Harry S. Truman - Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner (March 29, 1952)

[ellisonz]

Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner (March 29, 1952)
Harry S. Truman

In this address to guests at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Washington, D.C., Truman delivers a partisan speech at the $100-a-plate dinner and analyzes the current political situation as he sees it. The President concludes with the announcement that he will not seek another term of office and will not accept the Democratic nomination in the 1952 Presidential election.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chairman of the Democratic Committee, distinguished guests and fellow Democrats:

I am very happy to be here tonight. This makes seven Jefferson-Jackson dinners that I have spoken to in the city of Washington. I hope to attend several more, in one capacity or another.

They have all been wonderful dinners. One of the things I like about the dinners is the fact that they are political meetings. I like political meetings, and I like politics.

Politics—good politics—is public service. There is no life or occupation in which a man can find a greater opportunity to serve his community or his country.

I have been in politics more than 30 years, and I know that nothing else could have given me greater satisfaction. I have had a career from precinct to President, and I am a little bit proud of that career.

I am sure all of you here tonight are very much interested in the presidential election this year.

In view of that fact, I thought I would give you a little analysis of the political situation as I see it.

The political situation in this country may look complicated, but you can find the key to it in a simple thing: The Republicans have been out of office for 20 long years—and they are desperate to get back in office so they can control the country again.

For 20 years the Republicans have been wandering in a political desert—like camels looking for an oasis. They don't drink the same thing that camels do, though. And if they don't find it pretty soon, the Republican Party may die out, altogether.

And you know, I would just hate to see that happen. I would like to help keep the Republican Party alive, if that is at all possible. So I am going to offer them a little advice about the error of their ways.

There are some very good reasons why the Republicans have been out of office so long and haven't been able to get back in control.

The first reason is that they were voted out in 1932 because they had brought the country to the brink of ruin.

In the 1920's the Republican administrations drew back in petrified isolation from our world responsibilities. They spent all their time trying to help the rich get richer, and paid no attention to the welfare of the workers and the farmers. All in all, they paved the way for the biggest economic smashup this country has ever seen.

That is the reason the Republicans were thrown out of office in 1932 and one of the very good reasons why they have been kept out ever since. People don't want any more "Great Depressions."

The second reason why the Republicans have been out of office for 20 years is that the Democratic Party has been giving the country good government. Instead of trying to build up the prosperity of the favored few, and letting some of it trickle down to the rest, we have been working to raise the incomes of the vast majority of the people. And we have been steadily expanding the base for prosperity and freedom in this country. The people have kept right on reelecting Democrats because we have been serving them well and they know it.

The third reason the Republicans have been kept out of power for an years is because they have never been able to agree on a sensible program to put before the country. They have been on almost every side of every question, but they have seldom or never been on the right side.

In 1936 they said the New Deal was terrible and they were against it and all its works. And in the election that fall they just lost by a landslide.

In 1940 they admitted there might be some good in some parts of the New Deal, but they said you needed a Republican to run it. And they were overwhelmingly beaten again.

In 1944 the Republicans said the New Deal might have been good in its day, but it had gotten old and tired and it was no good any more. But the people didn't agree, and the Republicans were snowed under once more.

Now in 1948 they said—well, as a matter of fact, by 1948 they were so sure of winning that they really didn't bother to take a position on anything. And they got just exactly what they deserved—they got another good licking.

And by now the Republicans can't figure out what to do. Every day you hear a new Republican theory of how to win the election of 1952.

One theory they have is that they ought to come right out and say they are against all advances the country has made since 1932.

This is the kind of dinosaur school of Republican strategy. They want to go back to prehistoric times. Republicans of this school say: "Let's stop beating about the bush—and let's say what we really believe. Let's say we're against social security—and we're against the labor unions and good wages—and we're opposed to price supports for farmers—that we're against the Government doing anything for anybody except big business."

Now, I have a lot of sympathy for these Republicans. They have been hushed up for a long time. They would certainly be happier if they could tell the truth for once and campaign for what they really believe. It would be good for their souls. But it wouldn't be good for their party, or for the country either. This dinosaur school of Republican strategy would only get the dinosaur vote—and there are not many of them left, except over at the Smithsonian.

Next, there is the Republican theory that the Republicans can win if they oppose the foreign policy of the United States. They can't agree among themselves as to how they want to oppose it, but most of them want to oppose it somehow.

Some Republicans seem to think it would be popular to pull out of Korea, and to abandon Europe, and to let the United Nations go to smash. They reason this way: "The American people aren't very bright. Let's tell them they don't have to build up defenses, or serve in the Army, or strengthen our allies overseas. If they fall for that, then we Republicans will be in—and that's all that matters."

The trouble with the Republican theory is that the American people are a lot smarter than the Republicans who thought it up. The American people have learned a lot from two world wars and from the last 7 years of working to keep the peace. They know that as long as communism is loose in the world we must have allies and we must resist aggression. The American people are living in the atomic age, and they know that the ideas of the stone age won't work any more—if they ever did work.

And there is another group of Republicans who attack our foreign policy by advocating the "all-out" or "let's get it over with" theory. These are the Republicans who say they want to expand the fighting in Korea, and start dropping atomic bombs, and invite a new world war. They figure it's good politics to talk that way. They don't stop to count the cost. They think people don't understand that the hardest and bravest thing in the world is to work for peace—and not for war. But if war comes—and God forbid that it comes—if the showdown comes, these loud talkers would be the first people to run for the bomb shelters. And the voters know it.

None of these Republican theories of how to win the election holds much promise of success this year. All they show is that the platform that the Republicans write in Chicago in July will have to be a fearful and wonderful thing to cover all these different theories. It will have to be a bigger tent than the Ringling Brothers circus—and it will have to cover just about as many freaks. It has even become fashionable for the Republican candidates to saw themselves in half and put part on each side of the fence. That would fit under the tent, too.

The real Republican campaign is not going to be fought on the issues. The Republicans are going to wage a campaign of phony propaganda. They are going to try what we might call the "white is black" and the "black is white" strategy. The reasoning behind it is this: The Republicans know that the Nation is strong and prosperous, that we are building up defenses against communism, that the Democratic administration has worked for the good of the people. The only chance for the Republicans, therefore, is to make the people think the facts aren't so. The job for the Republicans is to make people believe that white is black and black is white.

More: http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3353

[ellisonz]

1. Kick for Democrats.

:kick:

[Historic NY]

2. K&R for OFA to see....wonderful campaign ad material.........

[ellisonz]

3. There are a lot of parallels from the immediate post-war period to now.

I think you could compare what they believed the threat of communism to be to the current sort of anarcho-totalitarism we see these days with rogue/failed states.

Media and GOP heads would explode if Obama was as thoroughly blunt as Truman was about the Republican ideology. I think his advisers don't believe Americans have the attention span to appreciate a historically based partisan appeal. He slips them in every once in awhile though and when he does it stings. Like when he said not too long ago that even Reagan didn't think the wealthy should be paying a lower percent than the average American. He really needs other people to step up and stick it too them. Calling Joe Biden, clean up on aisle 4. ;-)