Adlai E. Stevenson

 I accept your nomination and your program.  And I pledge to you every 
resource mind and strength that I possess to make your deed today a 
good one for our country and for our party.

 Four years ago I stood in this same place and uttered those same words
to you. But four years ago we lost. This time we will win!

My heart is full tonight, as the scenes and faces and events of those busy
years in between croud my mind.

 To you here tonight  and across the country who have sustained me in this
great undertaking for months and even years, I am deeply, humbly grateful:
and to none more than the noble lady who is also the treasurer of a legacy
of greatness -- Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, who has reminded us so movingly
that this is 1956 and not 1932, nor even 1952; that our problems alter as 
well as their solutions; that change is the law of life, and that political 
parties, no less than individuals ignore it as their peril.

 I salute also the distinguished American who has been more than equal
to the hard test of disagreement and has now reaffirmed our common 
cause so graciously -- President Harry Truman.  I am glad to have you
on my side again, Sir!

 I am sure that the country is as grateful to this Convention as I am for 
it's action of this afternoon.  It has renewed and reaffirmed our faith in
free democratic processes.



 The office of the Vice-Presidency has been dignified by the manner of
your selection as well as by the distinction of your choice.  Senator 
Kefauver is a great Democrat and a great campaigner -- as I have 
reason to know better than anybody!

 If we are elected and it is God's will that I do not serve my full four
years, the people will have a new President whom they can trust.
He has dignity; he has convictions, and he will command respect
of the American people of the world.

 The program you have written is, I think more than a concensus of
the strongly held convictions of a strong man; it is a signpost toward
that New America. It speaks of the issues of our time with passion
for justice, with reverence for our history and charactor, with a long
view of the American future, and with sober, fervent dedication to the 
goal of peace on earth.

 Nor has it evaded the current problems in the relations between
the races who comprise America, problems which have so often 
tormented out national life. Of cource there is disagreement in the 
Democratic Party on desegregation. It would not be otherwise
in the only paty that must speak responsibly and responsively
in both the North and the South.  If all of us are not wholly
satisfied with what we have said on this explosive subject it
is because we have only spoken the only way a truly national
party can -- by understanding accommodation of conflicting views.

 But in so doing, in substituting realism and persuasion for the 
extremes of force or nullification, our party has preserved its 
effectiveness, it has avoided a sectional crisis, and it has 
contributed to our national unity as only a national party 
could.

 As President it would be my purpose to press on in accordance
with our platform toward the fuller freedom for all our citizens
which is at once our party's pledge and the American promiss.

 I do not propose to make political capital out of the President's 
illness. His ability to personally fulfill the demands of his exacting
office is a matter between him and the American people. So far as
I am concerned that is where the matter rests. As we all do, I wish 
deeply for the President's health and well being. 
 
 But if the condition of President Eisenhower is not and issue as far 
as I am concerned, the condition and the conduct of the President's 
office and of the administration is very much an issue.

 The men who run the Eisenhower administration evidently believe
that the minds of Americans can be manipulated by shows, slogans
and the arts of advertising. And that conviction will, I dare say, be 
backed up by the greatest torrent of money ever poured out to influence 
an American election -- poured out by men who fear nothing so much
as change and who want everything to stay as it is -- only more so.

 This idea that you can merchandisc candidates for hight office like
breakfast cereal -- that you can gather votes like box tops -- is, I
think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.  And we Democrats 
must also face the fact that no administration has ever before enjoyed 
such uncritical and enthusiastic support from so mush of the press as
this one.

 But let us ask the people of our country to what great purpose for all
the Republic has the President's popularity and this unrivalled 
opportunity for leadership been put? Has the Eisenhower administration 
used this opportunity to elevate us? To inspire us? Did it, in a time of
headlong, worldwide, revolutionary change, prepare us for stern decisions
and great risks? Did it, in short, give men and women a glimpse of the
nobility and vision without which peoples and nations perish?

 Or did it just reassure us that all is well, everything is all right, that 
everyone is prosperous and safe, that no great decisions are required 
of us, and that even the Presidency of the United States has somehow 
become as easy job?

 I will have to confess that the Republician administration has performed 
a minor miracle -- after twenty years of incessant damnation of the New 
Deal they not only haven't repealed it but they have swallowed it, or most 
of it, and it looks as though they could keep it down at least until after
the election.

 I suppose we should be thankful that they have caught up with the New
Deal at last, but what have they done to take advantage of the great
opportunities of these times -- a generation after the New Deal?

 Well, I say they have smothered us in smiles and complacency while
our social and economic advancement has ground to a halt and while
oue leadership and the security in the world have been imperiled.

 In spite of these unparalleled opportunities to lead at home and 
abroad they have, I say, been wasting our opportunities and losing our world.

 I say that what this country needs is not propaganda and a personality
cult, what this country needs is leadership and truth.  And that's what we 
mean to give it.

 What is truth?

 The truth is that the Repubican party is a house divided. The truth is
that President Eisenhower, cynicall coveted as a candiate but ignored
as a leader, is largely indebted to Democrats in Congress for what
accomplishments he can claim.

 The truth is that everyone is not prosperous. The truth is that the 
farmer, especially the family farmer who matters most, has not had
his fair share of the national income and the Republician have done 
nothing to help him -- until an election year.

