return to the party of roosevelt and of truman, the party that truly looks after everyone who lacks a voice. [applause] harley cooper will be prodded me, because we're not going to come and come second -- come in second. we are the guarantor of stability in the world, and that is going to continue. thank you very much. [applause] governor o'malley:>> let me tell you

a little bit about governor martin o'malley. his father was the national leader of the democratic party. he came here in 1983 to work on gary hart's campaign is one of his staff organizers and had a chance to work on that great campaign in which he finished second. after graduating from law school he settled in baltimore. he ran for the city council and got elected. the mayor spot became open, and there was a crowded field running for that, and he was successful doing elected mayor. it was suffering through some really tough times regarding high crime rates and a struggling economy as a. baltimore was able to turn around, and became a city that was recognized nationally for some fine achievements.

he took on a republican incumbent and beat him in 2006 for governor. he was rewarded with a bad economy in he had to deal with. he enacted some innovative policies. he was reelected in 2010, and a bad year for democrats by a landslide. after he left office, he looked to these as these most successful conflicts with -- successful couples must greatly raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. [applause] he signed into law the marriage equality act. [applause] he signed into law legislation abolishing the death penalty. [applause] and he also was instrumental in passing the dream act to provide

in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. [applause] when he left office, they had recovered 100% of the jobs they lost during the recession. [applause] under his leadership, maryland public schools were ranked number one in the nation or five years in a row. [applause] and finally, the u.s. chamber of commmerce recognized him because he was number one and entrepreneurship for three years in a row. [applause] please give my strong applause for governor o'malley. [applause] governor o'malley: thank you very much. thank you. thank you. how are you doing? let's give it up for senator webb.

thank you for your message tonight. [applause] senator was, thank you for your message of economic fairness, for your message of national security, for your message of basic governance. i want you to turn to one another and say it is to be a democrat in full county. -- polk county. now turn to your other neighbor and say it. now that we've established that, let us establish one very important thing that i was taught by maryland senior senator paul sardines. we are great believers in the truth of program should end on the same day they start. [laughter] i'm way to get right into it. [laughter] tom henderson, i want to thank

you, tamara allen to think u.s. well. i want to thank all of you for being here today. sharon, and family of cognition and neil smit, thank you for thing that you did. sitting next use my 17 year old son william. [applause] we know that families give up a lot in order to support their parents in public service, and i would also like to tell your dad one other thing. and that is, my mom, barbara o'malley, who is 87 years old, when she found out i was coming to iowa, she said to say hello to my friend neil smith. she was in the young democrats of america, got her pilot's license during the second world war. at the time, after that, she was in washington dc. she remembers your father

very fondly. she would see your father in washington. i promised my mom i would do that. my parents were part of that generation that tom brokaw and others have called the greatest generation. but it was not a title they would readily embrace themselves. as americans they believe that every generation had an obligation to be a great generation. that is my message for you tonight. we still have time, all of us, to be a great generation of americans. and our children, and their feature is depending upon it great and yes, the future is watching. tonight i want to talk to you about the story of us. about the story of des moines and baltimore. about the story maryland and iowa, and the story of america. 200 years ago, in the war of

1812, true story, the british had just burned our nations capital to the ground. they had taken washington. the capital and the white house were burning and the people of my home city, the people of baltimore, could actually see the glow from those fires to our south. and now we knew that they were coming for us. amidst the ashes of our nations capital, the commanding british general at the time declared i'm going to march on baltimore, i'm going to dine there, because even then we had great restaurants. [laughter] and then i am going to burn baltimore to the ground. our nation was not yet 40 years old. the american dream at that

moment was facing extinction. imagine what we felt at that time. anger, fear, disbelief confident shattered, trust totally gone. there are moments in the life of our country, and they are defining moments when it seems the american dream itself is hanging by a thread. and yet for america, there is always a yet. that final thread that holds us could just read the strongest. 50% of the defenders at the time were actually immigrants. one out of five of us were citizens of an in perfect country, and one out of five of

the black defenders were free. we built trenches andd ramparts, and the people of baltimore stood firm. all of this in our own day, we now seeing the -- sing the star-spangled banner, the giants like wasted over for mchenry. as we sing the anthem today, let us remember that the colors of that star-spangled banner were themselves stitched together by black and white hands. by men's hands and women's hands. fans freedom, man's of bondage and i would submit to you, the thread that held that flight together than is the same thread that holds us together here tonight. [applause]

and what is that threat? d? the thread of human dignity, the dignity of all they dignity of place, the dignity of country, the dignity of neighbor helping neighbor, so that all of us can succeed. in other words, with our country's future hanging in the balance, we stood as one of the american dream lived on. now fast-forward, when i ran for mayor, there was a different sort of battle going on in the streets of baltimore. this time we were losing. baltimore had become the most violent, addicted, and abandoned city in america. in the biggest enemy that we faced was not the drug dealers or crack cocaine, it was a lack of belief. a culture of failure.

