All over the world tonight Americans are fighting for the might of free men to govern themselves. Here at home, we are waging a political campaign to secure the liberties for which they fight.
Openly and in plain words John Bricker and I, in the name of the Republican Party, are dedicated to these propositions:
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To speed total victory and the prompt return of our fighting men by putting energy and competence in Washington behind the magnificent effort of our military command.
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To provide American leadership in the world for effective organization among all nations to prevent future wars.
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To direct all government policies in the peacetime years ahead to achieving jobs and opportunity for every American.
To these ends, we shall restore honesty and integrity to our national government; we shall put an end to one man rule; we shall unite our people in teamwork and harmony behind a President and a Congress that can and will work together to realize the limitless promise of America.
These are no partisan objectives. They are in truth the objectives of the American people. They can never be attained under the tired and quarrelsome administration that has been in office for 12 long years. They can only be attained under a new, vigorous administration that comes fresh from the people. That’s why all over the country the people are saying it’s time for a change.
America is determined to win a speedy and overwhelming victory in this war. All of us have perfect confidence in our military and naval commanders. But this war cannot be won alone upon the battlefronts. It must also be won at home. And each of us must play his part.
As recently as Sept. 1, Gen. Eisenhower renewed his earlier prophecy that Germany could be beaten in 1944 if everyone at home would do his part. Yet last Thursday, and again one hour ago, Mr. Roosevelt decided to tell us that the war had still a long way to go.
What happened in two months to cancel Gen. Eisenhower’s prediction? Mr. Roosevelt has not told us the whole story but part of it we know.
Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill held a conference in Québec. Our Secretary of State was absent. Our Secretary of War was absent. In their stead Mr. Roosevelt took with him that master of military strategy and foreign affairs, the Secretary of the Treasury, with his private plan for disposing of the German people after the war. The plan was so clumsy that Mr. Roosevelt, himself, finally dropped it – but the damage was done.
The publishing of this plan while everything else was kept secret was just what the Nazi propagandists needed. That was as good at ten fresh German divisions. It put fight back into the German Army; it stiffened the will of the German nation to resist. Almost overnight, the headlong retreat of the Germans stopped. They stood and fought fanatically.
Here is how the military expert of Newsweek described the tragic consequences of this blunder. “This necromancy ruins Gen, Dwight D. E1senhower’s campaign… Now he finds himself faced by resistance he never expected and which, in my opinion, would never have materialized had Allied political warfare been astute instead of idiotic.” So says the military expert.
Here’s the report from the front by the United Press:
The home front talk about stern treatment for a defeated Germany has inspired bitter and fanatical resistance among German troops, in their sector at least, and the G.I.’s are a little bitter about it. Sometimes the Doughboys who are fighting and dying in the mud on this side of the Moselle wish people at home would quit announcing what they think should be done about a defeated Germany. Some soldiers said today that they thought it might be better to win the war first.
What does this mean? It means that the blood of our fighting men is paying for this improvised meddling which is so much a part and parcel of the Roosevelt administration. And at the very moment when his own confused incompetence has thus prolonged the war in Europe, Franklin Roosevelt goes on the radio and claims for himself the credit for everything our engineers, our war workers, our industry, our farmers and our fighting sons have done.
We are advancing and we shall reach our goals. Once rid of capricious, personal government, once we give our whole, our united thoughts to victory, we shall reach Berlin and Tokyo quicker – with less cost.
Let me make one thing clear: Your next administration will never claim personal or political profit from the achievements of the American people or from the sacrifices of their sons and daughters. But it will put a stop to the incompetence in Washington which is costing the lives of American men and delaying the day of final victory.
The people of this country are determined that we shall not again go through the heartaches and sacrifices of the last three years. This war must be the last war. We shall take the lead in the formation of a world organization to prevent future wars. And we know that effort can never be the work of one man or of one nation. It can never be the product of secret agreements worked out in secret conferences between two or three rulers. For the United States, this great effort must have the support and understanding of all our people. And it must, under our Constitution, have the support and approval of the people’s representatives in Congress.
Yet Mr. Roosevelt, year after year, has systematically abused and insulted the members of Congress. Having already alienated his own leaders im Congress, he has now gratuitously insulted the Republican leaders of the Senate and the House. Those leaders join with me in an effort to lift the program for a lasting peace above partisanship.
They publicly pledge themselves to support the program for world peace on which Secretary Hull and I have cooperated. But this harmonious, non-political approach Was not politically profitable to Mr. Roosevelt, so he denounced the Republican members of Congress and accused them of erecting “a party spite fence between us and the peace.”
The time has come to bring an end to this name calling and abuse. American participation in a world organization for peace can only be built by a President and a Congress – Republicans and Democrats alike – working together in harmony and mutual respect. To achieve that harmony, we must have a new Chief Executive who believes that fundamental principle and practices it. That’s another reason why it’s time for a change.
