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Address at the National Convention Banquet of the Americans for Democratic Action

May 17, 1952

General Biddle and distinguished guests:

Your President has put me in a very embarrassing position. You know, it has been remarked before historically "O that mine enemy would write a book." Sometimes it's bad for your friends to write books.

It is a real pleasure to speak before the national convention of the ADA--Americans for Democratic Action.

The ADA was set up in January 1947. Those were dark days for the liberal forces in America. But you people had the courage to take up the fight and go forward. You dedicated yourselves to fight for progress and against reaction--against reaction of the right and against reaction of the left.

You helped to hang the record of the 80th Congress around the neck of the Republican Party--and I finished the job. You held firm against the fanatical and misguided attacks of the Wallace movement. And since 1948, you have been going down the line for policies and programs in the interest of the people and in fulfillment of the highest values we cherish in this Republic. I congratulate you on all the effective work you have done for the cause of liberal government.

Now then I am going to say something to you that I think maybe will please you a little bit.

Of course, there was a time when it might not have been so pleasant for me to meet with the ADA. I understand that 4 years ago-along about this time--some of the leaders of ADA were engaged in rather wild fancies about the Presidential nomination.

I am told there was a little poem that gained some currency in ADA circles in those days, and it went like this:
"Between the Taft and the Dewey,
When defeat is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the ADA's occupation,
That is known as the Eisenhower."
You know, the peculiar part about it was that you were a young political organization and you had not studied the history of conventions. A President of the United States, when he desires and when he wants to be nominated, there isn't anybody in the world can keep him from being nominated. The same thing is true when he doesn't want to be nominated.

I doubt if you will be having any pauses for that particular purpose this year.

In spite of the various notions about the nomination in 1948, the outcome of the election that year pleased all of us here--particularly me, and it astonished a great many people. It simply astonished a great many people. Mark Twain said, in an inscription I have always had on my desk, "Always do right. It will please some people, and astonish the rest." Well, that's what we did in 1948. We astonished the pollsters and the sabotage press, and the opposition candidates--Republican, crackpot, and Dixiecrat. The results were good for the country, even though they set back the science of political forecasting for a full generation. I hope it set them back forever.
You remember way back--you are too young for that--you know what happened to the Literary Digest in a certain poll. I like to remember Elmo Roper in his September spasm in which he said no more polls were necessary, Dewey would be the next President, there really wasn't any use to hold an election in November. He has been apologizing about that ever since, and trying to get his poll back.

Now the time has rolled around again when you folks have the problem of trying to pick and choose a candidate to support. You are not the only ones who have that problem, and I assure you I am fully aware that it can be a very perplexing problem indeed.

But we are lucky in having a number of good presidential candidates in the field, and some of them are here tonight. I am sure that the ADA will find a candidate who expresses in his philosophy and in his record the things that this organization stands for. Obviously, such a man would have to be a Democrat.

Because this is an election year, I would like to talk to you a little bit about politics. I know you are a nonpartisan or bipartisan organization. I heard it carefully analyzed here just a minute ago--at least, I have heard that you have some Republicans among your membership, and I am sure that at one time it was true. I don't know whether it is now or not.

I want to ask these Republicans who are in the ADA not to include themselves in any remarks I am about to make about the Republican Party. When I talk about the Republican Party here tonight, I mean the dinosaur wing of the Republican Party-which unfortunately seems to be in control of that party. They are living in 1896 and 1920. They are made up of the Republicans of 1896 and 1920, under William McKinley and Warren G. Harding.

The first thing I will say about the Republican Party, believe it or not, is an expression of gratitude. I want to thank them for the way they help the Democrats win elections. Under the liberal policies of the Democratic administration, our country has grown strong and prosperous. And this has been true for such a long time now that people tend to forget what things were like under the Republicans. They criticize the mistakes the Democrats make, but they take for granted all the benefits we have brought them. Every 4 years it begins to look as if the people had forgotten what a Republican administration would mean to the country. And the Republicans go around convincing themselves that they cannot possibly lose the presidential election. I have heard it happen 4 times.

But it is just at this point, when things look darkest for the Democrats, that you can count on the Republicans to do something that will save the day--that is, it will save the day for us. You can always count on the Republicans, in an election year, to remind the people of what the Republican Party really stands for. You can always count on them to make it perfectly clear before the campaign is over that the Republican Party is the party of big business, and that they would like to turn the country back to the big corporations and the big bankers in New York to run it as they see fit. They are just not going to do it.

Just leave them alone, and the Republicans will manage to scare the daylights out of the farmer and the wage earner and the average American citizen. They always do that.

I had the best time I ever had in my life going up and down this country, telling the people the truth, and when they found out what the truth was, you know what they did. And I am here to say to you that when a man in politics, if he is a leader. has the right ideas, the people are willing to listen to what he has to say. It is a matter of salesmanship.

