Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Bumpers Urges Democratic Vote (cont)

.S. Constitution, a document the GOP believes to be a rough draft they need to finish.

The first amendment guarantees the freedom of religion, speech and of the press. "It shouldn't be tampered with," Bumpers said.

There are those, he said, who want a state religion, but Bumpers invited anyone interested to visit a nation with a state religion to help make their decision on the issue.

On the topic of a line item veto, he said, the Republican-led Senate felt Pres. Ronald Regan would be in office forever and wanted it. When Clinton used the line item veto, the GOP "squealed like a pig under a gate," he said. The line-item veto has since been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bumpers closed with quotes from Thomas Jefferson and FDR.

"The price of democracy," from Jefferson, "is eternal vigilance," Bumpers quoted. "We can't lose sight of what we believe in as a nation."

From Roosevelt, he said the groans of the rich are louder than the empty stomachs of the poor. "A nation like this shouldn't have poor or hungry people."

Bumpers urged all present, some 250, to get out and vote democratic in the November General Election, and turn the nation back in the right direction.