James Oberstar: “I close with an observation about the last campaign of President Truman about which he reminisced in Plain Speaking…”

“I close with an observation about the last campaign of President Truman about which he reminisced in Plain Speaking: Another thing about that election, I won it not because of any special oratorical effects or because I had any help from what you would call the Madison Avenue fellows but by a statement of fact of what had happened in the past would happen in the future if the fellow that was running against me was elected. I made 352 speeches that were on the record and about the same number that were not. I traveled altogether 31,700 miles, I believe, and it was the last campaign in which that kind of approach was made. Now, of course, everything is television; and the candidates travel from one place to another by jet airplane. And I don't like that. I think the American people do not like it much, either. I think they would like a return to the plain speaking of Harry Truman and to the personal contact that he made with people. If we could all live up to the very simple ideals by which he lived his life, ran the White House, steered us through the end of World War II and into the postwar period, we will all be a better country. That is why we are taking the step of naming the Department of State building for a man who is truly a statesman.”