And that's the reason the pollsters are wrong, whenever you have a candidate who will go out and say what is good for the people--they will believe him; but they go down the street and meet the first three or four people, and ask them who you are for and why you are for him. "Oh," they say, "I'm for this fellow. Of course some article in the paper said this or that about him." And they don't know anything about them, really. That is really what makes leadership in politics. You have got to go out and sell yourself, and what you stand for. And we are going to get a candidate like that, and he is going to win.

Now, the Republicans in 1948, in that 80th Congress of theirs, they went after organized labor with their Taft-Hartley law. They went after all wage earners by their attacks on the social security program. They went after the farmer by tampering with price supports and by failing to provide grain storage.

This year they are at it again. The Republicans think they have been so successful with their campaign of smears and character assassination that they have the Democrats on the run. And they just can't restrain themselves enough to hide their true colors until after the election. They are too impatient. First one way and then another they are giving themselves away. Take this steel dispute.

I am not going to talk about constitutional issues here tonight; they are before the Supreme Court. I just want to bring out a few facts about the economics of this dispute in the steel industry.

The steelworkers came in before a Government agency and proved that they were entitled to some wage increases. It was all perfectly fair, clear, and aboveboard. You can look at the figures and you can look at the record and see for yourself.

And then it was the turn of the steel companies. They were asked to agree to fair and reasonable wage increases and to come in and submit their case for price increases, if they needed any. But would they do that? Not at all.

Their profits, whatever yardstick you want to use, have been running close to record levels. I think that is the reason why they don't want to submit their case for consideration on its merits. They refuse to abide by the rules of our stabilization program. They just come out flatly and say that the Government has to give them a big price increase, or else. And I think they want a strike.

Now the Republican leadership didn't have to get mixed up in that fracas at all. The Republican leaders could have taken a calm, judicious attitude and weighed both sides and decided where the merits lie. But that is not the way the Republican leaders act; it never is--thank goodness.

They rushed into the fray at once. They took it up in Congress, and they made speeches up and down the Nation. They demanded four or five new investigations. They threatened to wreck price control, and they're doing their best to do it. And what is the purpose of all this? The purpose is to preserve high profits for the steel companies and prevent wage increases for the steelworkers.

That shows exactly where the Old Guard stands. It shows that their hearts lie with the corporations and not with the working people. It proves that the old Republican leopard hasn't changed a single spot. It ought to serve as a big, glaring danger sign to the voters of this country of what to expect if they turn the administration of the country over to the Republicans who are now in control of that party.

I am glad to say that there were a few Republicans in Congress who did not join in the hue and cry against the steelworkers. Some of them looked at the facts and drew very different conclusions. And one of them did a fine, courageous job of presenting the facts on the Senate floor. That was Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon.

The main body of the Republican leaders are doing just what they do every election year. They are making it good and plain to the American people that so far as domestic policies are concerned, the Republican Party is the party of reaction and the party of special privilege--just as I proved in 1948, and the people believed me; and they will yet.

And they are keeping pace in the field of foreign policy, too. Day after day, they are making it plain that the Republican Party is dominated by isolationists--the ones described by General Biddle--who don't really believe in international cooperation at all.

Today, most of the American people know that the survival of our country depends on our foreign policy. They know that a firm, consistent foreign policy can arise only from a nonpartisan foundation. They know that the leaders of both parties should work together in foreign policy for the good of the country, and that partisan politics should stop at the waters' edge.

The wiser heads of the Republican Party understand these things, too. Some of them have worked for a common agreement between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy, for the good of the country. But just as these wiser heads appear to have succeeded in getting the Republican Party to stand for the good of the country in foreign affairs, a revolt breaks out; and the old, unreconstructed, isolationist wing of the Republican Party sets out in full cry again-and scares the people half to death.

This happened again, just a few weeks ago. Senator Wiley, the ranking Republican Member of the foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, made a speech to the newspaper editors on April 19. I had a press conference for those editors, and had more fun than I have had in a long time. He said there was a great deal in our international relations of which every American could be proud. He said that the Republican Party should not engage in unjustified criticism of our foreign policy, but should play a constructive role. And he asked us all to remember that, and I quote Senator Wiley verbatim, "We are first and last of that breed called Americans."
It was a good speech, and it was an honest one.

Well, what happened? first of all, the Bettie McCormick sabotage press jumped on Senator Wiley. They said he had endangered his country, betrayed the voters of his State, and imperiled his party. Then his Republican colleagues in the Senate went after him. Senator Cain from Washington, Senator Welker and Senator Mundt, and Senator Hickenlooper from Iowa, Senator Schoeppel of Kansas, and Senator Bridges of New Hampshire, and that great one-man grand jury Senator Ferguson of Michigan, all these gentlemen went after Wiley in a pack. They sneered at him, they jeered at him, they distorted his words, they cross-questioned him. They gave him to understand that this was an election year, and that i