Evening Star Newspaper, June 24, 1936, Page 8

Senator Alben W. Barkley o, keynote speech at Philadelphia < f Kentucky as he delivered his last night. —Copyright, A. P. Wirephoto. the powers of Government had been exercised to promote the ends of in- justice and bring a palsy to the efforts of the people exerted in their own | behalf. Because the streams intended for the unretarded flow of the people's energies were choked and we found it necessary here and there to cut a new and straighter channel instead of try- ing to clean out an old and crooked | one. I find no relish in picking or point- | | ing at ancient wounds. But in order | to assess the wisdom of the remedies we have administered, let us diagnose | the ailments from which we suffered. They are of such recent existence Failures of Republicans Be- fore Roosevelt Are Cited. Py the Assoclated Press. HILADELPHIA, June 24.—The prepared text of the keynote speech of Senator Barkley of Kentucky before' the ‘D"eme- National Convention follows: "::;m and gentlemen of the con- "a;;ogl\-e assembled, as we have done for more than a century, to justify in government a liberalism designed to promote those primal and 1nalxer_uble rights which outweigh all political formalism and all conceptions of 1 privilege. | IF:;}I: use assembled here not merely | to defend but to proclaim the New Deal, as the surest highway to that “life. libegty and the pursuit of hap- piness” to which Thomas Jefferson devoted his life and Franklin D. Roosevelt is consecrating every fiber of his immortal spirit. We meet in the fullness of national responsibility in all branches of the Government save one, and with a rec- ord of performance never equaled in the history of the Republic: and on that record we stand before the Amer- fcan people without apology and with- out retreat. We meet to rename, and subse- quently to re-elect, to the highest office within our gift a man whose bulld-up ecord. ° :i!:p survey the picture which the world presents and contemplate the four tragic vears just prior to 1933, and the slow but steady progress of our country under this Democratic administration, we are moved by & sense of profound gratitude that the Nation today looks into the future with eyes that see within reach the goal of a happier and more abundant life for all our people. We come to this convention in the pame of a democracy which 1s na-| | that it ought not to be necessary to recount them. But my distinguished friend, the Senator from Oregon, who | was temporary chairman of the Re- | publican Convention, forgot to men- | | tion them at Cleveland. | Those Who Were Rescued the century revealed between 15 and 16 million laborers in idleness. Down went every economic index, while the savings of lifetimes ran slowly out like sand in a weary hour- glass, and every month new thousands left the security of work until 15 mil- lion workers tramped the streets in | hopeless agony of effort. | Down we were hurled for “three long years,” while confidence like a the great system set up by the ad- ministration of Woodrow Wilson. And what I ask and the people have a right to know is whether some of those who journeyed to Washington in the days of their distress with a tin cup, & pair of blue glasses and a dog and obtained from the Treasury, through the Reconstruction Finance Corp, two and a quarter billion dollars of the people’s money in order that they might live, now pro- pose to belittle their past predicament and those who rescued them from it and made it possible for the national banks alone to turn an annual loss of $150,000,000 to a net profit of more than $200,000,000. During the four long years just prior to the Roosevelt administration more than seven thousand banks went out of business, and total deposits in all banks decreased by more than $15,- 000,000,000 Ask the 8,000,000 depositors in these vanished banks whether they de- sire to return to those days of ragged individualism. Ask them whether they favor the repeal or crippling of the guaranty of bank deposits and the election of a man as President who struggled to obstruct both its enact- ment and its administration. The answer will be an overwhelming No! While under Mr. Hoover, more than 7.000 banks closed their doors permas< nently; only 264 State and national banks have closed since March 16, 1933, the end of the bank hoiiday, and only eight of them were national banks. Thus far in the good year 1936 not & single national bank in the United States has closed its doors in the faces of the people. Trade Stimulation By Hull Cited, Need I here recount the efforts of the great Secretary of State, Mr. Cor- prodigal went into a far country, and the courage which had braved these | barren shores in the days of the | Puritan and under the pioneers had extinguished a continental wilderness | began to faint on every hearthstone. “Three long years” of Republican superiority found local charity and re- lief everywhere collapsing, and mil- lions of human beings were begging for bread, raiment and shelter, and uncounted numbers of them found sleep only by the roadside, or upon park benches, from which they crawled with the rising sun like dogs dell Hull, to pry ajar the gates of for- eign trade and start again the move- ment of international commerce and | will? Through the trade agreements au- | thorized by Congress and consum- | mgted under that authority, our com- | merce with other nations has in- | creased from 27 per cent of normal | in March, 1933, to 56 per cent of nor- < in their platform? Was it couched in their insulting speeches? No! When we take stock of the Nation's farming interests, how may I ade- quately portray the new hope, the re- stored confidence, the'economic resur- rection of the American farmer. In 1920, 1924, 1928 and 1932 the hollow and hackneyed promise was made by Republican platforms