GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO (Rear platform, 9:19 a.m.)

Senator Walker, I appreciate most highly that introduction. I was hoping that I would have an opportunity to see you. I didn't know I'd have the honor of being presented by you to this great crowd. I have had a most pleasant stay in Colorado, from the moment I hit Hugo early yesterday morning until today, this morning, when we are leaving the State. Colorado is a great State. Colorado, you know, is about half made up of Missourians. Every place I go, when people came in to see me, they very carefully inform me that either they themselves were born in Missouri, or that their parents came from Missouri to Colorado. My grandfather used to run a wagon train from Westport, now part of Kansas City, Mo., to Salt Lake City and Denver and San Francisco, from 1846 to about 1860, and I have heard a great many stories from him on how the opening of this country came about. It was a long time, you know, before the people east of the Mississippi River could understand that the people out here didn't wear horns and a tail. Some of them still think that. There are a great many people east of the Appalachian Mountains who are not yet sure that it's safe to come out West, because they're afraid Wild Bill Hickok or some Indian chief will scalp them.

I was at one time hopeful that at some time or other we could establish a summer capital between Denver and Colorado Springs and bring all those eastern fellows out here to let them see just exactly what kind of a country they have on this side of the Mississippi River. I haven't been successful in getting that done. You are vitally interested, however, from your own economic welfare, in the policies pursued by the Federal Government. The Federal Government if it does what it should, can cause the development of the West to proceed from now on at a much greater rate than it has up to date. There are a great many projects in which the Federal Government is vitally interested: reclamation, irrigation, and power. They are the lifeblood of the West. And I want to say to you that in 1946 a great many of you stayed at home on election day-about two-thirds of you. One third of the people elected a Congress which I call the Republican "do-nothing" 80th Congress, and the policies pursued by that Congress are an index as to what will happen to you if the Republicans get control of the Government. Now, if you stay at home this time on election day and let them get control of the Government you'll deserve just what you get.

The Reclamation Act has been on the books for 30 years and not much was done about it until the country, in 1932, elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to be President of the United States. From that time on developments of the West assumed a rolling advancement. More projects, more land was opened up than ever before in the history of the whole reclamation law during that administration and during the 3 and 1/2 years that I have been in the White House. If you'll just study history you can't possibly afford to go along with those people who want to turn the clock back. The Republicans haven't any program, they haven't any program. They're still crying the same thing that they cried in 1944 that there ought to be a change. Well, you got a change in 1946 and look what you got. You got your reclamation projects cut down. You got your power projects, in most instances, wiped out. Every appropriation that affects the West was slashed, and it was slashed with malice aforethought, because the people who were in charge of those Appropriations Committees in the Senate and the House-one of them comes from upper New York, the Chairman does, and the other comes from New Hampshire. What do they know about the West? I don't think either one of them set foot west of the Appalachian Mountains. The Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the Senate may, some time or other on some Senate jaunt, have been out here, hut he didn't know what he was looking at when he saw it.

You want to be careful, now, when you go to the polls next November the 2nd. Don't two-thirds of you stay at home. All of you get out there, and if you want to do yourself a real favor, you'll send Ed Johnson back to the Senate, and you'll send Mr. Aspinall here to the Congress. I've had a most pleasant time in Colorado. Your Governor has been most hospitable to me. He's a good Democratic Governor, and I hope you continue to have Democratic Governors in Colorado. I've met most of your candidates for Congress. They all impress me as being fine gentlemen.

I want you to bear this in mind: not only do I want you to vote for me, as I said time and again in Iowa and Colorado and everywhere I've been, I want you to vote for yourselves, vote for your own interests. You can't possibly reestablish another 80th "do-nothing" Republican Congress and a Republican President in the White House. You can't afford to do that. And if you'll just go to the polls and vote, I won't be troubled by the housing shortage-I can stay in the White House.