Sep. 26, 1948
President Truman Saturday carried his slashing attack on the 80th Congress to El Paso when he accused the “good-for-nothing, do-nothing” Republican majority of being hijackers using underhanded methods.
Showing his famous campaign grin, Mr. Truman stepped briskly from the 17-car Presidential special train in the Union Depot at 11 a.m. A crowd, estimated at 12,000 was waiting when the President mounted the speaker’s stand before the Union Depot to receive the first of several ovations.
Speaking with a simple sincerity, he wasted little time before ripping into the Republicans for having fought the reclamation program that “the Democratic Party took out of moth balls and put into practice.”
“The records show that the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives cut the reclamation program for the West by more than 50 per cent in 1948.” Mr. Truman said, “You people here in the West rose up in anger at this slaughter, and what do you suppose the Republican chairman of the Appropriations committee thought about your protest? Well – he said “the West is squalling like a stuck pig!” That’s what the Republican leaders thought about you, and the Republican chairman squeals every time he has to make an appropriation that is helpful to this part of the world.
Turning to the problem of public power, Mr. Truman waved a utility journal to ridicule rep. John J. Dondero (Rep. Mich.) of trying to scuttle the Federal power project. Reaching a climax in his short talk, he shouted:
“The public utility fellows, and the public utility lobby, who will have control of the Public Works Committee if you elect a Republican Congress, want to turn this electric power over to the hi-jackers so they can stick you with high prices. That’s what it means!”
He charged Dondero with having sabotaged the program by cutting off the money to build lines, and quoted him as having said that laws, which let the Government build transmission lines to get power from public dams to the users at the lowest possible rates,” can and should be changed by the next Congress.”
R.L. Holliday, who with County Attorney Ernest Guinn has shaped the local Democratic arrangements for the president’s visit to El Paso presided and introduced Mr. Truman and the official party. Joining the President on the platform were Mrs. Truman and daughter Margaret, Judge R.E. Thomason, former Speaker Sam Rayburn, Mayor Dan Ponder, Raymond L. Telles, Jr., Gov. Beauford Jester, Attorney-General Tom Clark, Mrs. Dan Ponder, U.S. Rep. Ken Regan, County democratic Chairman Stanley Caufield, and Mayor Carols Villarreal of Juarez.
Gov. Thomas J. Mabry and Clinton P. Anderson, senatorial candidate in New Mexico, preceded the President as he descended from the train, his face wreathed in smiles and wearing his familiar creased hat.
Photographers swarmed around Mr. Truman, including a delegation that leaped from the train to be on hand when the President stepped down. He posed willingly as dozens of bulbs flashed on all sides of him. Then he stepped aside for Mrs. Truman and daughter Margaret, who were presented with flowers by Mrs. R.E. Thomason and Mrs. Ernest Guinn.
Flanked by Secret Service men, Mr. Truman and Holliday began the two-block march from the train to the decorated platform. At the first glimps of the President the crowd began a cheer that rose to a roar as he jauntily mounted the steps.
Behind him were Charlie Ross, secretary, and others who are helping the President in his determined fight to be returned to the White House in November.
Governor Jester shared the applause with the President as he lifted his hat and waved to the crowd that blanketed the area in front of the depot and extended east on San Francisco Street almost as far as the Chamber of Commerce.
SPEAKS 15 MINUTES
It was 11:20 a.m. when the President stepped to the microphones. Fifteen minutes later he had ended his address, introduced his family to the crowd, and descended to meet members of the reception committee inside the depot. Regular train patrons were roped off in a section away from where Mr. Truman stood.
Back at the train there were more cameras, assurances that the Democrats were safe in Texas, and the party moved aboard 10 minutes before pulling out of the station yard.
At 12:01 p.m. Truman, with his wife and daughter, returned to the rear platform to give the expectant crowd a last look at the Democratic standard-bearer before the special train headed towards its next stop in Alpine, Texas.
Clark Rayburn and Donald S. Dawson, administrative assistant to the President, who had set up temporary headquarters in Hotel Paso del Norte, were among the party boarding the Presidential special when it left the City.
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