New York State Democratic Party Address
September 28, 1936
CHAIRMAN FARLEY: I am now happy to present to you the Hon. Robert H. Jackson, of Jamestown, N. Y., Assistant Attorney-General of the United States. {Applause)
MR. JACKSON: Ladies and gentlemen of the Democratic Party: I am proud to share with the great field marshal of the Democratic Party the privilege of reporting to you something of the hopes and the accomplishments of the National Administration in Washington.
It is appropriate that the National Administration should be considered here because New York State has been the very cradle of progressive, liberal and humanitarian democracy. That cradle has been rocked by three great governors, and it has been an inspiration to the party throughout the nation to throw off the forces of reaction and to move toward a progress that would have significance to the average man.
We might return to the Republicans the taunt which they passed to us in 1904. Our candidate for President in that year had been a Judge, and unlike some Judges did not campaign while on the bench. The result was that his views were unknown. The Republican candidate was a Roosevelt – Theodore Roosevelt. And in placing him in nomination, Senator Beveridge taunted us with the unknown views of our candidate by saying, "No mystery was ever elected President of the United States and none ever will be”. (applause) Senator Beveridge is still right.
The Republican Party have so far advanced no program except to criticise. The party had no policy while it was in office. It has no policy now. So you see it has held its own,
It claims now to have learned a new wisdom, a wisdom that it did not have while in office; to have gained a cohesion that it didn't have in office, because no program that it ever presented in national affairs was supported by more than a faction of the last Congresses.
We face a campaign, a campaign that was begun in anger, a campaign that really began when one of the great business men of this country advised business men who were offended at the Administration to gang up to beat Roosevelt. That campaign began in anger led on to hysteria.
When at Cleveland, former President Hoover summoned the Republican party to what he called, “A Holy Crusade for Liberty.”
And the climax of the campaign is delirium, because as it moved from Hoover to Knox, it moved from hysteria to delirium. Mr. Knox' suggestion that the savings banks of this country and the insurance companies of this country were no longer safe can only be attributed to an overwrought mind which recalls the year 1932 and forgets that four years have passed. (Applause)
You are offered a campaign of Americanism, Americanism based on the philosophy of Mr. Hearst, a philosophy which hands you Fascism wrapped in the flag.
My friends, it is said that some laws have been held unconstitutional, which were laws sponsored by the New Deal and for that reason that in the New Deal is an element alien to American life. Let us turn then to Kansas and see what it is that is offered to us by way of substitute. I find that Governor Landon has sustained at the hands of the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas reverse after reverse, that his record parallels very closely the record of the New Deal. Statute after statute that he has proposed has been stricken down. On the 7th of July, 1934, the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas considered a school act which had been passed with the signature of the Governor, and the Supreme Court used this language I quote;
“The plan of classification was burlesqued .." and it said, "Crudely or cunningly conceived special laws, masquerading as general laws, are continually coming before this court. As a piece of legislation, the act is a travesty and the judgment of unconstitutionality is affirmed.”
That, my friends, was the language of the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas.
And then we are told that there is a philosophy now offered to us, a philosophy of pay as you go, and I call your attention to the fact that that philosophy has come into conflict with the courts in the State of Kansas. A law was introduced, passed and signed by the Kansas Governor, authorizing the State of Kansas to borrow some $200,000 from the R. F. C . Corporation. This was early in the Landon administration, and the Supreme Court of Kansas said this: I quote: "These provisions of our Constitution make it clear that from the foundation of the State, the mandate of the Constitution has prescribed a fiscal policy of pay as you go, so far as current expenses of the State government are concerned. The consequence, said the Court, obvious and inescapable, is that since the State debt authorized by Section 6 is already in excess of a million dollars, no further indebtedness can be created.”
Now, my friends, I don' t want to detract from the record or the claims of Governor Landon to be a prudent and thrifty gentleman, but I suggest to you that very early in his administration the courts gave him a great deal of assistance in formulating that policy.
