Signed
Typescript signed, her 1956 Democratic National Convention speech.
[Chicago]: [1956].
Price: $3,500.00
About the item
6pp., recto only of six quarto sheets. Signed on the last page. 4to. Signed. Stapled. Toned very slightly.
Item #346578
In 1952, the Democrats had lost the White House to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, after holding it since 1932; in 1956, at their convention held in Chicago, they again nominated Adlai Stevenson on the first ballot. A supporter of Stevenson, 71-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt addressed the delegates on August 15, the third night of the convention. In her address, she harkened back to many of the themes brought forth by FDR, touching upon Communism and poverty, and quoting from his 1933 Inaugural:
"It is true we have differences, but everywhere in our country we know that today our differences must somehow be resolved, because we stand before the world on trial, really, to show what democracy means, and that is a heavy responsibility, because the world today is deciding between democracy and Communism, and one means freedom and one means slavery ... Great leaders we have had, but we could not have had great leaders unless they had had a great people to follow. You cannot be a great leader unless the people are great. That is what I want to remind every one of you tonight. You must be a great people with great objectives. I remember very well the first crisis that we met in '32, and I remember that we won out, because the people were ready to carry their share of the burden, and follow and carry through the words, 'All you have to fear, the only thing you have to fear, is fear itself'..."
In the general election, Stevenson and his running mate Estes Kefauver would lose in a landslide to Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.
