Handwritten Draft Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Delivered at Jeffersonville, Indiana
11/4/1938
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In this speech, Harry Truman praises FDR and the Roosevelt administration's New Deal programs to help the nation recover from the Great Depression. Truman also criticizes Wall Street banking interests, President Herbert Hoover's handling of the economic crisis, and Hoover's use of the military against the Bonus Army – a group of World War I veterans who camped out in Washington, DC, in an effort to receive their promised bonus money early.
Truman delivered the speech as Senator from Missouri during the 1938 midterm elections. He proclaimed: "I'm a New Dealer and proud of it."
Truman delivered the speech as Senator from Missouri during the 1938 midterm elections. He proclaimed: "I'm a New Dealer and proud of it."
Transcript
I am most happy to be here in Jeffersonville tonight as your guest speaker. This city is named for the father of the Democratic Party and was laid out on a plan drawn by Jefferson himself. Why wouldn't any Democrat be glad to appear here? I've always had a warm spot in my heart for Indiana. Your traditions, your history, your literature, your politics would endear you to those of us who love the States of America between the Aleghenies and the Rockies. Indiana and Missouri were settled almost at the same time and by exactly the same sort of people. Indiana and Missouri had much to do with the history of our great nationfrom 1816 to 1860. I've always thought of Indiana as the home of the Vice President and James Whitcomb Riley.
I am fortunate also to be able to call your very able senators my friends. Indiana is very capably represented in the Senate by Fred Van Nuys and Sherman Minton. I am glad you are sending Van Nuys back and I know you'll reelect Minton when the time comes to do it.
I am here to say a few words to you about the issues in this campaign. The Republicans have to spend all their time criticizing the accomplishments of the Democrats because they have nothing to offer. Mr. Hoover came to my home town not long ago and spent the whole evening finding fault
with every thing that had been done by the Democratic Administration. He even went so far as to say the Democrats have been politically immoral. Now can you imagine a statement like that comming from the former Secretary of Commerce in the Cabinet of Warren G. Harding -- the cabinet associate of Albert B. Fall and Harry Daughtery of the malodorous Ohio Gang? The man who as President of the United States ordered the Regular Army out to shoot down poor broken veterans of the World War. He must think we've forgotten his administration and his history. His, if you remember was the administration in which seven
thousand banks closed, soup lines formed, fifteen million men were idle and thumbing their way from one end of the country to the other. Mr. Hoover must think we have short memories.
The banks have been made safe for the small depositor by legislation creating the Federal Depositor Insurance Corporation. Every depositor under $5,000.00 in every bank which is a member of the Federal Reserve System is insured and guaranteed by the Federal Government, and 98% of all the depositors in all the banks in the country are under $5,000.00 in amount. Would the Republicans repeal that law? In four years from Jan 1934 to June 1938 only 216 banks have had to be
liquidated and that without loss to the depositors in the insured banks. Compare that with seven thousand failures under Hoover and no insurance.
The Republicans have raised a great cry about relief and unemployment. They've originated many ribauld jokes about W.P.A. and those unfortunate who have had to look to government for employment. Mr. Hoover evidently could not see that the country was in an emergency in 1932 that required action on the part of the Executive. But as is always the case in this country when it is necessary for us to have one a leader come forward who has a head and a heart and who took us through
the crisis. That man is the greatest President this country has had since the Civil War, Franklin D. Roosevelt. He met the financial situation, suggested the necessary emergency measures and brought us through. He took the control of the finances of the country from Wall Street to Washington and that is what the big rich are howling about. The Securities and Exchange Act has prevented the Wolsey of Wall Street from using your savings with which to gamble. Would the Republicans repeal this Acts if they were by some mischance to obtain control of the Government?
I wonder how they would handle the relief problem. They say they would
return it to the States and the local communities, but the States and local communities failed to meet that problem in 1932. It seems to me that a Federal policy which tries to save the self respect of the people who have had to bear the lack of food and clothing as a result of twelve years of Republican misrule is much better than the Republican policy of do nothing and hope for prosperity to come around the corner.
What would the Republicans do with the Civilian Conservation Corps? That wonderful organization that has gone to the root of the poor young man problem. Some 2000000 young men of
poor families have gone to the Camps. More than 500000 of them have received High School courses, 65000 have been taught to read and write and more that 400000 have been sent to permanent positions before their time of service was completed. The work that the Corps has done has been construction and a [illegible] national asset from a practical stand to say nothing of the character building of the boys themselves. Would the Republicans abolish the Civilian Conservation Corps?
Here of late the Republican Press and the howlers generally are trying to make an issue of the farm problem. I wonder who created the farm problem?
