Stump Speech
Eau Claire, WI, March 14, 1960
Hubert H. Humphrey

Hmm...Hmm, now that's good coffee [sips from cup].  I can tell from this that we must have some Norwegians here.

Now, gentlemen, I'm one of the candidates in your Wisconsin Presidential primary race.  We're going to have an election here on Tuesday, April the 5th.  Now this election is, of course, a very important one in terms of your state.  Now, my friends, during my service in the United States Senate, in 12 years, I have given more time, more attention to matters of agriculture than any other one subject.

Now, Senator Humphrey is not out here just to please you by these comments.  I say that Wisconsin has lost hundreds of millions of dollars of sales.  I say that the businessmen of Wisconsin have lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business because of reduced farm income.  And I charge here that not a single candidate in this primary election has paid any attention to the farmer at all, except Hubert Humphrey.  And I make that statement without any boast or any claim.

Instead of you reading about who you ought to have as President in Life Magazine, you ought to take a good look at them in the flesh.  You ought to hear what they got to say.  Because let me tell you something, Life, Times, Fortune, Look,and Newsweek, don't give a hoot about your dairy prices.  And I know.  They laugh at you.  I've been down to their editorial boards, and some of them, I'll tell you, they have no more appreciation of a farmer's problem than they have of what's going on the other side of the moon!  Frankly, they don't know the difference between a corn cob and a ukulele!

I can tell you that my votes aren't very popular sometimes in New York City or Boston, because back there they want a price support program that's lower.

When I read the editorials, The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, The New York Times, they say that the farmer is being subsidized.  And they look at Hubert Humphrey's record and they say, well, this fellow this Humphrey, he's just from the Mid-West.  He is just for those farmers.  That's what they say.  They're right, I am.  But I'm not, if you please, for a farm program that will destroy agriculture!

I think Benson's farm program is insane!  And I guarantee you one thing, if I get to be President of the United States, I will buy that man a ticket personally and send him right back to Utah where he ought to have been all the time!

Now, thank you very much for letting me speak to you.  You've been a fine and good audience.  Good, luck and safe journey home.  We're going on to LaCrosse and, by the way, tune in tonight at 7:30, we're going to have another one of those television shows, and if you got a question you want to ask, just pick up the phone and call me collect.  Just pick it up and say I want to talk to that fellow Humphrey at the TV station in LaCrosse and put that call through and ask me on the air.

You can make it tough, make it real tough, because people like it better that way.They like to see me squirm.  You make it real tough, and I will try to give you a good answer.

Thanks very, very much.