Betrayal of the Democratic Party
By Alfred E. (Al)
Smith
Alfred E. Smith, Democratic Governor of New York during four
terms, became the Democratic candidate for President in 1928 but lost to
Herbert Hoover. In 1932 he supported Franklin D. Roosevelt for President, but
by 1936 he was so shocked and alarmed by what he saw happening that he decided
to warn his Party. Because of the popularity of President Roosevelt this step
was considered by some to be virtual treason. Nevertheless, on January 25,
1936, Alfred E. Smith gave the following speech in Washington, D.C., to warn
the American people that the Democratic Party was being betrayed.
At the outset of my remarks
let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not a candidate for any nomination
by any party at any time, and what is more I do not intend to even lift my
right hand to secure any nomination from any party at any time.
Further than that, I
have no axe to grind. There is nothing personal in this whole performance so
far as I am concerned. I have no feeling against any man, woman or child in the
United States….
I was born in the Democratic party and I expect to die in
it. And I was attracted to it in my youth because I was led to believe that no
man owned it. Further than that, that no group of men owned it, but on the
other hand, that it belonged to all the plain people in the United States.
Patriotism Above Partisanship
It is not easy for me to stand up here tonight and talk to
the American people against tire Democratic Administration. This is not easy.
It hurts me. But I can call upon innumerable witnesses to testify to the fact
that during my whole public life I put patriotism above partisanship. And when
I see danger, I say danger, that is the “Stop, look, and listen” to the
fundamental principles upon which this Government of ours was organized, it is
difficult for me to refrain from speaking up.
What are these
dangers that I see? The first is the arraignment of class against class. It has
been freely predicted that if we were ever to have civil strife again in this
country, it would come from the appeal to passion and prejudices that comes
from the demagogues that would incite one class of our people against the
other.
In my time I have met
some good and bad industrialists. I have met some good and bad financiers, but
I have also met some good and bad laborers, and this I know, that permanent
prosperity is dependent upon both capital and labor alike.
And I also know that
there can be no permanent prosperity in this country until industry is able to
employ labor, and there certainly can be no permanent recovery upon any
governmental theory of “soak the rich” or “soak the poor.”…
A Government By Bureaucrats
The next thing that I view as being dangerous to our
national well-being is government by bureaucracy instead of what we have been
taught to look for, government by law.
Just let me quote
something from the President’s message to Congress:
“In 34 months we have built up new instruments of public
power in the hands of the people’s government. This power is wholesome and
proper, but in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy, such
power would provide shackles for the liberties of our people.”
Now I interpret that to mean, if you are going to have an
autocrat, take me; but be very careful about the other fellow.
There is a complete
answer to that, and it rises in the minds of the great rank and file, and that
answer is just this: We will never in this country tolerate any laws that
provide shackles for our people.
We don’t want any
autocrats, either in or out of office. We wouldn’t even take a good one.
The next danger that
is apparent to me is the vast building up of new bureaus of government,
draining resources of our people in a common pool of redistributing them, not
by any process of law, but by the whim of a bureaucratic autocracy.
The 1932 Platform
Well now, what am I here for? I am here not to find fault.
Anybody can do that. I am hereto make suggestions. What would I have my party
do? I would have them reestablish and re-declare the principles that they put
forth in that 1932 platform….
The Republican platform was ten times as long. It was
stuffy, it was unreadable, and in many points, not understandable. No
Administration in the history of the country came into power with a more
simple, a more clear, or a more inescapable mandate than did the party that was
inaugurated on the Fourth of March in 1933.
And listen, no candidate
in the history of the country ever pledged himself more unequivocally to his
party platform than did the President who was inaugurated on that day.
Well, here we are!
Millions and millions
of Democrats just like myself, all over the country, still believe in that
platform. And what we want to know is wiry it wasn’t carried out….
Now, let us wander for awhile and let’s take a look at that
platform, and let’s see what happened to it. Here is how it started out:
“We believe that a party platform is a covenant with the
people, to be faithfully kept by the party when entrusted with power, and that
the people are entitled to know in plain words the terms of contract to which
they are asked to subscribe.
“The Democratic Party solemnly promises by appropriate
action to put into effect the principles, policies and reforms herein advocated
and to eradicate the political methods and practices herein condemned.”
My friends, these are what we call fighting words. At the
time that that platform went through the air and over the wire, the people of
the United States were in the lowest possible depths of despair, and the
Democratic platform looked to them like the star of hope; it looked like the
rising sun in the East to the mariner on the bridge of a ship after a terrible
night.
But what happened to
it?
Economy in Government
First plank: “We advocate immediate and drastic reduction of
governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices,
consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance to
accomplish a saving of not less than 25 percent in the cost of the Federal
Government.”