Then, shortly later, a moratorium act was passed by the Kansas Legislature, which authorized the Governor to proclaim an extension of time on mortgage foreclosures. The Governor did so, and this is what the Supreme Court of that State said about his act.
''We conclude that what the Governor was delegated to do and did attempt to do was legislative in character and the power was entirely unauthorized under our separately constituted functions of government, and therefore unconstitutional.
I would not suggest to you that the Governor of Kansas was attempting to become a dictator, but I do say to you that the charge upon which the Republicans base their claims that Mr. Roosevelt exercised unauthorized power, is based upon a decision very much like that of the Supreme Court of Kansas in the case of the Kansas Governor.
Now, the problem of Governor Landon did not begin to compare with the problem that faced President Roosevelt.
I wonder if you realize the magnitude of the Roosevelt problem compared with the Landon problem. Do you know that the budget of the State of Kansas is about $7,500,000, and that the budget of the City of Schenectady, New York, is $7,000,000? We would hardly think of running the lawyer of Schenectady for President of the United States solely upon the ground that he balanced the Schenectady budget. (Applause)
And then, my friends, the total public monies spent in the State of Kansas in 1935 were 76% supplied by the Federal Government, and only 24% supplied by the State of Kansas and its municipalities. (Applause)
It may be true, as our friends have charged, that President Roosevelt has not yet balanced his budget. But he certainly has balanced Governor Landon's. (Applause)
Now the Cleveland program, the platform that the Republicans adopted in Cleveland, proclaims (and I quote its language) “America is in peril” – and it closes by inviting all Americans to a defense of American institutions. I suggest to you that their call to the defense of American institutions is four years too late. American institutions had already been saved, and saved by President Roosevelt. (Applause)
Now let us see what American institutions have been saved by President Roosevelt. This insidious and subtle charge of un-Americanism, my friends, is not an honest charge. It is the veiled effort to bring into this campaign issues which they don’t dare mention above their breath.
I have always believed that one of the institutions that was an American institution was the American home and fireside. (Applause) Now, what has happened to the American home and fireside? I ask you t o go back to 1932, There was not a mortgaged home nor an American fireside that owed a debt that didn't stand in danger of loss by foreclosure, I know of nothing that so opens Americans to the agitations of un-American people as t o have great numbers of our people swept away from their own firesides.
Did the Republican Party do one thing t o stop the subtle assault that was being made upon American homes by the economic forces of deflation and disaster? If they did so, I hope they will call our attention to it, because it was overlooked in my county.
Under the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Administration, the forces of the United States came to the aid and to the rescue of the American home. (Applause) It not only saved mortgaged homes but it arrested the epidemic of foreclosures which had thrown a shadow upon the value of every home, whether it was mortgaged or not.
Let us move on to the American savings account, an institution peculiarly American. Was there one thing done by the last Republican Administration to make your savings account safe? Think back t o the third of March, 1932, for your answer. The savings accounts of the United States today are insured and protected by a law passed by a Democratic Administration, a law which had been opposed by the Governor of Kansas. And I cannot for the life of me learn why. (Applause)
Were the American banks American institutions? Have they not been recapitalized, opened and made sound? Were the American railroads American institutions? Were they not saved from foreclosure? And if you doubt that they are prosperous, try to get a reservation.
Was the American farm an American institution? You know as well as I do that throughout this State and throughout the United States, farm foreclosures have threatened the very stability of counties; that in many places in this country the farmers were so enraged that they were attending foreclosure sales with a rope to be used if occasion warranted.
The Farm Credit Administration and the Agricultural program of this Administration restored the purchasing power of the farmers and did more than any single thing, perhaps, to bring back into this country the prosperity of our cities. Because there can be no reasonable doubt that the great restoration of farm purchasing power in the West did more than any single thing to revive the automobile industry.