When victory is won, 11 million Americans will return from our fighting forces. They will be looking for jobs and opportunities.
They will want to marry, go to work and get ahead. Twenty million war workers will be looking for jobs in peacetime industries. If we are not to betray those who have fought and worked for victory in this war, we must have here in America, the land of opportunity, a land of full employment and high wages, with a rising standard of living.
My opponent talks once again of jobs in the future, but he offers us nothing except a repetition of the New Deal policies which failed for eight straight years. This administration took office when the worldwide depression was nearly four years old. No previous depression in 100 years of our history had lasted more than five years. Yet Mr. Roosevelt contrived to make that depression last 11 years – twice as long as any depression in a century. He had unlimited power; spent $58 billion; yet in March 1940, there were still 10 million unemployed. Under the New Deal, it took a war to get jobs.
We dare not, we must not risk the future of our country in the hands of those who never succeeded in eight peacetime years in even approaching full employment. We need to sweep away the strangling mass of rules and regulations, of petty bureaucratic interferences. We need to sweep away the old, dank, wretched atmosphere of hostility and abuse. We need once more to Jet the American people – industry, labor and agriculture – know that their government believes with them in the American tradition of opportunity for all.
We need an administration that cares more about official business than it does about big government. We need an administration that will not be afraid of peace – that will want to bring our fighting men home when victory is achieved – and will keep its promises to do so. And that’s another reason why it’s time for a change.
There are other reasons, For 12 years we have watched the shifting, slippery nature of the present national administration. It has stood for no principle except self-perpetuation of its power. The result has been decay of the moral fiber of government. That decay reached its logical result when Franklin Roosevelt was compelled to admit that it was he, himself, who sponsored the $1000 Club. This is the scheme which offered in writing for $100 “special privileges” and a voice “in the formulation of administration policies.”
Never in our history has corruption been so brazen. Never before has a President admitted sponsorship of such a scheme.
All this is the inevitable result of too many years in power – and the desire for perpetual office. It is exactly what every American beginning with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warned against. It is inevitable that it should have produced political leadership which today publicly defines politics as the science of “how who gets what, when and why.” I say the young men of America are not fighting and dying for these corrupt and decadent practices. In the name of those men, the American people will rise up and repudiate that whole philosophy of government. The time has come to put an end to government by “who gets what, when and why.”
That’s why it’s time for a change.
They, the great Democratic Party, weakened by 12 years of one-man rule, is being leased out to men who Vote that they owe no allegiance to that party for its principles. It has been put on the auction block for sale to the highest bidder, and the highest bidders are Sidney Hillman’s Political Action Committee and Earl Browder’s Communists. There is only one way for the real members of the Democratic Party to win in this election. That is to join with Republicans in defeating the New Dealers, the Political Action Committee and the Communists. That’s why those who believe in our system of government, Republicans and Democrats alike, agree that it’s time for a change.
In this campaign I have set forth a constructive program for the years ahead, built soundly brick by brick. It shows how we can achieve our objectives – each of them, including full employment, high stable income for labor, agriculture and business, broader old age benefits, tax reduction with an increased national income and freedom of both labor and business from crippling government regimentation.
My opponent has offered no program because the New Deal has nothing to offer save more of the same quarreling and vacillation which has marked its career for 12 long years. We can no longer afford the luxury of a government which spends half its time quarreling among itself and the other half quarreling with one segment or another of our people. In the years immediately ahead, we need new hands to steer the ship of state steadily through the balance of the war into quiet peacetime waters where we can again make progress. We need to learn how to work together again in unity. We need above all to renew our faith; faith in the goodwill of our fellow men regardless of race, color or creed; faith in the limitless future of our country.
Our nation was founded and built by men of great faith and goodwill, who came here to do great things. They created our institutions in the image of their beliefs. First of all, they believed in Almighty God. That was the rock on which they built. They believed in the moral law; they believed in the dignity of man. In the Bill of Rights, they consecrated and established that dignity of man without distinction of race, creed or color. They believed that man should be free – free to worship after the dictates of his own conscience, free to live in his home, to raise a family – free to speak his own mind without fear or favor, free to get ahead in the world. They believed that government would be the servant, not the master of the people. Because they believed these things and built upon them this nation has been richly blest of God.
Our people have known hardship but they have never despaired. They have faced great odds, but they have never known defeat. To them the difficult is never too difficult. With them the impossible can be brought to pass.
Let us in this election send a ringing affirmation to all the world that the love of freedom is still strong in the hearts of the American people. Let us register our faith that in America there is no indispensable man. Let us prove that free government still lives. Let us send the thrilling message round the world that America has changed administrations in der to speed victory and ensure lasting peace – that freedom is the most vital thing in the world – hat we intend to have it – to hold it forever.