Republicans are trying to stir up dissatisfaction among the farmers. About the most asinine thing the farmers could do would be to listen to them. The first administration in my recollection that has actually by concrete act been at all interested in the farmer is in control of the Government in Washington now.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act passed May 13, 1933 had as one of its main objectives the restoration of the farmers purchasing power. The purpose of the Act was to achieve a balanced abundance of farm products - one that would do away with price killing surpluses and yet would abundantly feed the nation. The Crop Adjustment
Passage of the Hawley-Smoot tariff act finally closed every foreign market to our surplus farm products and in 1932 the farmers were on the road to bankruptcy and the poor house. Out in Iowa & Wisconsin they were rebellion against the courts acting in foreclosures.
When Hoover was nominated for the Presidency in 1928 at Kansas City a delegation of farmers from Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri came to the Republican Convention and asked for a hearing. They were chased away by the Republican Police Dept of Kansas City at the request of the Chairman of the Convention and their grievances [illegible] not even listened to and now those same
Program of the A.A.A. which was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court Jan 6 1936 acted to bring supplies into better relationships with shrunken markets. After the old and conservative Supreme had said the general welfare didn't cover the farmer Congress amended the Act twice, once in Feb 1936 and again in Feb 1938. But the damage had been done. The last amendment to the farm act has not had an opportunity to be tried out practically because it was not passed until Feb of this year. If it doesn't work whom is most
likely to try to make it work the farmers friends or his enemies? This present Democratic Administration is the first one since the Civil War that has shown any practical interest in the farmers, and I know that the farmer is fair minded enough to give our efforts a trial before beheading us. In fact he knows with which Political Party his best interests be.
One of the greatest forward steps ever untaken in this great nation was the passage of the Social Security Act. Old age assistance as a matter of right and not as a charitable act and a disgrace is its policy / Job insurance for the poor man help for the blind
advancement they are in my my opinion the lowest sort of characters The Republican Candidates in Maine, New Hampshire and Mass have endorsed the so called Townsend Plan to get votes. They know it won't work they are merely act demagogues to get votes.
I'm here to tell you my friends you'd better be happy to let farm welfare and social security stay in the hands of the friends of such legislation and not turn it over to crack pots and its [illegible].
The Democrats should be reelected by the laboring man there never has been a time when labor has had a more favorable and sympathetic being than by the present administration.
and for dependent children are the principle new things set up in the act. But the inauguration of this great liberal policy is in an experimental stag from a nation wide stand point. We are trying to start all at once something that will take time and administrative experience to properly work out. Some of the Scandinavian Countries have had such a policy as is outlined in our Social Security Act for more than a generation and they didn't get it in one year nor in ten. It is something that has to be worked out by experience.
When political opportunists us the exploitation of indigent old people for their own enrichment and
We are in my opinion going through a historical situation that will be marked in the future as the end of one era and the beginning of another. We've come from the ox cart to the aeroplane in less than three generations. Our life today differs from our grandfathers more than theirs differed from the life of 2000 years before. This means that the machine age has come upon too quickly and we haven't yet become adjusted and it may take some generations yet to become adjusted.
We have machines that do the work of hundreds of men. I've been told that one girl in a modern shoe factory does the work of ten shoe makers / and does it better. That is true of all industry. Now where has the profit and of those machines gone. What has become of the shoemaker, the baker
and the candle stick maker?
The profits of the machine have gone into the pockets of the 10% who control the wealth of this great nation and the butcher the baker and the candle stick maker is on W.P.A. Now some means must be found to properly adjust the machine age to the welfare of the nation as a whole and not let just a favored few reap all the benefits. Thats the why of the wages and hours bill. Every man who wants to work should be given an opportunity to earn his way in a land of plenty and that is what the New Deal means. That is why I'm a New Dealer and proud of it.
If you people want to do your real patriotic duty on election
day you'll go to the polls and when you get ballots you'll properly mark the Democratic ticket place it in the ballot box and go home satisfied that you've done the greatest service you can possibly do to your country, your state and your nation.
This primary source comes from the Collection HST-SVP: Harry S. Truman Papers as U.S. Senator and Vice President.
National Archives Identifier: 125957647
Full Citation: Handwritten Draft Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Delivered at Jeffersonville, Indiana; 11/4/1938; Draft File November 4, 1938 - Campaign speech, Jeffersonville, Indiana; Speech Files, 1935 - 1945; Collection HST-SVP: Harry S. Truman Papers as U.S. Senator and Vice President; Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO. [Online Version, https://docsteach.org/documents/document/speech-truman-jeffersonville, April 29, 2025]Rights: Public Domain, Free of Known Copyright Restrictions. Learn more on our privacy and legal page.
