Now you can say, Well, we lost shoes, lost clothes, what difference does it make. Let me remind you of something, there have always been two main drivers of the American economy, one, houses and buildings and everything that goes in them. Number two, automobiles.

Then you say, Well, Toyota is over here building plants. They seem to be able to succeed. Nissan is here, they're succeeding. Hyundai, South Korean, they're coming here. They're succeeding, so what does it matter who makes the cars whether it's them GM or Ford.

I want to tell you what the difference is. Toyota has the most plants in the United States. Why do they have plants here because they're afraid we're going to close them down on trade if they don't.

But even with that, half the Toyotas sold in the United States and Lexuses and the other products we make are still made in Japan. So this is kind of show plants, if you will, to keep the pressure off.

The other thing you need to understand is that over half of the parts that are put together by Toyota workers who are Americans in these American plants that make half the cars they sell in the United States, over half of the parts, about 60 percent, come from Japan. And they're the best.

We got to wake up. I'm not saying put walls around the United States. I argued in NAFTA that we ought to have a NAFTA, but only if it's a fair NAFTA, not just a free NAFTA.

And what I said, and I only lost by two votes, back then over 15 years ago I lost that vote, what I argued was that, Okay, you can bring your products from Mexico in here, American plants going to Mexico, bringing products back in, you can do that. But if in any plant they aren't religiously following all of the environmental and labor laws of Mexico, put aside the United States, they can't bring those products into the United States.

And I had the president of Mexico tell me when we were negotiating the treaty, Oh, we can't do that. I said, Why not. He said, You don't understand the way Mexico operates. I said, That's the problem. I think I do. You don't enforce your labor and environmental laws. And I said to him face-to-face for me I'm not willing to have free trade with Mexico unless you're forced to enforce your labor and environmental laws so it's no to this NAFTA. And I was right 15 years ago and we better get about changing that treaty now so it doesn't continue to bite us in the back side.

Let me just end on trade by saying if it weren't for you and the other labor unions in this country, there would be no argument on the other side of free trade. You believe me when I tell you that. There's nobody else out there that's going to argue for this. All the Company's that want to go to Mexico or China, they're for free trade, not just fair trade.

All the consumers who think they're doing so well at Wal-Mart, they're not for fair trade, they're just for free trade. You're it.

When I was fighting NAFTA. When I was fighting the China Free Trade Treaty, the only ally I had out in the country was organized labor. So I'm here today to tell you don't give up, don't give in, don't get cynical.

Yes, we've lost some battles. We've won some battles, but there's going to be more battles, and we better dig in and fight and win or there is not going to be a middle class left in this country. We are going to have a standard of living down to the level of China and Mexico, and it had better not happen, and organized labor is the only thing standing between us and that. So keep on keeping on. We have to win this fight.

The last issue I want to mention today is healthcare and pensions. You know there are a lot of people out there working today, most of them not in labor unions, who don't have healthcare. And they don't have a pension, and they're never going to have either.

I don't want to just pick on Wal-Mart. There are a lot of other employers out there that don't give any healthcare. Oh, they say they do. Yeah, they got a healthcare policy. It covers nothing. The deductible's $5,000 so you never really get anything, so it doesn't cost anything because it never happens.

Then the pension deal is everybody wants to go, you know, defined contribution, that's the word of the day, getting rid of the defined benefit, can't afford that. They don't have that in China. So let's have defined contribution.

So let's give the worker a couple hundred bucks a year and maybe they can add some of their own to it and maybe they can't, so they'll build their own pension, and then they go out to people and say you want to control your own money. You don't want those trustees to control your money. And people fall for it.

There was even a time a while ago where people were day traders, you know, they were staying home from work to work on the computer trading their stock. They thought that was neat until they lost all the damn money. It's like being here in Las Vegas.

Sounds good when you are pulling that handle, but then nothing comes out the bottom.

And so we kind of convince people that you don't need healthcare insurance, you're healthy. And you don't need a pension, you're young. You're never going to need this. So people wonder why they need a union to get that stuff.

And with this Administration, they've even gone so far as to go after Social Security, want to make it voluntary. Now maybe I'm just getting too old, but I was a student of history in the public schools in St. Louis, and I remember my teacher telling us about pensions and Social Security and what was going on in the country before there was Social Security and there were no pensions. We were in a Depression.

And part of bringing the confidence of the people back, Franklin Roosevelt said, We need a public Social Security system, not your only pension but a foundation pension that can never be taken away from you.

And now this Administration's been running around for six years saying we ought to make it voluntary or let people run their own account or whatever they're trying to say. They're really saying let's get rid of Social Security.

You know sometimes when you're in a fight you have to, like, the General talked this morning, you got to win one at the start. You got to finally plant your flag in the ground, you got to win.

Well as best as I can figure out, we've won on Social Security. The President doesn't talk about it anymore. His people in Congress don't talk about it anymore. They read the polls and found out that 70, 80 percent of the American people didn't agree with him and wouldn't vote for him if they did that.

