2?4 State Papers and Addresses

enabled to retain their properties through the Home Owners Loan Corporation;
the banking system, so hopelessly demoralized in 1932, has been stabilized,
bank deposits insured, activities on the stock exchange regulated, the issuance
of wildcat securities halted. Workers have been protected against sweat shop
wages, and have been made secure in their inalienable right of collective
bargaining, while reasonable living wages have obtained. Jobs have been
distributed through the lowering of weekly working hours; industries in finan-
cial difficulties have been saved by government loans, and agriculture aided
against the double threat of glutted markets and ruinous prices..

For proof of the great benefits resulting to our people, we do not have to
look far. Right at home here in Maryland, for example, the most beneficial
results have issued from the Unemployment Compensation Laws. Four years
ago, during the Presidential campaign, the cry was raised through a "pay-
envelope" campaign and on the stump that the Unemployment Compensation
System would not work. Fortunately, experience is the best criterion and since
that time in Maryland $21, 087, 000 have been paid in benefits to a total of
296, 000 claimants. While dire predictions were made that the fund would be
depleted, as of the first day of this month a total balance remained in the fund
of $20, 369, 000 here in our State in which 400, 000 employees have a vested in-
terest. No further proof is needed that such a system is sound, beneficial and
cannot be sacrificed.

With all of these accomplishments behind us, however, there remains so
much to be done that the man who assumes the burden of the White House
next January will have to contend with vastly more than the ordinary national
problems and trials. He must seek peace and prosperity in a world so/torn by
strife that no human being can forsee the outcome. He must, therefore,
possess to a remarkable degree, the statesman-like qualities of judgment,
prudence and courage if he is to fulfill successfully his rule of national leader
during the four years that lie ahead.

Shall the voters then entrust the management of our Nation these next
four years to the Party that has proven so thoroughly its ability to administer
our affairs or shall they return to that party that was voted out of power in
1932 because in the face of a great emergency it could offer no leadership to
see us through ? There can be one answer, and you know that answer, as well
as I. We must, as loyal Americans, concerned first of all with the ultimate
good of our Country, anxious above all else to avert from the heads of our
young men the terrible war into which unthinking guidance could easily bring
our Nation—we must, as reasoning beings, retain the leadership that has
proven itself so thoroughly.

The safest and the surest course to follow is to continue along our present
road to success and lasting peace by retaining the experienced leaders in the
executive branch and in the halls of Congress, Democratic leaders under the
greatest humanitarian of our time, Franklin D. Roosevelt.