I am delighted to be here, and I am extremely proud that our distinguished former President, President Truman applause who has laid the issues out, and Mr. Nixon, in this campaign applause , who came miles to be with us tonight. I am delighted he is here on our platform with us tonight.
I speak tonight in the presence of a great tradition. This auditorium was dedicated 24 years ago by a great Democratic President, Franklin D. Roosevelt applause , and standing by him on that occasion was a young Senator from the State of Missouri, who is younger today, former Senator Harry Truman. I must say they have made it easy to run as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in Nixon has to talk about McKinley and Harding — laughter and applause — and Coolidge and Landon, and Dewey — response from the audience.
Who can I talk about? Woodrow Wilson? Franklin Roosevelt? Nixon has two speeches. One is the speech that he gives in some parts of the country where he suspects some unsuspecting Democrats may be possibly passing by and turn to listen. What counts is the man. Therefore you can elect me. I endorse everybody. I believe in the principles of the Republican Party. I can go north, south, east, and west, and say I am a Democrat. I stand in the Democratic tradition.
Response from the audience. We ran on slogans in our day like the New Freedom, which had its international counterpart in the 14 Points. Franklin Roosevelt ran on the New Deal, which had its international counterpart in the Four Freedoms. They realized that these were challenging days for any free society and it was incumbent upon the President, and only the President could do this, to set before the American people the unfinished agenda, the business, the things we must do if we are going to maintain our freedom and our independence.
I am here in part to repay an obligation which is more than a century old. Senator John Quincy Adams from my own state, who after being President of the United States, represented a small district in Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States for 20 years, there made his most distinguished record as a great fighter against slavery, and when he died, the man who gave the eulogy was a man from a different section, a different party, a different experience, a different state.