Well, now, what is the fact? No offices were consolidated,
no bureaus were eliminated,but on the other hand, the alphabet was exhausted.
The creation of new departments and this is sad news for the taxpayer — the
cost, the ordinary cost, what we refer to as housekeeping cost,over and above
all emergencies that ordinary housekeeping cost of government is greater today
than it has ever been in any time in the history of the republic.
The Unbalanced Budget
Another plank: “We favor maintenance of the national credit
by a Federal budget annually balanced on the basis of accurate Federal estimate
within revenue.”
How can you balance a budget if you insist upon spending
more money than you take in?Even the increased revenue won’t go to balance the
budget, because it is hocked before you receive it. What is worse than that?…
The Middle Class Will Pay the Debt
Now here is something that I want to say to the rank and
file. There are three classes of people in this country; there are the poor and
the rich, and in between the two is what has often been referred to as the
great backbone of America, that is the plain fellow.
That is the fellow
that makes from one hundred dollars a month up to the man that draws down five
or six thousand dollars a year.
Now, there is a great
big army. Forget the rich; they can’t pay this debt. If you took everything
they have away from them, they couldn’t pay it; they ain’t got enough. There is
no use talking about the poor; they will never pay it, because they have
nothing.
This debt is going to
be paid by that great big middle class that we refer to as the backbone and the
rank and file, and the sin of it is they ain’t going to know that they are
paying it.It is going to come to them in the form of indirect and hidden
taxation. It will come to them in the cost of living, in the cost of clothing,
in the cost of every activity that they enter into, and because it is not a
direct tax, they won’t think they’re paying, but, take it from me, they are
going to pay it!
What About States’ Rights?
Another plank: “We advocate the extension of Federal credit
to the States to provide unemployment relief where the diminishing resources of
the State make it impossible for them to provide for their needs.”
That was pretty plain. That was a recognition in the
national convention of the rights of the States. But how is it interpreted? The
Federal Government took over most of the relief problems, some of them useful
and most of them useless. They started out to prime the pump for industry in
order to absorb the ranks of the unemployed, and at the end of three years
their employment affirmative policy is absolutely nothing better than the
negative policy of the Administration that preceded it.
“We favor unemployment and old age insurance under State
laws.”
Now let me make myself perfectly clear so that no demagogue
or no crack-pot in the next week or so will be able to say anything about my
attitude on this kind of legislation. I am in favor of it. And I take my hat
off to no man in the United States on the question of legislation beneficial to
the poor, the weak, the sick, or the afflicted, or women and children.
Because why? I
started out a quarter of a century ago when I had very few followers in my
State, and during that period I advocated, fought for, introduced as a
legislator and finally as Governor for eight long years, signed more
progressive legislation in the interest of the men,women and children than any
man in the State of New York.
Unconstitutional Measure — Unfulfilled Pledges
And the sin of this whole thing, and the part of it that
worries me and gives me concern,is that this haphazard, hurry-up passage of
legislation is never going to accomplish the purposes for which it was designed
and — bear this in mind, follow the platform-under State laws….
Another one: “We promise the removal of Government from all
fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and
national resources in the common interest.”
NRA! A vast octopus set up by government, that wound its
arms around all the business of the country, paralyzed big business, and choked
little business to death.
Did you read in the
papers a short time ago where somebody said that business was going to get a
breathing spell?
What is the meaning
of that? And where did that expression arise?
I’ll tell you where
it comes from. It comes from the prize ring. When the aggressor is punching the
head off the other fellow he suddenly takes compassion on him and he gives him
a breathing spell before he delivers the knockout wallop.
Wasteful Extravagance
Here is another one: “We condemn the open and covert
resistance of administrative officials to every effort made by congressional
committees to curtail the extravagant expenditures of Government and
improvident subsidies granted to private interests.”
Now, just between ourselves, do you know any administrative
officer that has tried to stop Congress from appropriating money? Do you think
there has been any desire on the part of Congress to curtail appropriations?
Why, not at all. The
fact is that Congress threw them right and left — didn’t even tell what they
were for.
And the truth,
further, is that every administrative officer sought to get all that he
possibly could in order to expand the activities of his own office and throw
the money of the people right and left. And as to subsidies, why, never at any
time in the history of this or any other country were there so many subsidies
granted to private groups, and on such a huge scale.
The fact of the
matter is that most of the cases now pending before the United States Supreme
Court revolve around the point whether or not it is proper for Congress to tax
all the people to pay subsidies to a particular group.