and candidates to restore agriculture to economic equality with industfy. The promise was never fulfilled or intended for fulffliment. It has been repeated again in their platform in 1936, with no more thought of its accomplish- ment now than in the past. Burden Piled on Farmer In Hoover Regime. During the “the four long years” of Mr. Hoover the burdens were piled still | higher on the farmer's back, while $500,000,000 were taken from the Treaspry and poured out into a fan- tastic exhibition of agricultural pan- tomimicry. It is interesting and revealing to re- vert to the recent past and revive some of the platform and convention utter- ances of the Republican group which now complains against our successful program of farm rehabilitation. In 1916, Warren G. Harding, tem- porary chairman of the Republican convention which nominated Cbarles E. Hughes for President, said: “The Democratic party is always concerned about the American con- sumer. Our Republican achievement is the making of & Nation of prosver- ous producers. Far better at high cos: of living and ability to buy than a lowering cost attended by destruction of purchasing capacity.” (Applause.) In the Republican platform of 1920, we find the following declaration: “The farmer is the backbone of the Nation. National greatness and eco: nomic independence demand & popula- tion distributed between industry and the farm, and sharing on equal terms the prosperity which it holds is wholly dependent on the efforts of both. Neither can prosper at the expense of the other without inviting joint dis- aster.” | Their platform in 1924 contained | this declaration: “In dealing with agriculture the Re- | mal in April, 1936, or from $2,933,000.- | 000 in 1932 to $4.330,000.000 in 1935. But in spite of this, we witnessed in the recent Republican Convention & | publican party recognizes that we are | faced with a fundamental national | problem and that the prosperity and welfare of the Nation as a whole is de- Barkley’s Punch Lines Keynoter’s Words Ring With Sarcasm for Repub- licans and Justification for Course of New Deal. By the Assoclated ess. PHILADEPHIA, June 24—Some of the pungent phrases of the Democratic keynote speech by Senator Barkley of Kentucky were: “‘“Three long years' of normalcy (in the Hoover regime) and they had wiped out half the values accumulated in the Nation since Christopher Co- lumbus, and half of the total in- come of all the people of the United States,” “The president of the United States Chamber of Commerce asked the President (Roosevelt) to assume the powers of a dictator ‘for three long years. “We are told by the Republican bat- talion of death and its {llegitimate brother, the American Liberty League, that we are laying the hampering hand of Government on the innocent heads of business and finance.” “The croaking noises which rise from the swamps of old deal com- ‘plucency will not suffice. The people | call for assurance that the structure |of honesty and freedom which we have erected shall not be destroyed.” “They have wept over the slaughter of a few little pigs as if they had been tender human infants nestling at their mother's breasts. But * * * their real grief comes from the slaughter of the fat hogs of privilege and plunder which they have fed on the peoples’ substance.” “In the hymns emanated from the recent outbursts of hate which | of Republican oratory in national convention, deficits and debts and taxes are treated as a new develop- ment of the Roosevelt administration.” “None but s blind and arrogant | partisan would assert that the credit of the United States has suffered under the impetus given to public confidence by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.” “From the exultant voices of the tree sitters and the devotees of the hitching post, you would imagine that the Supreme Court had never nullified an act of Congress until Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States.” “When nine eminent men on the highest court cannot agree on what the Constitution .means, is it any wonder that 531 members of the United States Congress find difficulty in agreeing about it?” “Back of Hoover's cry for freedom at Cleveland stood * * * the Repub- American Liberty League, which, if it had existed in 1776 as now officered and manned, would have been against the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and the Con- stitution of the United States.” “It is not merely that banking and industry have been saved from bank- | ruptcy. but that faith in banking and industry has been revived.” “We have rekindled the vanishing faith in the survival of the best as | well as the fittest.” this act, which was voluntary and not compulsory, the prices of farm prod- ucts were increased, sometimes dou- bled and trebled, and more than $3,- | 000.000,000 were added to the annual income of agriculture. It was because | of this increase in farm income, and | the opening of the facilities of fiscal credit to the farmer that he has been have perpetrated the wrongs of the past. To call this a platform is flattery indeed. It is a revolving eve that looks in all directions and sees noth- ing. | But the people have been told that the foundations of national credit are sinking because of an unbalanced 4 lican party’s holding company, the | STATISTICS GIVEN FORIMPROVENENT Farm, Agriculture, Business Betterment During Past Three Years Shown. $31,500,000,000, an increase of $10,« $500,000,000. Out of this increase we have dee - voted $8,000,000,000 to relief and pube e works; $3,000,000,000 went to State and national banks, a part of which has been repaid. Out of it have been provided the funds for loans to raile roads, insurance companies, industries, citles, counties and States; the refi- | nancing of more than 2,000,000 homes through the Farm Credit Administra- tion and the Home Owners' Loan {Corp.: the stimulation of housing | under the Housing Administration: the | establishment of more than 3,800 Con- servation Camps and the enrollment of more than 1,500,000 young men, taken from idleness and taught the lessons | of frugality and service in the economy of American manhood; the as of more than 600,000 farm families re-establish their abllity for self-sup- Port; benefit payments to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who co-oper- ated with the Government and whose contracts were fulfilled notwithstand- ing the decision of the Supreme Court, | and all the other emergency activitirs made necessary to escape the blight of the last four years of the Republican | regime. When we deduct from the net in- crease in the public debt the more than $5,000,000.000 which will be re- paid by those who have borrowed from the Government because of the une willingness or inability of other lend- ing agencies, we find that the net ine crease in the public debt is but Ii more than that of the previous adm istration, which left little to show for its extravagance. This great program of rehabilitation has been carried on not by endanger- ing but by enhancing the credit of the Government. e | bitter denunciation of the power given | pendent upon the prosperity and wel- | to and exercised by the President as| fare of our agricultural population. ¥ being wicked and unconstitutional, lnl “We pledge the party to take what- ihe scap box. amthtor found dt mob spite of the fact that from 1798 to| ever steps are necessary to bring back difficult to lash into fury the emo- s = ti v = tions which were aroused in the dis- } 1935 Congress has from time to time a balanced condition between agricul. | | able to save more than three-quarters | of & million homes, begin the pay- ment of his debts, the repair of his houses and the purchase of things produced by others. budget. | . In 1932 the bond Deficits and debts! Who began the Dcs.of the United States sold as low as 83 cent | deficits which have covered every | dollar. Since the advent nr; ('nznb-[:]\: | year since 19207 Did the last Re- Deal these bonds have risen until to- publican administration balance the day none sell for less than par, while from a kennel. Now Complain. tional in its historic background, in P Upon the crowded street corner its approach to and willingness to deal | And some of those who suffered and i vay wi roblems that | have been cured are now the most | :o’n::::r’::ll:fli‘h:ix‘-l:c‘;pe_ arrogant in their antagonism to the We. recognize the complexity of |Process which brought them through modern life. We covet no power that would deprive the States of the right to deal locally with local responsibil- fties. These are adequate to consume the energies of all who are willing to devote themselves to their solution. Vital Questions Cannot Be Stubbornly Avoided. But we recognize the undeniable and self-evident fact that, because of our growth in territory, population, wealth, the means of production, dis- tribution and consumption and the facilities of transportation and com- munication which have knitted the American people into a Nation, certain great vital questions affecting the "daily lives of the people as a whole have been projected into our eco- mnomic and social structure. These vital questions cannot be stubbornly avoided or their solution long delayed by any political party or any administration which has an ade- quate sense of its responsibility to the people. Political organizations are neither ereated nor justified merely as means of obtaining public office. Their justi- fication lies alone in affording a means of expression and desire, as | well as a focus of responsibility, in the administration of public affairs. Thomas Jefferson is often misrep- resented by those who pay to him the dubious homage of the lip as having said “that government is best which | governs least.” From all the volumes which Jeffer- son wrote it is indeed unfair to lift and emphasize a single sentence ut- tered concerning an ideal state of human perfection never yet attained. If that sentence must be taken without context or reservation, it is but a step to the doctrine that “that govern- ment is best which governs not at all.” | In this age of infinite complexity, of mutual dependence of community | on community, state on state and | nation on nation, all responsible gov- ernments must enlarge their field of activity and supervision, to the end that the weak may be protected from the strong and rapacious and the ap- proximation of justice among all class- es may be secured. Any political group, therefore, who, | in the midst of tragic impotence | among the people to adjust unaided their lives and fortunes and carve! their individual paths through the | impenetrable forests of economic density, hides behind the sedentary indolence of some ancient shibboleth, is unfit for high station or responsi- bility in the society of our day. New Generations Ask Why Government Lags. | This is a moving, changing world | in which we live. New generations, viewing the discarded shell of an- cient theories and impatient with the fatal doctrine of defeatism, are | asking why, among all the arts and | sciences and achievements of man, only government is a laggard. And make no mistake about it, they are searching for the answer. It was this impatience with the blighting atmosphere of the political and social antiquarian that made ! Jefferson the foremost, as well as the | most despised liberal of his genera- | tion; that drove Andrew Jackson | along a course for which he was de- nounced as a vulgar ruffian; that in- spired Abraham Lincoln toward a goal for which he was described as the earthly incarnation of coarse buf- foonery, and that Woodrow Wilson was | eynically pictured as a dreamy pro- fessor bent on political and social