countless excuses for why was the nothing we would try whatever work, and why none of us, if we had an ounce of sense, should even bother to try. so we set out to make our city work again, to make the dream true again. we started setting goals and deadlines, and instead of simply counting out inputs, we started measuring outputs. we saw trash in our streets and alleys, and we picked it up every day. we saw open-air drug market and we began to relentless close them down. and guess what? when the people of baltimore saw that their government was working again, they rallied too. [applause] together, in other words we put into action that carpal belief that in our city there is no such as a spare american. then we are all in this together. and over the next 10 years baltimore went on to achieve the biggest production in part one

crimee of any major city in america. [applause] we americans sometimes have short memories, don't we? none of us will ever forget seven years ago when our country was facing the worst recessions is that -- since the great depression. a meltdown on wall street led our entire economy to behave by a thread. we refused to give up hawaii elected a -- give up. we elected a new president to move our country forward and that is exactly what our president has done. [applause] at that moment, all of us had a decision to make. would we be a part of bringing our country back, or would we sit back on our hunches and say if you actually can?

in our state, we started supporting our president, doing the things that were read we tossed aside the failed, exclusive trickle-down economics, and we embraced and returned to the truth that our parents and grandpa's understood. that the more person learns, the more of person earns. a stronger middle class -- [applause] a stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth, it is because of -- the cause of economic growth. [applause] i'm not even sure our parents and grandparents even had a word for that type economics. they called it common sense. the more that workers are the

better businesses have, and the better our economy grows. we passed the living wage. we raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. [applause] we make college more affordable for more people, and we made our public schools the best in the country for five years in a row. we made it easier for people to vote, and not harder. [applause] and because we understood that renewable energy creates strong jobs and good communities we made sure we seized the economic opportunities inherent in climate change. if only we could rise as americans to meet that challenge. [applause] together we brought back the health of the waters of the

chesapeake area. to gether we made maryland the top state were women-owned businesses in the united states. [applause] and through all be very difficult years, we made sure that our state had the highest median income in the country for all eight of those years. since the depth of the recession, maryland has created jobs faster than our neighbors to the north or south of us. it is not about left, is not right, it is not center, it is doing things that work. that is what is about. [applause]

when a family can actually send their sons and daughters to good schools, the american dream is alive and atrue. when a family can work hard, and through that work claim a seat at the table american prosperity, but american dream is alive. none of these things happened by chance. it happened by choice. the choice that we have to make to believe in one another, to believe in our country, and to believe in our ability to make that dream real. as a nation, here is the good news. as a nation, we have now created jobs for 60 months in a row. positive job creation for 60 months in a row. [applause] we are recovering jobs faster

than most other countries coming out of this recession. that is absolutely the good news. the bad news is this --how many of you firmly believe that you have enjoyed a better quality of life than your parents and grandparents have enjoyed? raise your hand. second question. how many of you believe just as firmly that your children and grandchildren will enjoy a better quality of life than you have? raise your hands. that is the great question at the center of this table of democracy. people are more pessimistic now, for all of the good work we have done together to bring our country back them up people are more pessimistic now about their children's future than they were four years ago. the vast majority of us are working harder, only to watch her own families fall further behind.

for too many of us, the dreams of things that could be, that once were, seem to be slipping from our grasp. you have seen this look in your neighbor's eyes, and i have seen it too. americans are worried, and it is for good reason. 80% of us are earning less today than we were 12 years ago. that is not the way our country is supposed to work, and that is not the way our economy is supposed to work. and until we solve this problem, we cannot rest. [applause] get this, 50 years ago the nation's largest employer was gm. general motors. and the average employee could send a child to college on two weeks wages. two weeks.

recently the washington times ran a story with this headline -- the american dream is dead. well let me say, here from whole county, to those who would write those premature obituaries the american dream is not dead the american dream will not die as you and i were going to fight for it and make it true again. [applause] our economy is the product of the choices we make and the choices we fail to make. tv to tell me we can concentrate well at the top as it never has been before, but we cannot create good jobs and good wages to support a family? do you mean to tell me that we can pay record bonuses on wall

street, but we cannot eradicate childhood hunger? i do not buy it, and neither should you. we are better than that. [applause] we are better than this. we are americans, we make our own destiny. and it is going to be up to the democratic aarti to finish the work that we have begun together. what is that? to make our economy work for all of us again. to restore the american dreams. [applause] do me a favor. close your eyes if it is helpful but i want you to think of your parents and your grandparents. they understood the essence of the american dream that we share, and it is this -- the stronger we make our country to the more our country can give back to us and to our children