Here is another one:
“We condemn the extravagance of the Farm Board, its disastrous action which
made the Government a speculator of farm products, and the unsound policy of
restricting agricultural products to the demand of domestic markets.”…
What about the restriction of our agricultural products and
the demands of the market?Why, the fact about that is that we shut out entirely
the farm market, [page 126] and by plowing under corn and wheat and the
destruction of foodstuffs, food from foreign countries has been pouring into
our American markets — food that should have been purchased by us from our own
farmers.
In other words, while
some of the countries of the Old World were attempting to drive the wolf of
hunger from the doormat, the United States flew in the face of God’s bounty and
destroyed its own foodstuffs. There can be no question about that.
Now I could go on
indefinitely with some of the other planks. They are unimportant, and the radio
time will not permit it. But just let me sum up this way. Regulation of the
Stock Exchange and the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, plus one or two
minor planks of the platform that in no way touch the daily life of our people,
have been carried out, but the balance of the platform was thrown in the
wastebasket. About that there can be no question.
Let’s see how it was
carried out. Make a test for yourself. Just get the platform of the Democratic
Party, and get the platform of the Socialist Party, and lay them down on your
dining room table, side by side, and get a heavy lead pencil and scratch out
the word “Democrat,” and scratch out the word “Socialist,” and let the two
platforms lay there.
Then study the record
of the present Administration up to date. After you have done that,make your
mind up to pick up the platform that more nearly squares with the record, and
you will put your hand on the Socialist platform. You don’t dare touch the
Democratic platform.
Democratic or Socialistic?
And incidentally, let me say, that it is not the first time
in recorded history, that a group of men have stolen the livery of the church
to do the work of the devil.
Now, after studying
this whole situation, you will find that that is at the bottom of all our
troubles. This country was organized on the principles of representative
democracy, and you can’t mix Socialism or Communism with that. They are like
oil and water; they refuse to mix.
And incidentally, let
me say to you, that is the reason why the United States Supreme Court is
working overtime throwing the alphabet out of the window three letters at a
time.
Now I am going to let
you in on something else. How do you suppose all this happened? Here is the way
it happened. The young Brain Trusters caught the Socialists in swimming and hey
ran away with their clothes.
Now, it is all right
with me. It is all right to me if they want to disguise themselves as Norman
Thomas or Karl Marx, or Lenin, or any of the rest of that bunch, but what I
won’t stand for is to let them march under the banner of Jefferson, Jackson, or
Cleveland.
“We Can Take a Walk”
Now what is worrying me, where does that leave me as a
Democrat? My mind is now fixed upon the Convention in June, in Philadelphia. The
committee on resolutions is about to report, and the preamble to the platform
is:
“We, the representatives of the Democratic Party in
Convention assembled, heartily endorse the Democratic Administration.”
What happens to the disciples of Jefferson and Jackson and
Cleveland when that resolution is read out? Why, for us it is a washout. There
is only one of two things we can do. We can either take on the mantle of
hypocrisy or we can take a walk, and we will probably do the latter.
Now leave the
platform alone for a little while. What about this attack that has been made
upon the fundamental institutions of this country? Who threatens them, and did
we have any warning of this threat? Why, you don’t have to study party
platforms. You don’t have to read books. You don’t have to listen to professors
of economics. You can find the whole thing incorporated in the greatest
declaration of political principles that ever came from the hands of man, the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Constitutional Limitations
Always have in your minds that the Constitution and the
first ten amendments to it were drafted by refugees and by sons of refugees, by
men with bitter memories of European oppression and hardship, by men who
brought to this country and handed down to their descendants an abiding fear of
the bitterness and all the hatred of the Old World was distilled in our
Constitution into the purest democracy that the world has ever known.
There are just three
principles, and in the interest of brevity, I will read them. I can read them
quicker than talk them.
“First, a Federal Government, strictly limited in its power,
with all other powers except those expressly mentioned reserved to the States
and to the people, so as to insure State’s rights,guarantee home rule, and
preserve freedom of individual initiative and local control.”
That is simple enough. The difference between the State
constitutions and the Federal Constitution is that in the State you can do
anything you want to do provided it is not prohibited by the Constitution. But
in the Federal Government, according to that government, you can do only that
which that Constitution tells you that you can do.
What is the trouble?
Congress has overstepped its bounds. It went beyond that Constitutional
limitation, and it has enacted laws that not only violate the home rule and the
State’s right principle — and who says that? Do I say it? Not at all. That was
said by the United States Supreme Court in the last ten or twelve days.
Chorus of Yes-men in Congress
Secondly, the Government, with three independent branches,
Congress to make the laws,the Executive to execute them, the Supreme Court, and
so forth. You know that.
In the name of
Heaven, where is the independence of Congress? Why, they just laid right down.
They are flatter on the Congressional floor than the rug on the table here.
They surrendered all of their powers to the Executive, and that is the reason
why you read in the newspapers references to Congress as the Rubber Stamp
Congress.