I ask you whether American youth is an American institution? Where did the Republic Administration leave American youth four years ago? The night that Mr. Roosevelt was inaugurated, American youth, out of jobs, was wandering our streets in idleness – and idleness leads to mischief. Mischief leads to downfall. The great program of the Civilian Conservation Corps was put through by the Democratic Administration in the first days of that troubled Congress. And of all of the achievements of this Administration, that is one of the foremost and most worthy. (Applause)
And when they tell you that the youth of this land is being burdened by this Administration, just compare the condition of the youth of this land as it was in that fateful night of March, 1933, when power changed hands at Washington, with the condition that it is today.
American industry was rescued from the downward spiral that was closing our factories and throwing our men, idle, upon the streets. Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans were made to bring together again the job and the man. If there is anything un-American about that program, I would like to have them point out specifically what it is.
Then, again, American labor was in the position of disadvantage, where it had been left by administrations of Republican control. Collective bargaining, the right to organize, the right to sit across the table and have something to say about the conditions under which labor should be rendered, was assured to the American laborer. And, if there is anything un-American about that program, why don’t they point out what it is. (Applause)
I can’t go through the long list of achievements. I might mention the Security Exchange Act – the act which does one simple thing: it requires that a man who wants to sell his securities to the American public must tell the truth. And that act, my friends, aroused one of the strongest lobbies in opposition that ever visited Washington. And, if telling the truth is un-American, then we stand indicted. But, I submit that telling the truth is not stranger to the American citizenship – however strange it may be regarded in some high quarters of our opposition.
Now, what of the future? I want to ask you whether you want to do this: Upon the statute books of the nation have been written these many acts – acts which put into practical operation humanitarian purposes and plans. Do you want to turn those children, those children of this age, over to a step-mother who hates them? That is what the Republicans propose to do – to step in and take charge of the various reforms which have been accomplished. You know what would happen.
Let us look, for example, at the plan fop Social Security as a specific instance of the constructive statesmanship of the Republican Party, I want to say to you in all fairness that I believe the present Social Security Act is in many respects inadequate; that as time goes on it will be amended, it will be improved, its administration will be strengthened. I have no quarrel with any man who brings forward a plan by which that Act, experimental of course, is strengthened and benefited.
But we face a situation in this country where technical progress in the means of production have brought us plenty, and comfort, and surplus, as a people. And yet, we have individuals who face want, who dwell in slums, who lack opportunity, because the benefits of our collective prosperity have not adequately reached the individual.
It is the philosophy of President Roosevelt and of Governor Lehman that it is possible in this world of ours to spare the individual something of the arbitrariness and cruelty of this system, and it is their philosophy further that the best friend of our permanent industrial system is the man who would rid it of its ruthlessness and its cruelty. (Applause)
We have heard Governor Landon’s discussion of social security. We have read with great interest and some amazement his promise of more benefits at less cost, but, says the Governor wisely, “I want to wait, I want to wait until I have a plan of financing that there will be no objection to.” Then, says the cautious Governor, "I have thought about this for a year and a half and I haven’t the answer yet."
Now I submit to you in all fairness that if Governor Landon has studied a year and a half to find a way of financing social security and he has no answer yet, he is not the man to look to for an answer. (Applause)
Our handicapped people, our unemployed and our aged are justified in asking the old Scriptural question, "How long, O Lord, how long?"
You know that back of these high-sounding promises and back of this great concern f o r a sound financial plan, there lies only a plan to strike down and to blight the progress that has already been made toward bringing something of security to old age, to the unemployed and to handicapped people. (Applause) You know that the answer to that plan is the reelection of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman. (Applause)
It is in that faith that our party proposes to you to go forward under the leadership that has already demonstrated its fidelity to the interests of the average man. As we face this campaign, bitter and hysterical, I can think of nothing better to suggest as a keynote to a closing than the words of Rudyard Kipling in a very serious hour when everything about seemed difficult and trying and he gave to his people the advice which I now offer to you, my Democratic friends:
“The old commandments stand; In courage keep your hearts, In strength lift up your hands." (Applause)