The Pittsburgh Press (October 11, 1940)
Favoritism Charged —
WILLKIE PLEADS FOR LABOR VOTE
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Pledges Opportunity, Jobs In New England Tour
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By William H. Lawrence, United Press Staff Writer
En Route With Willkie in Massachusetts, Oct. 11 –
Republican presidential nominee Wendell L. Willkie told audiences in Massachusetts factory towns today that the New Deal had favored some sections of the country at the expense of others, causing “idle New England factories.”
Coming into Massachusetts from Rhode Island where, at Providence last night, he charged that the re-election of President Roosevelt might mean concentration camps for the unemployed, the candidate began his day’s campaign at New Bedford at 8:45 a.m.
Speeches were scheduled at Fall River, Taunton, Brockton and Lynn. He is to lead a parade through downtown Boston at 4:15 p.m. and to deliver a major speech in Boston tonight.
Mr. Willkie’s Boston speech will be heard in Pittsburgh over Station KDKA at 8 p.m.
Excerpts from his Fall River speech were released in advance of delivery and it was understood they provided the theme of the speeches he will make in the other factory towns where there are many unemployed.
‘You Want Production’
At Fall River, he said:
You people here in New England live in a great industrial region. You are interested in seeing industrial expansion. You want to see more production because you know that is the only way we can have more jobs.
Last night, speaking in Providence, I showed that the New Deal does not believe in production. The third term candidate told us eight years ago, when he was running for his first term, that America’s industrial plants were all built.
You people know what has been the effect of this New Deal philosophy. You have seen it reflected in your idle factories.
No, the New Deal does not believe in industrial expansion. But there is something it does believe in that helps explain why your New England factories have been idle.
Spending Record Cited
The New Deal believes in spending. In that it has broken all records. By the time the New Deal goes out of office next January it will have spent $71 billion, which is two-fifths of all the money spent by the United States government since 1789.
Let’s look for a minute at how some of this money has been spent in various parts of our country. Up here in Massachusetts last year the New Deal expenditures amounted to $33 per person. That is what they spent.
But in that same year the internal revenue collections of the federal government in Massachusetts amounted to $37 for every man, woman and child. They collected in internal revenue taxes from you people of Massachusetts $4 apiece more than they spent.
State Figures Given
Now, contrast this with what happened in some other states in the same year. In Alabama the New Deal spent $34 per capita and it collected in internal revenue taxes, $5 per capita. In Arkansas, the New Deal spent last year $40 per capita and the internal revenue collections were less than one-tenth of that.
In Mississippi per capita expenditures of the New Deal were $41, and internal revenue tax collections were only $3. That other $38 that was spent in Mississippi over and above taxes collected in Mississippi came out of your pockets here in Massachusetts.
And that is one reason why your factories up here in New England are idle while new factories that compete with you are being built in Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.