We hold this truth to be self-evident, that the test of a representative
government is its ability to promote the safety and happiness of the
people.

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that 12 years of Republican
leadership left our Nation sorely stricken in body mind and spirit and that
three years of Democratic leadership have put it back on the road to
restored health and prosperity.

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that 12 years of Republican
surrender to the dictatorship of a privileged few have been supplanted by
a Democratic leadership which has returned the people themselves to the
places of authority, and has revived in them new faith and restored the
hope which they had almost lost.

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that this three-year recovery in all
the basic values of life and the reestablishment of the American way of
living has been brought about by humanizing the policies of the Federal
Government as they affect the personal financial industrial and
agricultural well-being of the American people.

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that government in a modern
civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among
which are:

(1) Protection of the family and the home.

(2) Establishment of a democracy of opportunity for all the people.

(3) Aid to those overtaken by disaster.

These obligations, neglected through 12 years of the old leadership, have
once more been recognized by American Government. Under the new
leadership they will never be neglected.

FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE FAMILY AND THE HOME

(1) We have begun and shall continue the successful drive to rid our land
of kidnappers and bandits. We shall continue to use the powers of
government to end the activities of the malefactors of great wealth who
defraud and exploit the people.

Savings and Investment

(2) We have safeguarded the thrift of our citizens by restraining those
who would gamble with other peoples savings, by requiring truth in the
sale of securities, by putting the brakes upon the use of credit for
speculation by outlawing the manipulation of prices in stock and
commodity markets, by curbing the overweening power and unholy
practices of utility holding companies, by insuring fifty million bank
accounts.

Old Age and Social Security

(3) We have built foundations for the security of those who are faced with
the hazards of unemployment and old age for the orphaned the crippled and
the blind. On the foundation of the Social Security Act we are determined
to erect a structure of economic security for all our people, making sure
that this benefit shall keep step with the ever-increasing capacity of
America to provide a high standard of living for all its citizens.

Consumer

(4) We will act to secure to the consumer fair value, honest sales and a
decreased spread between the price he pays and the price the producer
receives.

Rural Electrification

(5) This administration has fostered power rate yardsticks in the
Tennessee Valley and in several other parts of the Nation. As a result,
electricity has been made available to the people at a lower rate. We will
continue to promote plans for rural electrification and for cheap power by
means of the yardstick method.

Housing

(6) We maintain that our people are entitled to decent, adequate housing at
a price which they can afford. In the last three years, the Federal
Government, having saved more than two million homes from foreclosure,
has taken the first steps in our history to provide decent housing for
people of meager incomes. We believe every encouragement should be
given to the building of new homes by private enterprise, and that the
Government should steadily extend its housing program toward the goal of
adequate housing for those forced through economic necessities to live in
unhealthy and slum conditions.

Veterans

(7) we shall continue just treatment of our war veterans and their
dependents.

FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A DEMOCRACY OF OPPORTUNITY

Agriculture

We have taken the farmers off the road to ruin.

We have kept our pledge to agriculture to use all available means to raise
farm income toward its pre-war purchasing power. The farmer is no
longer suffering from 15-cent corn 3-cent hogs 2 cent beef at the farm
5-cent wool 30-cent wheat 5-cent cotton and 3-cent sugar.

By Federal legislation we have reduced the farmer's indebtedness and
doubled his net income. In cooperation with the States and through the
farmers's own committees, we are restoring the fertility of his land and
checking the erosion of his soil. We are bringing electricity and good roads
to his home.

We will continue to improve the soil conservation and domestic allotment
program with payments to farmers.

We will continue a fair-minded administration of agricultural laws, quick
to recognize and meet new problems and conditions. We recognize the
gravity of the evils of farm tenancy, and we pledge the full cooperation of
the Government in the refinancing of farm indebtedness at the lowest
possible rates of interest and over a long term of years.

We favor the production of all the market will absorb, both at home and
abroad, plus a reserve supply sufficient to insure fair prices to
consumers, we favor judicious commodity loans on seasonal surpluses,
and we favor assistance within Federal authority to enable farmers to
adjust and balance production with demand, at a fair profit to the farmers.

We favor encouragement of sound, practical farm cooperatives.

By the purchase and retirement of ten million acres of sub marginal land,
and assistance to those attempting to eke out an existence upon it, we
have made a good beginning toward proper land use and rural
rehabilitation.

The farmer has been returned to the road to freedom and prosperity. We
will keep him on that road.

Labor

We have given the army of America's industrial workers something more
substantial than the Republicans' dinner pail full of promises. We have
increased the worker's pay and shortened his hours, we have undertaken to
put an end the sweated labor of his wife and children, we have written
into the law of the land his right to collective-bargaining and
self-organization free from the interference of employers, we have
provided Federal machinery for the peaceful settlement of labor disputes.

We will continue to protect the worker and we will guard his rights both
as wage earner and consumer in the production and consumption of all
commodities, including coal and water power and other natural resource
products.

The worker has been returned to the road of freedom and prosperity. We
will keep him on that road.

Business

We have taken the American business man out of the red. We have saved
his bank and given it a sounder foundation, we have extended credit, we
have lowered interest rates, we have undertaken to free him from the
ravages of cutthroat competition.

The American business man has been returned to the road of freedom and
prosperity. We will keep him on that road.

Youth

We have aided youth to stay in school, given them constructive occupation
opened the door to opportunity which 12 years of Republican neglect had
closed.