and to our grandchildren. the poet laureate of the american dream, bruce springsteen, asked once -- [laughter] is a dream alive that does it come true, or is it nothing worse? when the american dream is denied our lives shrink, our hopes fade, and our dave's unfold not in the light of possibility, but in the darkness of fear. to make that dream come true again we must fight for better wages for all workers so that americans can support their families on what they earn. [applause] what is that mean? that means raising the minimum wage, raising the income threshold for overtime pay, and actually make it easier rather than harder for people to join

you nerds and bargain for collective marketing rights and greater wages. [applause] that is what it means to make the dream come true. [applause] and to make the dream come true we must not allow another wall street meltdown to rain down on hard working american families. it is not too much to ask, and it is not too much to expect for our national government to rein in wall street, to protect big banks from working over little people, and to keep them from ever working our national economy again. [applause] and to make the dream come true, we must embrace a clean energy

future. we are americans, we do not back down from threats. we have to recognize that renewable, inexhaustible sources of energy actually represent the biggest and nice -- business opportunity of the century. look at what you are doing with your wind industry here. we must increase social security benefits, and not them -- cut them. [applause] and to make the dream come true again we must invest in our children. it is absolutely appalling that you can refinance a mortgage on your home easier than kids can refinance a mountain of college debt. [applause]

we've been talking a lot about the american dream. my father lou and a b 24 liberator, 33 missions over japan and the pacific. he would not have gone to college were not or a are seeing a generous country that created the g.i. bill. we need to make college more affordable for all in our country again. to make that dream come true, we also have to be able to give our college graduates the ability to start their own dream, to buy a home without being unthinkable because of the month that they own their college debt. the worst fundamental power of our -- most fundamental power of our party, and the fundamental strength of our moral principles. the power of our moral principles. regulation is not a strategy that will move america forward. history celebrates profiles in

courage, not profiles of inconvenience. this day in day we must be unashamed, unabashed defenders of that american dream that we share. the dignity of every person tells us that the right to marry is not a state right, the right to marry is a human right. [applause] your traditions, as a generous and compassionate people here in iowa tell us as americans tells us, that when refugee children arrive on our doorstep fleeing starvation and death games, we do not turn them away. we act like the generous, compassionate people we have always been. because the enduring symbol of our nation is not the barbed wire fence, it is the statue of

liberty. [applause] this is who we are. this is who we are. this is who we are. and yes, in god we trust. yes you and i are proud to be members of the democratic party. the tea party can measure success by how many times they shut our government down, but we measure in jobs and opportunity for all. let them speak of the said yesterday's that were, we speak for the tomorrows that can be. the american dream is what makes america exceptional. fear and anger never built a great nation. our country is built by the compassionate choices that we make together, guided by our better angels. we love our country, we love our country is, and we love what our country can still become. take pride in what you believe.

the next time someone asked you who you voted for. do not be shy, and i want you to tell them, i voted for you. when you see someone with health insurance who did not have it before, and they asked you who you voted for, i want you to tell them i voted for you. when you see someone sweated through another long shift, and they ask you who you voted for tell them i voted for you. and when you see someone who wants nothing more than their family to be treated with dignity and equal rights under the law, which are to tell them i voted for you. and when you see someone who congress for opportunity and a good job, i want you to tell them i voted for you. yes, we are democrats for good reason.

ours is the party of opportunity, hours the party of optimism, ours is the party of the people, hours is the party of the better american dream and ours is the party that will move america forward. [applause] thank you all very much. [applause] thank you. thank you all. thank you. [applause] >> were you a fan of c-span's first lady series? it is now a book, published by public affairs. looking into the personal life at every first lady in history. based on original interviews with more than 50 preeminent historians and biographers. what made these ladies who they were, their lives, ambitions and the unique partnerships with their presidential spouses.

presidential historians on the lives of 45 american women providing likely stories of these fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house, sometimes at great cost, and even changed history. it is an illuminating entertaining, and inspiring read. it is now available as a hardcover or e-books through your favorite online seller or bookstore. >>, washington journal. then a discussion about new developments in battery technology. then world bank president talking about efforts to end global poverty. coming up this morning on washington journal, olivia golden of the center for law and central policy. also, convention of state project cofounder michael farris on grassroots efforts to amend

the constitution through a process known as article five. ♪ host: good morning. it is saturday, april 11, 2015. the national cherry blossom festival is taking place in washington dc today. we have a three hour "washington journal" i had for you this morning. we will be talking about efforts to restrict welfare recipients on how they can use their benefits, a grassroots efforts to call on states to propose amendments.