sxperimentation. Pranklin Roosevelt finds himself in | glorious companionship with these great spirits who spurned the char-! iot of futility and negation. He has not dallied with defeat nor taken counsel with cowardice lest his feet be found on untraveled ground. He has sought to dedicate the powers of this Government to the service of the people who support it with their substance and their blood. He has restored to them faith in it and con- trol over it. Why was it essential that tife pow- ers of government be exerted in & new way on the daily life of the American people? Why is it impossible to tread the same old paths, no matter where they lead? Why had there been a complete breakdown in nearly every branch of public and private en- deavor? Because for 12 years—yea, 12 “long” years—the ancient doctrinaires of spe- | stacks were silhouetted against the the crisis. Some of those who were | rescued from drowinng in the eco- nomic flood-waters let loose by the previous 12 “long” years now com- plain because in lifting them out we were forced to pull their hair. When the present administration assumed office on March 4, 1933, all classes of society bore the marks of such a combination of maladies that |it is only possible to mention them in the vaguest outline. These maladies were not local. They were not set off by metes and bounds. | They were not walled in by territorial | barriers, nor quarantined by yellow flags nailed to a tree. | They were maladies which took root | | deeply in the whole body of our social | and economic fabric and were, there- fore, chronic. ‘They have been fostered by enduring neglect, magnified by political folly, | aggravated by venality and perpet- |uated by the frantic effort to cure | them by their causes. No nation can prosper long or truly | which finds no outlet for the surplus products of its genius and labor. | But in four years—yea, “four long years"—under the guidance of the | man who was applauded but not re- | nominated at Cleveland we saw our trade with the world decline from $10,000.000,000 to $3.000,000,000 per | year, setting the feet of 3,000,000 men |upon the streets and turning their faces toward the lengthening bread- lines. | For 10 “long” years the condition of the American farmer had steadily | declined, in spite of the hectic flush | of prosperity found on other portions of the economic body. Each recurring season saw him com- pelled to accept for the products of his toll less than the cost of their production: saw his debts enlarged and his ability reduced; saw one-half the farms of the Nation under murt-l gage and one-fifth of these on the | verge of foreclosure; saw his foreign markets lost and his home markets reduced; saw mounting and upsalable surpluses in all the basic products of the farm. The farmer was losing not only his home, his toil, the rewards of his life and energy. He was losing faith in the ability or willingness of organized society through its only agency, gov- ernment, to give him the same kind of break it had for generations given to others He was losing faith in political promises which had made him the vietim of cynical indifference and devasting greed. As if to pile Ossa on Pelion, the avenues of public and private credit were closed to him and the cry of the auctioneer was heard at every court house door. In the realm of finance chaos greater than was ever seen in this or any other nation spread its shadow across the country. In the four years from 1928 to 1932 more banks had closed in failure than had ever closed before, and more than in all the rest of the world in the same length of time. Industrial Preduction Declined to 53 Per Cent. The impact of the crash was so terrific and convulsive that through terror men cried out in the anguish of their souls at the loss of their life’s savings and their economic in- dependence. Industrial production had declined to 53 per cent of normal, while indus- trial employment declined to 61 per cent. The purring wheels of produc- tion were silent, and smokeless smoke- heavens like monuments on a deserted battlefield. Led on by the sires of speculative excess and by the false signals flashed from the doors of the Treasury and the Executive Mansion, millions of men and women found themselves stunned by the falling debris of worth- less securities foisted on them by in- vestment pirates. They saw their sub- stance drawn from their hands as if by some unseen, magic force. Archaic and unethical methods of business competition obtained illegiti- mate profit regardless of merit and strangled smaller units of production and distribution. Sweat shops, long hours, low wages, unwholesome working conditions and the physical and mental degradation of children remained the crowning infamy of portions of American in- dustry. cial privilege had stood at the pilot's wheel on our ship of state. Because A Unemployment rolls never dreamed of by the accumulated pessimism A | sanctify | United States. | of | will seuttie i agsin as they scuttled illusioned souls of men, who had lost not only lands and buildings and jobs | and scraps of paper, but their faith | in government. in society and justice | and the spiritual foundations which the use and enjoyment of | every earthly possession. Hamiltonian Exploitation Came to End in 1929, In 1929 the debauch of the Cool- idge-Hoover revelry and the “12 long years” of Hamiltonian exploitation were over. The dance was ended at last. The gaunt pipers of bank- conferred such authority on the Pres dent in the interest of American trade. ‘The Republican platform proposes to repeal all trade agreements and the law under which they were ne- gotiated The hypocrisy and insincerity of those who framed and now accept that pronouncement are revealed in all their nakedness when we recall, as they have conveniently forgotten, that under no less