Evening star., 1940-04-21
Text Of Roosevelt Address
President Cites Democrats Liberalism
In Warm Springs Speech

- the Associated Press.
WARN SPRINGS, Ga, April
20.-Follo,Ding Is. the ,te1t OF.
President Roosepelt's address to-
night to Young Democrats
Clubs.
I am speaking to you from the
Georgia Warm Springs Foundation
for Infantile Paralysis, and always
feel that in this atmosphere one
gets 4 better perspective on life, a
better sense Of proportion. 4 better
outlook on all sorts Of things from
peanuts to politics.
understand that these meetings
Of Young Democrats in many parts
of the country are customarily held
close to the birthday anniversary OF
Thomas Jefferson. While there
have been certain dehatable excep.
tions In the past $50 years, I car
properly say that when our party
system began, the party OF Thoma.
Jefferson WAS without question the
liberal party and his opponents, the
Federalists, represented conservative
thought. In more recent time,
since the Civil War, 1t. Is equally
true that when the Democratic party
has been victorious 1t has repre-.
sented more liberal position o,
public affairs than the Republican
party.
Grover Cleveland, while not per.
haps what We would call today q
fighting liberal, was certainly more
Of ., liberal than James G. Blaine
or Benjamin Harrison. Woodrow
Wilson'S eight years in ONCE repre-
sented a progressive meeting of diff
ficult problems of his day, and 1t Is
not boasting for all Of us to suggest
that our country has perhaps been
fortunate in having met modern
problems of extreme seriousness in
the liberal spirit-the do something
about 1t spirit-during the last seven
years.. d. .-. !.
Cites 1885 Statement
To Prove Consistency.
May quote to you q few SEN
tences that prove the consistency OF
the Democratic position during re.
cent years:
On August a. 1885, speaking to
the Young Democratic Clubs Of
America, said:
II, for one. am willing to place
my trust in the youth of America
If they demand action as well as
preachments, I should be ashamed
to chill their enthusiasm with the
dire prophecy that to change is to
destroy. am unwilling to sneer at
the vision Of youth. But vision
does not belong only to the young
There are millions of older people
who have vision, just as there are
some younger men and women who
are ready to put a weary, selfish or
greedy hand upon the clock o1
progress and turn 1t back. The
spirit Of America is the spirit OF
inquiry, Of readjustment, of i'm
provement, above all a spirit ir
which youth can find the fulnllment
OF its ideals" ~. +....
On January 8, 1896, said:
Whatever may be the platform
whoever may be the nominee of the
Democratic party the basic
issue will be the retention of popu-
lar government-an issue fraught
once more with the difncult prob
lem Of disseminating facts and ye,
more facts, in the face of an op-
position bent or hiding and dis
torting facts"
That, I might add, was before the
presidential election of 1886.
During the whole of the spring
and early summer of that year, you
were told that the result of the
election was in the lap of the gods;
that the Republicans had a chance
to win-that people were tired OF
liberal government. You remember
the Literary Digest and other polls
and most greatly you remember
that only 2 States out of 4e
voted to return to "do-nothing con-
servatism."
In 1888, in speaking against the
misuse Of concentrated power by