Radio Address WEAN October 7, 1958

Good morning ladies and gentlemen:
yotefs

During the eighteen years that the SPRBR the Second Congressional
District have given me the opportunity and responsibility of serving
as their Representative in the Congress of the United States, I have been
guided by the simple principle that our govermment 2xists to sdrve the
people. Anyone who will examine my record will find that the legislation
w hich I have proposed or supported was clearly intended to help those whom
I represented to have a reasonable measure of peace, health, and security
in these complex and often difficutt times. As a member-~-and as chairman--
of the House Appropriations Sub-Committee which is concerned with the
fundamentally important legislation affecting labor, education, health, and
welfare, I have been especially close to the everyday, practical problems
of using the resources of the federal government in the public service with
maximum efficiency and the greatest possible benefit to the people of the
District, the State of Rhode Island, and the nation.

The Democratically controlled 85th Congress was outstanding in its
efforts to put the welfare of all the people above merely partisan advantage.
Faced with the challenge of Russian sputniks, it was marked by a sense of
urgency that did not, however, yield to hysterical pressures for ill-congidered
"crash programs". Confronted by the dismal consequences of the recession,
unemployment, and the rising cost of living, the Democrats pressed for
effective counteremeasures, in spite of consistent obstruction from the
Administration, which appeared to be incapable of providing leadership in

the worsening domestic situation.
Now the people are being asked to judge in the coming election as to
which party has shown itself to be really fit to serve them best in meeting
the many unresolved difficulties which trouble the nation. Constructive
action is needed in those very matters in which Congress can most influence
policy, and indications are coming in from every side to show that the record
of the 85th Congress for work rather than promises has convinced a substantial
majority of the voters that the Republican Party, which does not lack for
wealth, is virtually bankrupt when it comes to dealing with the problems of
inflation, widespread unemployment, and theeconomic slump that have hit
retired people, wage earners, and thousands of small, independent business
firms so badly. Vacated shops and dwindling savings have done more to
shake public confidence in Republican promises than even the pathetic
collapse of the empty bogst that the Republican party does not tolerate
corruption in govenment.

It is not, therefore, surprising that the N. Y. Herald Tribune, a paper
that cannot be accused of having a bias in favor of the Democratic Party,
reported last week that according to a Gallup poll, 62 percent of the voters
believe that the problems facing the United States today can best be handled
by Democrats. That opinion will be overwhelmingly expressed at the polls
this November. It is more than the reflection of the Administration's lack
of leadership. The confidence of the people in the Democratic Party is a
positive response to the record of the 85th Congress.

In the making of that record, it has been my privilege to have had some
part. Consequently, I do not have to come before the voters of the Second
Congressional District, with whom I have had a mutual relationship of

truet for the past eighteen years, with nothing but a promise of great
expectations for the future. I can instead ask them to measure what will
be done by what has already been accomplished.

Iam especially happy to have been instrumental in winning the battle
against the Administrations! attempts to bring about what the N. Y. Times
called ' the most far-reaching retrenchments in welfare programs ever made."
In its fiscal budget for 1959 the Eisenhower-~Nixon admistration proposed
crippling cuts in funds for medical research in the vital fields of cancer,
heart diseases, and mental illness. Here, as in their efforts to cut the
budget of the Food and Drug Administration by 18 percent and their attempts
to cut out federal grants for the construction of sewage treatment plants,
the Republicans displayed a singular disregard for problems which reach
into the lives and well-being of all Americans.

In this connection, I should like to point out that during the 8 years
in which I have been chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee
responsible for the appropriations for Health, Education, and Welfare, e
Rhode island has taken a leading position as a center for medical research, \
research training, and progressive health programs. Through the Public
Health Service, Brown University,; Providence College; Rhode Island
Hospital; the University of Rhode Island; Butler Hospital: and the Emma
Pendteton Bradley Hospital have received grants for 2Z-research projects

sone=hralf million dollars. Appropriations for hospital

  

construction have meant the opening up of employment for at least 2800
people in Rhode Island, while our State established one of the first canter

detection centers for the cytologic testing of women to be set up anywhere

in the nation.
 

Encouraging as these developments are, I am particularly grateful that
the work of my Subcommittee has brought some help to the 500, 000 people
in the United States who have cerebral palsy and the estimated 4, 500, 000

with mental retardation, of whom about one-third are children. The plight

    

of these youngsters and the anguish of their parents, first browht to me
attention several years ago by the devoted concern of Archbishep- Richard

J. Cushingr-sannot be measured in dollars.

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wy the fund appropriated for néurologi¢al’ study and ‘the’ resepech grants

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| entally retarded v will
| spéed th the, day ‘when tis terrible burden may be *itted”

The people of Rhode Island can take just pride in the fact that their
state has come to play an essential role in the national neurological
program. Brown University's Department of Biology and Psychology,
through the Institute for Research in the Health Sciences, was one of the
first professional groups to join in a collaborative study under the National
Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness in Bethesda, Maryland,
Today the Providence Lying-in Hospital, the Rhode Island Hospital, Miriam
Hospital, Emma Pendleton Bradley Home, and the Meeting Street School
are all working with the University in this program.

But just as the Administration was prepared to cut back the funds which
have made this progress possible, so it was equally ready to oppose a
measure which is of the greatest concern to the well-being of the people

of the Second Congressional District. Irefer, of course, to the Democratically

sponsored Rivers and Harbors bill. This $1.5 billion dollar measure involved
 

a total of 151 projects, including the construction of effective hurricane
barriers for Narragansett Bay. The story of the uphill fight for this
program, which President Eisenhower desatibed as a "waste of public funds"
and vetoed in 1956 and April 1958, is one in which I can truthfully say I
played no small part. As one of its sponsors and defenders in the House

of Representatives, I helped to see this measure written into law this June.

The/$25 million project which the will pring | to our State will not only afford

f f f é ; f oa
i os ays be of fo
lohg-Aw aikted relief front the fawages of huricaned ‘but wil proyide ovér N

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p 000 jobs for Rhode Istanddrs. It stands as solid evidence of the kind of

 

public works program through which the Democratic Party seeks to fight
the recession and its evil consequences.

It will be my purpose in future radio talks over this station to bring
to your attention further proofs of the record of constructive work and
positive action for the public good which my Democratic colleagues and I
have been able to achieve during tle term of the 85th Congress. There is no
substitute for such concrete and definite legislative work, just as there can
be no acceptable substitute for the experience and the honest intentions
which produced it. But it is not only the past that concerns the thoughtful
voter. He is entitled to know why the Democratic majorities which
characterized the 85th Congress should be strengthened during the last two
years in which the Administration will be in power. What is to be the
future for housing, the aging, education? What are the prospects for constructive
proposals for world peace and for beating the constantly rising living cost,
which the Administration has allowed to go unchecked? Will the die-hard
Republican Old Guard, the voice of the dead past, be permitted to hold

sufficient strength in Congress to sabotage even that legislation which more
progressive Republicans might be disposed to support? Iam confident
that after a fair hearing of my answers to these and other important -
questions affecting their well-being, the voters of the Second Congressional

District will, as they have done in the past, permit me to represent and

serve them in the next Congress.