than two past Repub- lican administrations, similar author- ity was conferred upon Republican ture, industry and labor.” | In his address to the Republican | Convention of 1928, as temporary chairman, Simeon D. Fess made the foilowing statement on agriculture: | “The purpose of the administration in further aid is to avoid the Govern- ment taking over from the farmer his own control of the great industry, but to aid him in that control. This aid is justified because of the inherent nature | of an industry of slow turnover, un- | regulated production and uncertain consumption. Could agricultural pro- duction be held within the limits of ruptcy, starvation and unemployment | Presidents, and no less than 10 such | consumption the problem would be had come to claim their fee. | One sudden blast of wrath from outraged truth and decency and honor | and prudence and thrift and common seas, locked our ships in the ports and but not fully controlled. While the lat- without ratification by the Senate. Having driven our trade from the | trade agreements were entered into solved. Or could consumption be in- | definitely increased the problem would be solved. The former can be tempered sense—and the tinsel tower of false | hauled down the American flag as the | ter may be increased, but within | dreams, false pride, false promises symbol of commercial enterprise, the | limitations. and false hope collapsed in irretriev- able ruin and dreary desolation. | “Three long years” of normalcy and they had wiped out half the val- ues accumulated in this Nation since Christopher Columbus and half the total income of all the people of these “Three long years” and We did not dare to breathe a prayer | Or to give our anguish scope, Something was dead in each of us, And what was dead was hope. Then came Franklin Roosevelt and assumed the heaviest burden that ever descended on any man since ‘Washington knelt in the snow and Lincoln watched the Confederate flags across the Potomac. As his first | act, he also knelt before an altar and prayed. As his second, he opened his breast to the raging storm and checked it in a day. Where were his detractors then? They had sought refuge in the storm cellar. They now cry, “The Republic is in peril. The Republic is lost,” and, for all of them, it might have been. The president of the United States Chamber of Commerce asked the President to assume the powers of a dictator “for three long years.” The Capital was flooded with paper | plans of impotent puppets of Toryism begging Government to assume re- sponsibility for all. The President scored these sug- gestions. With every word and act he breathed new confidence in Amer- fcan institutions, confidence in the courage of traditional Americanism, and he twitted the Nation for its fear of fear. There is not an American who does not know what happened then. Faith returned. Confidence revived. Na- tional courage rose like the sun at dawn. Faces that for “three long years” had forgotten how to smile brightened and looked up. American- ism returned to America. Shall I recount the steps by which this task was charted ‘and is moving to fulfillment? . Have the American people forgot- ten the valley into which they were led, and are they unconscious of the resistless tread of their feet out of that valley and up the long, rough slopes to the heights from which they had descended? Public Confidence In Banks Restored. Need I remind you of that stroke of boldness which proclaimed the holiday of banks? Or the passage of the emergency banking act? Or the bank- ing act of 1935, which together re- stored not only banking but public confidence in banks? Which withdrew banks from the feverish speculation of the stock market and made them banks again? Which strengthened their foundations and guaranteed their deposits and enticed from hiding places billions of dollars which had sought security in seclusion? And need I remind you that the Re- publicans who manipulated the Cleve- land convention nominated a man for President who before the American Bankers' Association denounced the Federal deposit insurance act, which guaranteed the deposits of the people throughout the United States, and as Governor of his State exerted every ounce of influence at his command to prevent the banks of Kansas from entering the guaranteed system? What I now ask and the peeople have a right to know is whether the miscellaneous assembly of hetero- geneous elements which met at Cleve- land two weeks ago, and the ticket which it nominated, approve this great Republican leaders now wail and gnash their teeth because we are retsoring of the American Nation. ‘What do they offer as a substitute out of the depths of their own polit- ical and intellectual bankruptcy? Nothing more nor less than another stroke of commercial apoplexy in the clinic of Smoot and Hawley. But we are told by the Republican battalion of death, and its illegiti- mate brother, the American Liberty League, that we are laying the ham- | pering hand of government on the innocent heads of business and finance. | These dismal prophets of panic and | propaganda will continue to annoy the American people with their la- mentations. ‘What business are we outraging? For 12 years—yea, for “12 long years'—the leaders of the Republican party dwelt in a fool's paradise and allowed the American people to pour billions of dollars into the sink-hole of fraudulent investment securities. They saw grow up, if they did not foster, a prodigious system of inflated stocks, and saw them peddled from door to door throughout America, and they saw the market places for them juggled and artificially manipulated beyond the power of the average man to escape or comprehend. Saw Putrid Pestilence Of Financial Debauchery. they sat smugly through the carnival until the mask was torn off and-the public saw the putrid pestilence