Congressman Ike Skelton at the Missouri State Democratic Convention in Columbia on Saturday

Ike Skelton was the final featured speaker to address the assembled delegates at the convention. You could have heard a pin drop throughout most of his speech.

Before and after he spoke he had an unending line of supporters, friends and constituents walk over to the guest/observer seating area to speak with him and greet him.

His remarks:

Thank you so much. Fellow Democrats it’s wonderful to be with you today. Take pride in what you’re doing. You are representing the wonderful American people. You’re making the politics, which, it’s not a dirty word, you’re making politics work in our country and I’m really proud of you. And let me thank you for your efforts, not just as a Democrat, but as an American. [applause]

Priorities are important. We have a priority today. We will have it, not just on Election Day in November either, we will have it after a successful election on that day to work with and supporting those that we elect.

Priorities. Old John was on his death bed. Family came in to see him to say “good bye.” His family priest came in and did the last rites. Old John was lying there ready to breathe his last breath. And he smelled something. Chocolate chip cookies! [laughter] “My favorite!” And he crawled out of bed and he crawled into the kitchen. And sure enough, there was his wife, making chocolate chip cookies. She was putting them on a plate and he reached up to take one. And his wife slapped his hand with the spatula and said, “You can’t do that.” He said, “What did you do that for?” She said, “Those are for the funeral.” [extended laughter] Obviously her priority [laughter] was different from his. [laughter]

We have a priority ourselves. That priority is to have a Democratic win in this state in [garbled]. [applause]

We are presently in the throes of a hard fought Democratic presidential contest. Difficult? Yes. But Democracy at its best. And I notice some speaking how “divisive” it is and how divisive it will be. But let me remind you, we have been there before. This past Thursday my fellow colleagues, Democratic colleagues from Missouri as well as our United States Senator, Claire McCaskill, and I had lunch [garbled] May the 8th, Harry Truman’s birthday, in Room 128 of the capitol building. Room 128 was named “The Board of Education” by the late Sam Rayburn, where he would hold forth late in the afternoon and the early evenings, back in yesteryear. And you had to be really special to be invited to have a little branch water and play cards. And Harry Truman was invited there from time to time when he was vice president. April the 12th 1945 he was in that room just a short period of time [garbled] with Sam Rayburn and a few of the other congressional Democrats. The phone rang and he was called to the telephone and told, “Come to the White House immediately.” He ran from that room over to the other side of the capitol and drove over to the White House where he was told that President Roosevelt had died. And that he, the vice president, would become the president of the United States.

It was a difficult time for him. He didn’t know much, he hadn’t been in on many of the decisions that the previous administration had made. But he worked at it. Made some tough calls. And some were quite unpopular.

The Democrats lost the congress in 1946. Harry Truman decided he should remain as president. At the Democratic national convention it was contentious. Claude Pepper led, Senator Claude Pepper led the movement to dump Harry Truman. Strom Thurmond and several other Democratic delegations left the convention [garbled] establishing the dixiecrat party. Harry Truman persevered.

That 1948 campaign was difficult and President Truman campaigned on the back end of a train with his famous whistle stop tour of America. And he was losing. The Gallup organization stopped polling a week before the election knowing that he was down so far he could not win. Harry Truman persevered.

About a week before the election I was with my dad who was a good friend of Harry Truman’s, having known him back in the late 20s. And I asked, “Dad, can President Truman win this election?” And he said, “Don’t count Harry Truman out.”

I remember election night as a teenager, high schooler, listening to the Republican oriented radio announcer…saying how, even though President Truman was winning such and such a state, other states were going to come in for Governor Dewey. Harry Truman won that. Divisive. But he won and glued our country together and today it’s interesting to note republicans like to claim the legacy of Harry Truman. [applause]

Keep that in mind when people speak about we are going through a divisive era in our party.

It happened again. In 1960 I was a young lawyer attending the Democratic national convention in Los Angeles and representing Stuart Symington as several others were. Trying to woo the delegates for a favorite Missourian of the day. And it seemed like he was everyone’s second choice. And a fellow the name of Kennedy went over the top, barely, on the first ballot.

And there we knew he was going to be chosen, Senator Symington was going to be chosen vice president. We had heard that officially. He was not. Senator Lyndon Johnson was chosen. But the divisiveness of that convention glued itself together behind the Kennedy Johnson [garbled]. And, and it worked. Kennedy pulled people together and the democrats decided to work together and we did. And we won.

So don’t let anybody tell you that what we’re going through today will be divisive. We’ve been there before. We will win in November and be proud of it. And we will be able to say we have a Democratic president as well as a Democratic congress. [applause]

We as democrats have our values. We want a strong America, we want a decent America. A strong America economically, a strong America militarily, and a strong America diplomatically. [applause] A decent America following the needs of the people…while we speak of health care or jobs. We understand the needs of our neighbors. We really care for them.

We also want our country to have restored to its respect among the nations of this world. [applause] [garbled]] I’m not exaggerating when I say our country is in trouble. Not just economically, but international. Our young men, our young women in uniform are making us proud, despite the fact that on two occasions prior to the president ordering our troops into Iraq, two occasions, I warned him of the aftermath. And they sent two high officials from the White House over to see me. To say, “Ike, it’ll be all right. Don’t worry about it.” Sadly, I was right.

We have a tall order. As Democrats and as Americans we have a tall order to right our country domestically and to right our country internationally. We can do it. We can do it if we work at it and believe that we can do it.

Beware of the naysayers. Beware of those that say that we’re so divided we can’t get the job done. We can and we will. [applause]…