’t believe you would be out here, interested in listening to my outline of what the
Republicans are flying to do to you, if you intended to put them back in there.
When a bunch of Republican reactionaries are in control of the Congress, then the people get
reactionary laws. The only way you can get the kind of government you need is by going to the
polls and voting the straight Democratic ticket on November 2. Then you will get a Democratic
Congress, and I will get a Congress that will work with me. Then we will get good housing at
prices we can afford to pay; and repeal of that vicious Taft-Hartley Act; and more Social Security
coverage; and prices that will be fair to everybody; and we can go on and keep sixty-one million
people at work; we can have an income of more than $217 billion, and that income will be
distributed so that the farmer, the workingman, the white collar worker, and the businessman
get their fair share of that income,
That is what I stand for.
That is what the Democratic party stands for
Vote for that, and you will be safe.