Our youth have been returned to the road to freedom and prosperity. We
will keep them on that road.

MONOPOLY AND CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER

Monopolies and the concentration of economic power the creation of
Republican rule and privilege continue to be the master of the producer,
the exploited of the consumer, and the enemy of the independent operator.
This is a problem challenging the unceasing effort of untrammeled public
officials in every branch of the Government. We pledge vigorously and
fearlessly to enforce the criminal and civil provisions of the existing anti
trust laws, and to the extent that their effectiveness has been weakened
by new corporate devices or judicial construction, we propose by law to
restore their efficacy in stamping out monopolistic practices and the
concentration of economic power.

AID TO THOSE OVERTAKEN BY DISASTER

We have aided and will continue to aid those who have been visited by
widespread drought and floods, and have adopted a Nation-wide
flood-control policy.

Unemployment

We believe that unemployment is a national problem, and that it is an
inescapable obligation of our Government to meet it in a national way. Due
to our stimulation of private business, more than five million people have
been reemployed, and we shall continue to maintain that the first
objective of a program of economic security is maximum employment in
private industry at adequate wages. Where business fails to supply such
employment, we believe that work at prevailing wages should be provided
in cooperation with State and local governments on useful public projects
to the end that the national wealth may be increased, the skill and energy
of the worker may be utilized, his morale maintained, and the unemployed
assured the opportunity to earn the necessities of life.

The Constitution

The Republican platform proposes to meet many pressing national
problems solely by action of the separate States. We know that drought,
dust storms floods minimum wages maximum hours child labor and
working conditions in industry, monopolistic and unfair business practices
cannot be adequately handled exclusively by 48 separate State
legislatures, 48 separate State administrations, and 48 separate State
courts. Transactions and activities which inevitably overflow State
boundaries call for both State and Federal treatment.

We have sought and will continue to seek to meet these problems through
legislation within the Constitution.

If these problems cannot be effectively solved by legislation within the
Constitution, we shall seek such clarifying amendment as will assure to
the legislatures of the several States and to the Congress of the United
States each within its proper jurisdiction the power to enact those laws
which the State and Federal legislatures, within their respective spheres,
shall find necessary, in order adequately to regulate commerce, protect
public health and safety and safeguard economic security. Thus we propose
to maintain the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

THE MERIT SYSTEM IN GOVERNMENT

For the protection of government itself and promotion of its efficiency,
we pledge the immediate extension of the merit system through the
classified civil service which was first established and fostered under
Democratic auspices, to all non-policy-making positions in the Federal
service.

We shall subject to the civil service law all continuing positions which,
because of the emergency, have been exempt from its operations.

CIVIL LIBERTIES

We shall continue to guard the freedom of speech press radio religion and
assembly which our Constitution guarantees with equal rights to all and
special privileges to none.

GOVERNMENT FINANCE

The Administration has stopped deflation, restored values and enabled
business to go ahead with confidence.

When national income shrinks government income is imperilled. In reviving
national income, we have fortified government finance. We have raised the
public credit to a position of unsurpassed security. The interest rate on
Government bonds has been reduced to the lowest point in twenty-eight
years. The same Government bonds which in 1932 sold under 83 are now
selling over 104.

We approve the objective of a permanently sound currency so stabilized as
to prevent the former wide fluctuations in value which injured in turn
producers, debtors and property owners on the one hand and wage earners
and creditors on the other, a currency which will permit full utilization of
the country's resources. We assert that today we have the soundest
currency in the world.

We are determined to reduce the expenses of government. We are being
aided therein by the recession in unemployment. As the requirements of
relief decline and national income advances, an increasing percentage of
Federal expenditures can and will be met from current revenues, secured
from taxes levied in accordance with ability to pay. Our retrenchment, tax
and recovery programs thus reflect our firm determination to achieve a
balanced budget and the reduction of the national debt at the earliest
possible moment.

FOREIGN POLICY

In our relationship with other nations, this Government will continue to
extend the policy of the Good Neighbor. We reaffirm our opposition to war
as an instrument of national policy, and declare that disputes between
nations should be settled by peaceful means. We shall continue to observe
a true neutrality in the disputes of others, to be prepared, resolutely to
resist aggression against ourselves, to work for peace and to take the
profits out of war to guard against being drawn by political commitments
international banking or private trading, into any war which may develop
anywhere.

We shall continue to foster the increase in our foreign trade which has
been achieved by this administration, to seek by mutual agreement the
lowering of those tariff barriers, quotas and embargoes which have been
raised against our exports of agricultural and industrial products but
continue as in the past to give adequate protection to our farmers and
manufacturers against unfair competition or the dumping on our shores of
commodities and goods produced abroad by cheap labor or subsidized by
foreign governments.

THE ISSUE

The issue in this election is plain. The American people are called upon to
choose between a Republican administration that has and would again
regiment them in the service of privileged groups and a Democratic
administration dedicated to the establishment of equal economic
opportunity for all our people.

We have faith in the destiny of our nation. We are sufficiently endowed
with natural resources and with productive capacity to provide for all a
quality of life that meets the standards of real Americanism.

Dedicated to a government of liberal American principles, we are
determined to oppose equally, the despotism of Communism and the
menace of concealed Fascism.

We hold this final truth to be self-evident, that the interests, the security
and the happiness of the people of the United States of America can be
perpetuated only under demo government as conceived by the founders of
our nation.