 The truth is that thirty million Americans live today in families 
trying to make ends meet on less tha $2,000 a year.  The truth is that 
the small farmer, the small businessman, the teacher, the white collar 
worker , and the retired citizen trying to pay today's prices on yesterdays 
pension -- all these are in serious trouble.

 The truth is that in this government of the big men -- big financially --
no one speaks for the little man.

 The truth is not that our policy abroad has Communist on the run. The
truth, unhappily, is not -- in the Republician President's words -- that
our 'prestige since the last World War has never been as high as it is today.'
The truth is that it ahs never been lower,

 The truth is that we are losing the military advantage, the economic
initative and the moral leadership.

 The truth is not that we are winning the cold war. The truth is that we 
are losing the cold war.

 Don't misunderstand me. I, for one, am ready to ackowledge the
sincerity of the Republician President's desire for peace and 
happiness for all. But good intentions are not good enough and
the country is stalled on dead center -- stalled in the middle of the 
road -- while the world goes whirling by. America, which has lifted
man to his hightest economic state, which has saved freedom in 
war and peace, which saved collective security, no longer sparks 
and flames and gives off new ideas and initiatives.  Our lights are
dimmed. We chat complancently of this and that while, in  Carlyle's
phrase, 'Death and enternity sit glaring.' And I could add that
opportunity, neglected opportunity, sits glaring too!

 But you cannot surround the future with arms, you cannot dominate 
the racing world by standing still.  And I say it is time to get up and
get moving again. It is time for America to be herself again.

 And that is what this election is all about!

 Here at home we can make good the lost opportunities; we can
recover the wasted years; we can cross the threshold to the New America.

 What we need is a rebirth of leadership -- leadership which will give
us a glimpse of the nobility and vision without which peoples and 
nations perish. Woodrow Wilson said that 'when America loses its ardor 
for mankind it is time to elect a Democratic Presidend.' There doesn't
appear to be much ardor in America just now for anything, and it's 
time to elect a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congess, 
Yes, and a Democratic government in every state and local office
across the land.

 In our hearts we know that the horizons of the New America are as
endless, Its promiss as staggering in its richness as the unfolding 
miracle of human knowledge. America renews itself with every forward 
thrust of the human mind.

 We live at a time when automation is ushering in a second Industrial
Revolution, and the powers of the atom are about to be harnessed
for ever greater production. We live at a time when even the ancient 
spectre of hunger is vanishing. This is the age of abundance. Never
in history has there been such and opportunity to show what we can do
to improve the quality of living now that the terrible, grinding, anxieties
of the daily bread, of clothing and shelter, are disappering.  With
leadership, Democratic leadership, we can do justice to our children,
we can repair the ravages of time and neglect in our shools. We can
and we will!

 With leadership, Democratic leadership, we can restore the vitality
of the American family farm. We can perserve the postion of small 
business without injury to the large. We can strenghten labor unions 
and collective bargaining as vital institutions in a free economy. We 
can and our party history proves we will!

 With leadership, Democratic leadership, we can conserve our 
resources of land and forest and water and develop them for benefit
of all. We can and the record shows that we will!

 With leadership, Democratic leadership, we can rekindle the spirit
of liberty embalazoned in the Bill of Rights; we can build this New
America where the doors of opportunity are open equally to all, yes, 
the doors of our school rooms. We can make this a land where
opportunity is founded only on responsibility and freedom of faith, 
and where nothing can smother the lonely defiant spirit of the free
intelligence. We can, and by our traditions as a Party we will!



 All thes things we can do and we will. But in the international
field the timing is only partially our own. Here the 'unrepentant
minute' once missed, may be missed forever. Other forces, growing 
yearly in potency, dispute with us the direction of our times. Here 
more than anywhere guidance and illumination are needed in the
terrifying century of the hydrogen bomb. Here more than anywhere
we must move, and rapidly, to repair the ravages of the past four
years to America's repute and influence abroad.

 We must move with speed and confidence to reverse the spread
of Communism. We must strengthen the political and econmic fabric 
of our alliances. We must launch new programs to meet the challenge
of the vast social revolution that is sweeping the world and turn the
violent forces of change to the side of freedom.

 We must protect the new nations in the exercise of their full
independence; and we must help other peoples out of Communist
or colonial servitude along the hard road to freedom.

  And we must place out nation where it belons in the eyes of the 
world -- at the head of the struggle for peace. For in this nuclear age 
peace is no longer a visionary ideal. It has become an absolute,
imperative necessity. Humanity's long struggle against war has
to be won and won now. Yes, and I say it can be won.

 It is time to listen again to our hearts, to speak again of our ideals,
to be again our own great selves.

 There is a spiritual hunger in the world today and it cannot be
satisfied by material things alone. Our forebears came here to worship 
God. We must not let our espirations so diminish that our worship
becomes rather a Bigness -- bigness of material achievement.

 For a century and a half the Democratic Party has been the party of 
respect for the people, of reverence for life, of hope for each child's
future, of belief that 'the highest revelation is that God is in every man.'

 Once we were not ashamed in this country to be idealists. Once we 
were proud to confess that an American is a man who wants peace and 
believes in a better future and loves his fellow man. We must reclaim 
these great Christian and humane ideas.  We must dare to say again
that the American cause is the cause of all mankind.

 If we are to make honest citizens of out hearts we must unite them
again to the ideals in which they have always believed and give those
ideals the courage of out tongues.

 Standing as we do here tonight at this great fork of history, may we
never be silenced, may we never lose our faith in freedom and the 
better destiny of man. 
   
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