of financial debauchery which had blown into their nostrils an alien odor, and the result was the passage of the se- curity and exchange acts for the pro- tection of the people. These measures were denounced in bloc. But the issue of new and hon- est securities has increased 50 per cent; the value of old ones by more than 40 per cent. In their platform they stammer a pious sentence in behalf of regula- tion of interstate securities and inter- state activities of public utilities. But We have already done it. They sat in the folds of comfort- able and luxurious upholstery witile a giant system of holding companies was built one upon another in the public utility fleld, wringing exhorbitant profits from investors, operating com- panies and consumers. But did the leaders of old or new guards in Republicanism lash their faces into scarlet or their hearts into indignation over the spoilation of in- nocent people? Among all the tethered and muzzled spokesmen of the doctrine of laissez faire no warning was uttered or relief proposed. From the lips of none who controlled or were chosen by the Cleve- land convention came or has come either movement or utterance indicat- ing either knowledge of the subject or ability or inclination to deal with it. The administration of Fraaklin Roosevelt found the spreading cancer and removed it and will administer to the affected parts the healing processes of honesty from which will come & healthier growth and fuller service What I ask and the people have a right to know is whether the Repub- lican program contemplates the honest enforcement of the new enactments; ‘whether those who shape that program will divorce themselves from whatever allegiance may have held them to these interests, or whether they propose to undo the work we have accomplished. The croaking noises which rise from the swamps of old deal complacency will not suffice. The people call for assurance that the structure of honesty and freedom which we have eracted financial program and its results, or whether, if returned to power, they | A shall not be destroyed. Has that as- surance come out of Cleveland? Is it o8 s With bland and callous unconcern | Where the Government can assist in regulating production and increasing consumption it should co- | the flag. the commerce and prestige operate with the farmer for such pur- ses.” 0. P. Plan in Platform | of 1928 Is Cited. In the Republican platform of 1928 we find this plan: | “The agricultural problem is na- | tional in scope, and as such is recog- | | nized by the Republican party, which | | pledges its strength and energy to the | solution of the same.” “The market promises every assist- | ance in the reorganization of financial | | lines and where diversification is need- | ed, governmental assistance during the | perfod of transition.” | “The Republican party pledges itself | !'to the enactment of legislation creat- | | ing & Federal farm board clothed with | necessary powers (among other things) |to prevent and control surpluses | through orderly distribution. “The Republican party pledges itself to the development and enactment of measures which will place the agricul- | tural interests of America on a basis of economic equality with other indus- tries to secure its prosperity and suc- cess.” In 1932 the Republican platform | contained this declaration: “The fundamental problem of American agriculture is in the control | of production to such volume as will | balance supply with demand. In the | | solution of this problem the co-opera- | tive organization of farmers to plan | production, and the tariff to hold the home market for American farmers, are vital elements. A third element, equally vital, is the control of acreage of land under cultivation, as an aid to | the efforts of the farmer to balance production.” In 1928 the Democratic platform contained the fellowing declaration on agriculture: “The Democratic party recognizes that the problems of production dif- fer as between agriculture and in- dustry. Industrial production is largely under human control, while agricultural production, because of lack of co-ordination among 6,500,000 individual farm units, and because of the influence of weather, pests and other causes, is largely beyond human control. “Producers of crops whose total volume exceeds the needs of the domestic market must continue at a disadvantage until the Government shall intervene as seriously and as effectively in behalf of the farmer as it has intervened in behalf of labor and industry. There is a need of supplemental legislation for the con- trol and orderly handling of agricul- tural surpluses, in order that the price of the surplus may not deter- mine the price of the whole crop.” 1932 Demeocratic Platform Pronouncement. In the Democratic platform of 1932 will be found the folowing pronounce- ment: “We advocate the extension and development of the farm co-operative movement, and effective control of crop surpluses so that our farmers may have the full benefit ‘of the domestic market.” I have recalled these party pledges to remind you that by 1932 both po- litical parties had recognized the ag- ricultural problem, not as local, but as national. Both parties advocated the control of production in order to pre- vent unsalable surpluses. The dif- ference was that the Democratic platform meant what it said and was immediately fulfiled when the oppor- tunity came to us. ‘The agricultural adjustment act was the fulfillment of this pledge to the farmers of the Nation. Under po. G. It was because of this that in every referendum held among farmers on the continuation of the Prssident’s | program it has been approved by & vote of from 2 to 1 to 20 to 1. It was because of this tHat when the Supreme Court intervened to nullify this act, and Republican spokesmen were gleefully exulting over it, the voice