So they backed off. You know democracy works. When you got a little dumb and bad idea, it finally comes through. And people told him, Keep your bloody hands off of our Social Security.

We won that fight. Now we got to go back and fight for defined benefit plans and explain to people why it's important to have a defined benefit plan that is run by experienced advisors who know how to make these investments so the money is there when you need it.

And, finally, we need to fight for more government help for health insurance so that every person in this country has a real right to a health insurance policy for them and their families

I can't leave healthcare without telling my story because sometimes we get kind of cynical about these issues and cynical about healthcare.

I didn't think about healthcare when I was a young father. Jean and I got married in 1966. We had this little boy in 1970. He was two years old. I had health insurance, but I didn't really think about it, didn't really care about it. I thought I can take care of him, you know, we're not going to get sick.

So one day I get a call from my wife she's over at Children's Hospital and this two-year old boy, our only child at the time, diagnosed with terminal cancer. Hello. Wake up.

I'll never forget walking in the hospital, the doctor says he has a huge tumor on his prostate, the third reported case in the United States' history. It's a tumor usually found behind the eye. It shouldn't be on his prostate. It's invaded his entire abdominal cavity. It's too big to operate on. We don't think any of this stuff will work. He probably can't live six weeks. All of his systems are shutting down.

All you do is pray. That's all you can do. I went home that night and prayed all night.

Can we have an answer. Went back the next day, a young doctor came in. He said, This is a bad case. I don't think it will work, but we went on the computer last night, we found some therapies, radiation, chemotherapy. We are going to hit him with everything we got.

You may not want to do it because the side effects are really bad. Probably going to lose his bladder, his intestines, he's going to lose this, that and the other thing, but it's all we can do. It's either that or sit here and watch him die.

So we had insurance. I got out the insurance policy. It covered all this stuff, chemotherapy everyday, radiation every week, five years.

Matt's alive. He is 35 years old. And he just produced our second grandchild, Truman Matthew Gephardt, four months ago with his wife. He's alive. He would not be alive if we didn't have health insurance. There is no way on God's green earth he would have lived had we not had the insurance to pay for the therapies that he was able to get.

I get this issue. And you get this issue. And even if you've never had a story like mine in your family, you might have one. And we need to tell everybody whether they're organized or unorganized, healthcare should be a right. It should be a necessity. It should not be optional. It shouldn't be Wal-Marted. It shouldn't be high deductible. It should be there for everybody in this country, and that's a fight we have to carry on and win.

Now in closing, it's my great honor to present your president. I ran for president of the United States in 2004 as many of you know. A number of unions supported me because of the fights that we've carried on, some of which I've described this morning.

No union supported me more or better than the Boilermakers. I saw many of you in the field. I saw your bus all over Iowa as it traveled around with me and my wife and my family and my supporters. It was a constant feeling of support and loyalty from this union.

And I knew and you knew that we weren't doing this because I'm Dick Gephardt or I used to have red hair or whatever. I knew you were there because we shared common beliefs and common values and common causes.

And one of the things I learned in life is that it really doesn't matter so much whether you win or lose. What matters is whether you try because in the trying you deliver information and education to thousands of people you will never meet or never know.

I remember Lech Walesa had breakfast with me back in the '80s. I said to him what was the turning point in setting up solidarity in Poland. He talked about trying to run strikes and nobody would show up and the workers wouldn't support him and he kept trying and trying and nothing worked, and finally he got arrested and beaten and they threw him over the fence of the shipyard, and said if you ever come back, we're going to kill you.

He said he remembered lying face down in the mud scared to death, beaten to a pulp. He went home, and he said to his wife, I'm never going back. I'm done. I'm defeated. And she said, You can't be defeated because if you're defeated, you'll die anyway.

So he went back the next day and started another strike. A few more workers came, and the next day some more came, and the next day some more came and, finally, all 5,000 steelworkers were with him. And they formed solidarity, and they won the strike and they changed their company and they changed their country. And I would say to you they changed the history of the world.

And Walesa leaned over to me and he said, You know, I've often thought back about that day when I was face down in the mud and I wondered what would have happened if I hadn't gone back. General Moore talked this morning, the number one rule he mentioned was never quit.

No, we didn't win the presidential campaign. A lot of these fights I've talked about, we haven't won. But that doesn't mean you quit. That means you grab down inside of yourself and you fight to get these things done that you haven't been able to get done because in the end, I'm an optimist. I'm positive as the General said, I believe we will get these things done. It's the only way you get hard things done. If it was easy, it would have been done a long time ago. It is hard. And that's why we will prevail.

And you have in this man, in my humble opinion, a leader with all the characteristics that General Moore talked about this morning, self-confidence, vision, character, integrity, a willingness to fight, and loyalty; that's what you have, and that's what you have.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my honor. It is my great honor to present your president, Newton Jones.