We all know that the
most important bills were drafted by the Brain Trusters, and sent over to
Congress and passed by Congress without consideration, without debate and,
without meaning any offense at all to my Democratic brethren in Congress, I
think I can safely say without 90 percent of them knowing what was in the bills.
That was the meaning
of the list that came over, and besides certain bills were “Must.”What does
that mean? Speaking for the rank and file of American people we don’t want any
executive to tell Congress what it must do, and we don’t want any Congress or
the Executive jointly or severally to tell the United States Supreme Court what
it must do!
And further than
that, we don’t want the United States Supreme Court to tell either of them what
they must do.
What we want, and
what we insist upon, and what we are going to have is the absolute preservation
of this balance of power which is the keystone, the arch upon which the whole
theory of democratic government has got to rest. When you rattle that you
rattle the whole structure.
Of course, when our
forefathers wrote the Constitution of the United States it couldn’t be possible
that they had it in their minds that it was going to be all right for all time
to come. Sothey said, “Now, we will provide a manner and method of amending
it.”
That is set forth in the document itself, and during our
national life we amended it many times.
We amended it once by
mistake, and we corrected it. What did we do? We took the amendment out. Fine,
that is the way we want to do it, by recourse to the people.
But we don’t want an
Administration that takes a shot at it in the dark and that ducks away from it
and dodges away from it and tries to put something over contradiction of it
upon any theory that there is going to be a great public howl in favor of that
something; possibly the United States Supreme Court may be intimidated into a
friendly opinion with respect to it.
What I have held all
during my public life is that Almighty God is with this country, and He didn’t
give us that kind of Supreme Court.
Now this is pretty tough
on me to have to go at my own party this way, but I submit that there is a
limit to blind loyalty.
As a young man in the
Democratic Party, I witnessed the rise and fall of Bryan and Bryanism, and I
know exactly what Bryan did to our party. I knew how long it took to build it
after he got finished with it. But let me say this to the everlasting credit of
Bryan and the men that followed him, they had the nerve and the courage and
honesty to put into the platform just what their leaders stood for. And they
further put the American people into a position of making an intelligent choice
when they went to the polls.
Why, the fact of this
whole thing is I speak now not only of the executive but of the legislature at
the same time that they promised one set of things; they repudiated that
promise,and they launched off on a program of action totally different.
Well, in 25 years of
experience I have known both parties to fail to carry out some of the planks in
their platform. But this is the first time that I have known a party, upon such
a huge scale, not only not to carry out the plank, but to do the directly
opposite thing to what they promised.
Suggested Remedies
Now, suggestions, and I make these as a Democrat anxious for
the success of my party,and I make them in good faith.
No. 1: I suggest to
the members of my party on Capitol Hill here in Washington that they take their
minds off the Tuesday that follows the first Monday in November. Just take
their minds off it to the end that you may do the right thing and not the
expedient thing.
Next, I suggest to
them that they dig up the 1932 platform from the grave that they buried it in,
read it over, and study it, breathe life into it, and follow it in legislative
and executive action, to the end that they make good their promises to the
American people when they put forth that platform and the candidate that stood
upon it 100 percent. In short, make good!
Next, I suggest to
them that they stop compromising with the fundamental principles laid down by
Jackson and Jefferson and Cleveland.
Fourth: Stop
attempting to alter the form and structure of our Government without recourse
to the people themselves as provided in their own Constitution. This country
belongs to the people, and it doesn’t belong to any Administration.
Next, I suggest that
they read their Oath of Office to support the Constitution of the United
States. And I ask them to remember that they took that oath with their hands on
the Holy Bible, thereby calling upon God Almighty Himself to witness their
solemn promise. It is bad enough to disappoint us.
Washington or Moscow
Sixth: I suggest that
from this moment they resolve to make the Constitution the Civil Bible of the
United States, and pay it the same civil respect and reverence that they would
religiously pay the Holy Scripture, and I ask them to read from the Holy
Scripture the Parable of the Prodigal Son and to follow his example.
Stop! Stop wasting
your substance in a foreign land, and come back to your Father’s house.
Now, in conclusion
let me give this solemn warning. There can be only one Capitol,Washington or
Moscow!
There can be only one
atmosphere of government, the clear, pure, fresh air of free America, or the
foul breath of Communistic Russia.
There can be only one
flag, the Stars and Stripes, or the Red Flag of the Godless Union of the
Soviet.
There can be only one
National Anthem. The Star Spangled Banner or the Internationale.
There can be only one
victor. If the Constitution wins, we win. But if the Constitution –stop. Stop
there. The Constitution can’t lose! The fact is, it has already won, but the
news has not reached certain ears.
