I am a Democrat

I am a Democrat. I belong to the political party which first recognized the dignity, and which first exalted the worth of the working men and women of America.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which ended the widespread practice of child labor in the fields and the factories and the work­ places of America.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which enacted laws that mandated the eight-hour workday and the forty-hour work week. I belong to the party that provided for premium pay for work beyond those limits, and that required that America’s workers be paid a living wage for their labors.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which wrote laws to establish and enforce fair labor standards and practices for America’s workers.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party that provided America’s workers with unemployment insurance to guarantee that the loss of a job did not mean economic disaster for the worker and that worker’s family.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which gave American workers the right to organize in labor and in craft unions to protect their hard-won rights as human beings in the workplace.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which conceived and created the Social Security System in the effort to insure that never again would the elderly poor among our citizens suffer the shame of being placed in Poor Farms and Workhouses so common in America’s not-so-distant past.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party that constantly strove to meet, on a national level, the economic, medical and educational needs of America’s most cherished resource – her children – at a time when the needs of America’s children were only partially addressed, or not addressed at all by local and state governments.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which envisioned the World War II GI Bill of Rights to enable the millions of heroic servicemen and women to return to civilian life and resume their civilian life and resume their interrupted education, or the job they left behind to serve their country.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which has fought tirelessly for the civil rights of all Americans regardless of their origin or their race, or their color or creed.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which fought the War on Poverty that provided, among other things, for equality in education for all children, and for food and medical care for the needy-especially needy children among us, and which provided the elderly with insured medical coverage.

I am a Democrat. I belong to the party which has fought diligently and consistently with its mind, its heart and its soul to safe guard every social and economic gain made by the American people during the past six decades.

I am a Democrat. I am profoundly proud to be a Democrat.

– From the Lewis County Democratic Club, in Washington State, written by Bill Ullom.