of American agri- culture appealed for the enactment of the soil conservation act under which they are working out another program for the enhancement of the rewards of farm life. In the light of past Republican ful- minations in behalf of controlled ag- ricultural production, their present devotion to uncontrolled abundance seems cheap and hollow, ‘The business man and the manufac- turer control their production to meet their market. When they shut down because of a slack in demand, they “plow under” their machines for the time and discharge their wage earners. ‘When business is ready to produce for abundance and not for profit. it will then be logical to ask the farmer to do likewise. But not until then. Mourned Pigs as if They Were Human. They have wept over the slaughter of a few little pigs as if they had been tender human infants nestling at their mothers’ breasts. They have shed these tears over the premature death of pigs as if they had been born. edu- cated and destined for the ministry or for politics. But their bitterest tears are not shed over the fate of little pigs. Their real grief comes from the slaughter of the fat hogs of privilege and plunder which they have fed on the people's substance. They are not weeping because we plowed under a few rows of cotton. Mr. Hoover started that. Their real sorrow springs from the fact that we | have plowed under the sordid concep-* tions of old deal government and its chance ever to be restored to the con- trol of American life. Having declared for 20 years that the agricultural problem was national and four years ago having declared for controlled acreage and production, the Republican leaders and reaction- aries now denounce the Roosevelt administration for the doctrine of scarcity. Having allowed nearly a million family-type farms to become subject to immediate loss, they now avow their love for it; and they declare that benefit payments, such as we have for three years been making, are consist- ent with a balanced budget. In 1932 they were for “controlled” production. We enacted it into law. Now they are for “economical” pro- duction, by which I suppose they mean “cheap” production. These are weasel words of the first magnitude. The Roosevelt administration has inaugurated soil conservation under an intelligent program. The Repub- lican platform tardily follows in the rear. Denouncing experimentation by the Roosevelt administration, the Repub- lican platform for political purposes proposes to extend “experimental” aid to farmers in developing new crops. In one breath they propose to assist in selling agricultural surpluses abroad by. the bargaining process, and in the next they would embargo all agricul- tural imports, which would render idle 50,000,000 acres of land in cultivation for export crops; and in still another breath they propose to repeal the law authorizing trade agreements. Failure “Four Long Years” Hindered Consumption. With that omnipotence which they claim but never exercise, they propose to increase consumption. But it was their dismal failure for “four long years” that rendered consumption by one-third of our population impossible except for the bounty of the Govern- ment, ‘They reject now controlled produc- tion, but offer the marriage of a bounty from the Treasury which would ultimately render impossible the balancing of all budgets and the payment of all debts. The whole scheme is put forth to deceive the American farmer, which is the only consistent policy of the platform writers of the Cleveland convention. After the years of bitter disappoint- ment and disillusionment suffered by the farmers of this Nation a2s a re- sult of Republican incapacity and duplicity, gt is inconceivable that they will againl be taken in by those who ~ { budget? They merely juggled the estimates of revenue and expendi- tures. Spending little to retrieve dis- aster, they increased the public debt by more than $4,000,000.000. | In the hyvmns of hate which ema- | nated from the recent outbursts of | Republican oratory in national con- vention, deficits and debts and taxes are treated as a new development of the Roosevelt administration. The New Deal is portrayed as the father of one, the mother of another and the god-father of the other. But these apostles of concealment | withheld from their fervid Jeremiahs the fact that during the four long years of Mr. Hoover the accumulated deficit in the Treasury amounted to more than $6,000,000,000, although | they increased consumers’ taxes from |35 to 60 per cent. ‘V They did not tell you and will not | tell you that during the creation of these deficits and unbalanced budgets there was no Federal relief program and no public works program. That States and (counties and cities threw this burded on the Federal doorstep not undér Hoover but under Roose- velt. It was a task for which the Federal Government was not prepared. But | there was no alternative but to as- sume it. At first it was thought that funds hould be loaned to the States to be at some time repaid. Some States Undertook To Assist Relief, This course for various reasons, one | being that many of the States could | not -obligate themselves, had to be | abandoned. It was understood and it was theoretically required that the States should make substantial con- | tributions to the relief of their own people. Some of them undertook in good faith to meet the requirement. Others did nothing. Some States were able | to balance their budgets because they | made no contribution out of their Lreasuries to feed or clothe or house the helpless. | | S| politics with human misery shout that these billions of dollars spent for re- lief and work have been poured out in reckless waste. | The Works Progress Administra- | tion has given employment to 3,500,- 000 people, 95 per cent of whom were taken from the relief rolls in the | several States. With the money and labor thus pro- | vided Dbetween 25000 and 30,000 worthy projects of public need and value have been constructed and re- paired. These include school houses, | water and sewer systems, parks and playgrounds, public buildings, flood control systems, airports, farm-to- market highways, streets and other public improvements. In addition, the Public Works Ad- ministration, through grants and loans to local communities, has given em- ployment to more than 3,500,000 work- ers for a full year. Who shall assert that these sums have been wasted? Who shall say that these thousands of useful addi- tions to the property of thousands of communities all over the Nation have not brought permanent values not otherwise obtainable? Who shall claim that these two great works administra- the civic standards of the people? Shall we measure these values against & budget temporarily unbal- anced? But the theme song of our antag- onists is the destruction of the Na- tion's credit and the wrapping of every newborn child in the swaddling clothes of debt. ‘When we entered the World War in 1917 our public debt was $2,000,000,000. ‘When we emerged from it in 1918 the public debt was $26,000,000,000. By 1929 it had been reduced under sinking fund requirements passed by the Wilson administration to $17,- 000,000,000. From March, 1929, to March 4, 1933, that debt was increased to $21,000,- 000,000 without the inauguration of either a relief or public works program of any consequence whatever. Hence, during the four long years of the Hoover administration the pubiic debt had been increased by $4,000,- 000,000. Debt Up $10,500,000,000 Since February 28, 1933. From February 28, 1933, to the pres- ent time the public debt has increased from $21,000,000,000 to spproximstely -~ ! ‘Those who seek to play miserable | tions have not given a new impetus to | some sell for as much as 17 points | above par. During the same period. $175.« 000.000 in annual interest was saved by a reduction in the interest rates. | 'Not only have the prices of bonds increased while interest rates were | being reduced. but each new isgue offered by the Treasury has been largely oversubscribed None but a blind and arrogant partisan would assert that the credit of the United States has suffered un- der the impetus given to public con- | idence by the administration of | Franklin D. Roosevelt No Money to Destroy Life In Present Warfare, During the world's greatest war. we could afford to spend more than | $30,000,000,000 in defense of our | country. | In this war against depression, against the demoralization and disin- tegration of our social and economic | life, we have spent not a dollar to destroy life or property, but every dol= lar by which we bave increased taxes or deficits or the public debt has been | devoted to the saving of life and prop- erty and of that which makes both | life and property worthwhile—the un- | conquerable spirit of a matchless | people. | We have increased taxes. So did the last Republican administration, They increased them on consumers. We have adjusted our new taxes ace cording to the abiljity of the taxpayer | to pay. We have increased values and | profits out of which taxes are paid; but the increase in taxes has not been kept apace with the increase in income and values which the policies of the Roosevelt administration have proe duced. | We shall balance the budget. We shall balance the books in the Treas- ury. We shall soon ordain that no discrepancy between income and outgo shall exist. But we shall not do it at the expense of human life nor to the degradation of the spirit and morale of our people. But we are told by the smug and | cynical apostles of the status quo that | the Supreme Court has nullified some |of the acts of this administration. And while anxious farmers ponder | their fate, and laboring men scan the | heavens for a rainbow of hope, and | women and children look in vain for | the preservation of their lives and health, a voice from the grave at | Palo Alto shouts, “Thank God for | the Supreme Court.” I make no attack on the Supreme | Court. As an institution I respect it, and I would be both unfair and unjust if I were unwilling to acoord to judges on the bench the right to their views | of law and constitutions which I claim for myself. But there is nothing new in cone troversies over the Constitution. They began in the convention which framed it, and 10 amendments wers adopted to it by the first Congress that assem- bled under it. Expects People Will Face Duty With Intelligence. If in the future further amend- ment should become necessary to en- able the people to work out their destiny and protect their fundamental rights, or to overcome some archais interpretation never intended by its framers, I doubt not that the people will face that duty with the same calm intelligence which has guided them in the past. But from the exultant voices of the tree-sitters and the devotees of the hitching post you would imagine that the Supreme Court had never nullified an act of Congress until Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States. You would imagine, if you listened to the groans which arise from the doleful kneelers at the Republican wailing wall, that we had set out like some blind Samson to pull down the temple of constitutional government and destroy everything within i&. Let us take a look at the record. During the existence of this Nation more than 25,000 laws have been en- acted by Congress. About 67 of them have been nullified by the Supreme Court, and most of them within the past 50 years. From 1920 to 1930, 21 acts were de- clared null and void. But did any of these decisions strike terror into the hearts of the Old Guard and the Old {Dealers? Did anybody don sackcloth and ashes and to Heaven to de- (Continued on Page A-0.) v