An equally unpardonable falsification about our economy is made when Republican leaders talk about American business-how it cannot make a profit, how little confidence it has in this Administration, and how this Administration hates business.

We know, if we but look at the record, that American business, big and small business, is way up above the level of 1932, and on a much sounder footing than it was even in the twenties.

Do you need figures to prove it? Just a few:

Our national income has nearly doubled since 1932, from thirty-nine billions up to the rate of seventy-four billions in 1940. And if you properly consider the lower cost of living today than in 1929 the national income is even higher now than in that great boom year.

In the ten years before the crash of 1929, the years of the so-called prosperity boom, bank failures averaged over six hundred a year. The number of bank failures last year was only forty-two, and of those forty-two, thirty-two were not under Federal deposit insurance. Ten were. Those ten were under Federal deposit insurance set up by this Administration; in those ten banks, ninety-nine per cent of the depositors did not lose one dollar.

During this Administration the total number of bank failures for the entire seven years was less than the number of bank failures in any single year of the preceding ten years.

It is a funny world! You know, there are some banks now using money to advertise, or to send letters to their depositors, hinting that unless this Administration is defeated, the deposits of their banks will be in danger. That is sheer intimidation to blackjack the election, and to return the financial control of the Government to the very forces which had nearly wrecked the nation.

Now as to corporation profits. They were a minus quantity in 1932. Corporations as a whole showed losses of almost four billion dollars that year. By now, eight years later, that deficit has been not only wiped out, but corporations are reporting profits of four billion dollars a year.

And yet they say this Administration prevents profits and stifles business!

If it is true that the New Deal is the enemy of business, and that the Republican leaders, who brought business to the brink of ruin in 1932, are the friends of business—then I can only say that American business should continue to be saved from its friends.

The output of our factories and mines is now almost thirteen per cent greater than at the peak of 1929—1929, mind you, not 1932. It is at the highest level ever recorded.

We have passed the time when the prosperity of the nation is measured in terms of the stock ticker. We know that the well-being of a people is measured by the manner in which they live, by the security which they feel in their future.

For the American people as a whole—the great body of its citizens—the standard of living has increased well above that of 1929.

We do not advertise "a chicken in every pot" or even "two cars in every garage." We know that it is more important that the American people this year are building more homes, are buying more pairs of shoes, more washing machines, more electric refrigerators, more electric current, more textile products than in the boom year of 1929.

This year there is being placed on the tables of America more butter, more cheese, more meat, more canned goods—more food in general than in that luxurious year of 1929.

Last Sunday morning I had a good laugh, when I read the following in the financial section of The New York Times—a paper which is reputed not to love me too much. This is what a writer of the financial page of The New York Times said, I quote: "The Federal Reserve Board in the week added another point to its index of production for September, and the figure now stands at one hundred and twenty-five, or thirteen and a half per cent above the 1929 average"—mind you, not the 1932 average but the 1929 average. I quote further: "Dreams of business flat on its back' must come from smoking campaign cigars or else the speakers are talking about some other country."

Wouldn't it be nice if the editorial writers of The New York Times could get acquainted with their own business experts?

Every single man, woman and child has a vital interest in this recovery. But if it can be said to affect any single group more than any other, that group would be the young men and women of America.