(These will be among the topics discussed by
the Vice President in s televised speech from Columbia, S.C.)
I know of no prior time when a candidate for
the Presidency pitched his campaign on the proposition that America is
second rate - that we are second best in science - second best in education
- second best in effort - second best in productivity - generally run down,
decrepit, and disrespected.
I know of no prior campaign in which in three
successive attempts to solve grave foreign problems a candidate made a
critical mistake each and everytime - mistakes so serious that in each
instance, had he been President, our Nation could have been bungled into
war.
Nor do I know of any party platform in all
history as radical, as contradictory, as dangerous to our governmental
system as the one adopted in July at Los Angeles, yet my opponent endorses
it 100 percent.
Having campaigned in every one of the Southern
States; I have gained a clear understanding of what the people of the South
are not going to do.
The South will refuse to gamble on untried,
uninformed leadership in foreign affairs.
The South will indignantly reject a candidate
who believes that a U.S. President should apologize or express regrets
to a Communist dictator for taking essential security measures.
The South cannot support a candidate who would
hand over to Communists any of freedom's outposts - who would bumblingly
intervene in the internal affairs of our Latin American neighbors - who
would discontinue the gathering of intelligence information whenever Communists
might agree to hold a meeting.
The South will resentfully reject a candidate
who keeps insisting that America is second rate.
I have seen in the enthusiasm of hundreds
of thousands of people that the people of the South will put principle
before label, conviction before party.
In a choice between the principles of Jefferson
and Jackson and Wilson and the principles of Schlesinger, Galbraith, Bowles,
and Reuther, I have no doubt that the South will stick with its time-honored
beliefs. There is no place for radical federalists in the Southland.
From the Los Angeles platform it is clear
what these men stand for. They stand for rampaging federalism in housing,
education, urban affairs, natural resources, labor affairs, agriculture
They stand for wild spending, higher taxes, higher prices and they stand
for the political abuse of our currency.
They stand for seizure of industry, for raiding
the Treasury. They stand against States rights. The South can never accept
such men or such a platform.
Moreover, the people of the South will not
swallow their convictions, forgive the insults, accept fiscal irresponsibilities,
submit to Federal interference, and take untried leadership merely because
a southerner turned westerner, turned northerner, suddenly ended up embracing
an easterner.
All of us have come far these past 8 years
under the wise leadership of Dwight D. Eisenhower. We have moved from war
to peace, from retreat in the world to forcing the Communists to abstain
from force, from ruinous inflation to a stabilized dollar, from a stagnant
economy to prosperity unmatched in history. We have built more hospitals,
more schools, more highways, more homes, more water-resource projects that
ever before - we have created more jobs that ever before and had less labor
disturbances than ever before - we have been earning more, saving more,
spending more, and investing more than ever before - and we have achieved
all this without the crutch of a war, without inflation, with taxes reduced,
with four balanced budgets and one more on its way.
This is progress unexcelled in all our history.
I say no citizen would wish to scuttle such progress in favor of programs
of the kind that produced the mess in Washington 8 years ago
An example is what my opponent thinks about
the textile industry which, apparently, he considers expendable. On October
12 he said in New York that Federal funds should be used to retrain employees
presently out of work in the textile and garment industries so they could
qualify for other employment.
This program would require, in most instances,
moving the worker and his family to communities distant from his home.
That is not my idea of effective help. I do not accept the proposition
that the textile industry ought to be forced to curtail or to close.
I would use the power the President has under
existing law to minimize the damage to the industry so that textile workers
would not be forced out of their jobs.
Considering the dangerous foolishness in the
Los Angeles platform - considering the dangerous off-the-cuff proposals
of, my opponent in world affairs - considering the contemptuous cynicism
toward the South reflected in putting Senators Kennedy and Johnson on the
same ticket - there can be no question as to the sound course for our country.
Six days from now the South will truly rise
again. The South will help prevent disastrous consequences for America
and will support our ticket. It will do so because Democrats who are truly
loyal to the principles of their party in the South and throughout the
country will recognize that the national leadership of the Democratic Party
has forfeited any right to ask for their votes on the basis of party loyalty.
The principles for which Dwight Eisenhower and I have fought and will continue
to fight are the ideals not only of Republicans but of Democrats as well.