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1937 balanced Budget, when he takes his stand for stabilizing conditions, when he goes out and stands as most of us are going to have to stand, I will shed as much political blood in defense of him as any man in America. I have always looked forward to the time when I would be defending him against the men who are now proclaiming their loyalty to him.

In this transition the only way to go to it is to get off of the system of Government borrowing and into the system of private investment. Thank God, the money is here; the money can be had. All we need is to create conditions in which men will feel justified in investing the money.

Hear me about that, Mr. President. Years ago I represented a lady in North Carolina, not exactly as attorney, but rather as a friend. I never got a fee from her in my life. She had some money which she had saved by way of being a stenographer. She lost a great deal of it in the bank failures of 1929, 1930, and 1931, but she saved $10,000 from the wreck. She is now 70 years of age. She cannot work any more. She had that $10,000 in bonds of the Canadian Government, but the Canadian Government called those bonds 2 weeks ago. She came all the way to Washington the other day to tell me that she had $10,000 which she wished me to invest for her safely on the basis of 4 percent. That is $400 a year. Of course, I wished to do it. But could I?

Is there a Senator here who can take $10,000 for a helpless woman and put it anywhere in America under these conditions with a certainty that she will get $400 a year for it and collect the principal, or, if she gets $400, that it will buy anything?

Suppose I told her to put it into common stock, and then a sit-down strike should occur and a crowd of trespassers should close down the plant and not let anybody work—what would become of her investment?

That is what this paper says: We must have security in property; that the owner of the property has a right to possession of it, and the worker has a right to work; and it is time for that to be said in this country.

Suppose she should put it in bonds. She would get about 2½ or 3 percent; and if we should have inflation and the Budget should stay unbalanced, the $200 or $300 a year would not pay her board for 30 days.

I told her to hold the money; that I was not capable of advising her how to invest it.

Of course, that is not the whole story. That is only one instance. I do not profess to know much about investments, but I am saying to the Senate that that situation exists from one end of this land to the other. There are billions of dollars available for investment; there is infinite extension of employment possible the moment the Congress of the United States creates a climate that is favorable to business and industry.

Now, hear me, Senators: Do not try to get me where anyone can state that I defend any wrongdoing. If the stock gamblers have overreached, I am in favor of fixing matters so that they cannot do so. If, as the junior Senator from Missouri [Mr. ] says, certain corporate managers have perpetrated frauds, I am in favor of putting them in the penitentiary. This document says that we can find a remedy in the common-law principles of free men. The Senators want to know what that is. That is a thousand years of civilization, of intelligent men finding the old law, finding mischief and applying the remedy; but in order to do that it is not necessary to strike down all business. We ought rather to find the evil, and apply the remedy of the law.

I do not know what is wrong with the railroads; but if their managers have been playing ducks and drakes with them, if the financiers who have loaned money have tried to control them for selfish ends, it ought to be stopped. The same thing is true of the utilities. If they have perpetrated wrongs, we ought to find a way to stop those wrongs; but to be sure we ought to find the way so that men who are honest, and men who do have energy, and men who do have capital, will be free to invest it, assured that the Government of State and Nation will protect the investment.

I think this thing started last spring, and I thought I saw: 1t start. When the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. ] introduced his rider denouncing the sit-down strike I was in Raleigh. I bought my ticket within 15 minutes after I got the news from my secretary that the rider was pending, and I came here and asked the Senate to pass it—why? I am unwilling to put my money in an enterprise which other people can sit down on, and I know everybody else in America is, too. I am saying that a firm policy at that time would have brought out billions of dollars to employ people. I am saying that the American people are competent; I am saying that American businesses can expand; but I am also saying that they cannot do it when they are surrounded with an atmosphere that puts the fear of destruction in the heart of every man who is called upon to make an investment.

I am not indicting anybody. I am not criticizing anybody. I am pleading for a public policy that will encourage investment and enterprise on the part of the people in · America who have money in the banks—not the great, big, rich people; there are not enough of them; it is the great masses of men who save their money here, like the little woman with only $10,000, and still less and less, the man with $500 and $1,000. There was a time when people saved money in this country with the understanding that even $500 put in a corporation would be a good investment for them.

They could get their dividends. They could get their principal. They could sell the evidence of their investment. I am saying that when we get through this transition we are going to get through it on the basis of encouraging the investment of private savings in enterprise.

Another thing: If we do not get through, I am going to tell you where we are going. We cannot have any halfway measures about this matter. Either we are going to succeed in employing the unemployed and taking care of the whole American system, its standard of living and its people, its farm prices and its welfare, on the basis of private enterprise, or we are going inevitably into collectivism. There is no halfway ground; and I am thinking Mr. President, that we have reached the period—I hate to say it—when the matter is going to be put to the test. If this depression goes on, if it is prolonged in its present terms, and the army of the unemployed continues to increase, and business and industry do not respond, and commodity values, farmers' prices of cotton and other things they produce go down and down, an atmosphere will be created in the land which will demand collectivism. So far as I am concerned, I would a great deal rather die and go on to give my account according to the deeds done in the body than to stand still and see my country going in that direction.

I know what people do when they are in distress. I know that the best of men lose their senses in distress. The most conservative man becomes the most radical, and they cry out, "Do something! Do something! We do not care what it is; we want something done!" If we do not get through this secondary depression, as we may call it, if we do not create conditions that will take us through this transition, the argument of the collectivists will be irresistible; it will be overwhelming; and I see it. I wish to stand it back. I know the answer to it is successful enterprise throughout America. I know that men in this land do not want to depend on the Government's bounty. I know that businesses do not want to live by way of the borrowed money of the Government, either.

The hearts of the boys and girls of America who are. standing today on the threshold of life demand that they shall have private enterprise. I will say another word about that: Private enterprise carries with it the indispensable vigor of life and progress and government collectivism does nothing of the sort.

So, Mr. President, by way of conclusion, that I hope all the American people have seen the flower and fruition