of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 223

In launching tonight Maryland's campaign both for the election of the
President and, also, for the election of a Senator and Congressman to per-
form their important work for the Country, it seems appropriate to note the
definite line of demarcation between our candidate for President and our party
on the one hand and forces that are working to defeat him. In President
Roosevelt we have had a leader who, through eight years of unprecedented
depression and world unrest, has charted a course that was based on a principle
long unrecognized by those of the Republican faith—that of human rights as
opposed to property rights that were, and I submit, still are, the fundamental
tenet of Republican policy and Republican national action.

Through the years, but particularly during the last eight years under the
wise leadership of President Roosevelt, the Democratic Party has been the one
party that consistently has been responsive to the natural, inborn aspirations
of the masses of our people for the improvement of their lot. It has been the
Democratic Party, throughout the years, that consistently fought for the needs
of the lowly and the suffering and aged among us, and during the eight years
immediately past, has translated thoughts into action to such a degree that
no one can deny, this recent period has witnessed the finest program of con-
structive legislation ever undertaken and completed at Washington.

In 1932, the Country not only was sunk in the morass of business demora-
lization, but there was no national leadership, no one to look to for enlighten-
ment or encouragement as to possible escape from the problems that beset us.
Looking back on that dire period we shudder to contemplate the depth to which
our failure to win the 1932 election would have plunged the Country.

It took leadership of the most magnificent kind to restore our Country's
morale and to avert the unknown, but almost inescapable, dangers that neces-
sarily must have accompanied a continuance of the then-existing conditions. It
was the forward-looking policies initiated by President Roosevelt, and carried
through to successful completion by Democratic Congresses, that saved America
from utter demoralization, and retained her position as the greatest nation
in the world! A nation, not only great in wealth and power, but great, too, in
the complete possession by all its people of those individual liberties that to-
day are enjoyed by so few of the people of the world.

The Democratic Administration accomplished all this without the sacrifice
of any of our cherished institutions. Today, as in all the years since the founda-
tion of our great Country, we are free to speak, free to worship, free to live
our individual and business lives as we will. Today, as ever, the sky is the
limit for every American, no matter what his beginnings. We haven't solved
all of our problems, of course, but we have solved the majority of them, and
even more important than that, the Democratic Party has dared to embark on
new policies instead of sticking endlessly to the old order admittedly no longer
effective.

The American people, regardless of politics, cannot forget the outstanding
accomplishments in the eight years of Democratic Administration. The majority
of our citizens are familiar with the measures that have been undertaken by
the Democratic Party to promote economic recovery and social betterment, as
well as to end abuses of long standing. Social Security, long a hopeless dream,
has been translated into reality; the hungry have been fed, the unemployed
have been given work on useful projects; CCC camps have taken care of more
than 2, 500, 000 young men; hundreds of thousands of home owners have been