Eleanor Roosevelt Speeches

I know we are flow-crowd of more than seven hundred, jammed every inch of space in the Terrace Room of Washington Sharm Hotel for the third annual convention banquet of Americans for Democratic Action with hundreds more unable to be accommodated. Before the more serious business of the evening, the delegates and guests heard a number of new songs of social significance, composed by Joe Marks and Milton Pascow and sponsored by the International Association of Machinists. Here is a particularly appropriate one.

The Chairman of the evening and National Vice-Chairman of ADA Judge William H. Hastie of the third United States circuit court of appeals presents one of the founders of ADA the living symbol of its program and policy and the inspiration of its activity.

There are a few persons, I think a very few persons, in this world today who are not Chiefs of State, who have earned such a place that a similar presentation is fair do. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Roosevelt.

The final speaker at the convention banquet was the Secretary of Agriculture, the Honorable Charles Brannon.

I welcome the privilege of addressing this distinguished group because I admire and I respect the progressive influence you are exerting toward the only real way of preserving democracy: by making it work. And I like talking in an atmosphere of intellectual honesty which pervades these meetings. Of course uh, you invited me here to this convention as a speaker before hearing the uh description and uncomplimentary things said about me by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee last week. Uh, however, I recall that you yourselves were not overlooked in Mr. Gabrielsons' political castigation. So we have more than-than just, uh, ordinary things in common, uh, as we meet here tonight. And perhaps my presence will, uh, if an- if indeed any answer is needed, answer the indignant demand of the Republican Spokesman that President Truman reject his support of the American for Democratic Action.

So, uh, if you are still willing to listen to someone whom Guy Gabrielson called one of the high apostles of men who serve only political God, I certainly have no hesitancy on my part on speaking to what he referred to as that hybrid nefarious political organization known as ADA.

Following an appeal for cooperation between the farm, business, and labor elements and the national community and a brilliant analysis of the farm program associated with his name, Secretary Brannon in his concluding paragraph touches upon the theme which seems to be an understandably recurring motif throughout the convention.

It is only a dynamic democracy that offers hope to our nation and to the world, bewildered but watchful people in other lands look to our nation as the world's last and best hope for the triumph for our right over might for faith in mankind's goal of peace and brotherhood on Earth to our everlasting shame. They are witness to the political persecution of the man who represents American democracy in its dealings with the people of other lands. They are witness to one of the cheapest, most sordid attempts in American history to scavenge votes in the mark of fear and disunity.

Dean Acheson is a highly capable public servant, a man [applause] a man of undeviating devotion to democracy in a world beset by encroaching communism. I am proud to serve with him under President Truman [applause]. To frustrated politicians, competence in others is a mortal sin. By their reasoning, democracy must not be served by competent men, for how could they expect to gain power when the people see that competent men are already serving them. So the competent must be destroyed and so Dean Acheson is being stoned for his brilliance by men who don the halos of patriotism to do their quisling deeds. Perhaps they [applause] perhaps they serve their country in their own minds by spreading falsehoods that divide their countryman. Perhaps they serve their country in their own minds by creating doubt and fear [cough] when faith and [cough] courage are needed. There comes time [cough] when the very [cough] survival of democracy calls us all to higher obligation than political bickering. [applause] We rose to such heights of united patriotic endeavor and responsible citizenship during the emergencies of the depression and the war. We must rise to those heights again. We cannot risk any other course. The stakes, ladies and gentlemen, are too high. Thank you.

You have been listening to recorded highlights of the national convention of Americans for Democratic Action.