Transcription:
Our vote today is key to nation's well-being
Our Vote Today Is Key Nation's Well-Being To Today, we are buying a share in tomorrow. We are making a payment on our future and the future of the United States.
Our purchase is a relatively easy one to make-no huge outlays of money, no entangling contacts, no strict obligations. Except for marking a few X's on a ballot, all we have to do is think.
But, we have many things to think about-important things. We have ideas and ideals that must be adjusted to one another, ambitions and ethics that must be made more compatible.
We must think of the kind of future we want. We must remember the kind of past we've had. As we step over the threshold into tomorrow, experience must be our guide.
In our life time, we have gone through two great crises that have crushed weaker nations.
Most of us were born in what is now referred to as "Roaring Twenties." But, few of us remember the roar, be-cause before we entered our teens it had faded into the pathetic cries that arise from poverty and hunger.
We don't want to hear those cries again. We were able to preserve our democracy through the great depression of the Thirties. But, if millions of Americans are again forced to walk the streets of the nation ill-clothed and starving, we may lose it.
We all remember war. We fought hard, we won, and we're proud of our victory. But,. three years hasn't erased the memory of bombs and blood and death and mud. We've had our fill of this kind of hell.
Today it is our duty to choose the leaders who will present the most valid plans and put forth the most valiant cf.forts to keep us from the brink of depression and war. Yet, we don't want leaders who will appease the men and nations that could one day rob us of our way of life. We want, rather, statesmen who will firmly. say, "We speak for the people of the United States-a people who want world peace above all else. But, we want the rest of the world to understand that we. will not be pushed around and we will not stand by and watch militaristic nations swallow up our, weaker brothers on the American continents. or across the sea."
Right now, we're caught in postwar inflation. A continuation and expansion of this inflation will not only seriously endanger the welfare of the American people and their economic system, but also this nation's world leadership. Today, we must cast our votes for the men who are best qualified to cope with this problem and prescribe a successful remedy.
We do not expect this election to carry us into the Millennium. But, we do expect it to clarify certain issues and stimulate our progress.
It is our duty to think, to remember, and to choose ever so wisely on the 1948 election day.
