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Michigan State College Young G.O.P., East Lansing, MI, October 1948
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The original documents are located in Box D13, folder "Michigan State College Young
G.O.P., East Lansing, MI, October 1948" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press
Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
speed by Representative Gerald R. G.O.P. Ford Jr.
Michigan state College Young
cast Lansing michigan Oct, 1948
Friends of the Young Republican Club,
It may surprise you to hear me say I'm not here to give a political
speech. I'm not going to talk about this specific piece of legis-
lation or that, although later I'd be glad to answer any questions
you may like to ask. Rather, I'm going to turn this into a sort
of glorified bull-session and shoot my punches as straight as I
can aim them.
Freshman - that's what they call me. If I go to Congress in
January it'll be my first hitch and I'll be as green as they come.
Still, I hope to find my way around before too long and then put
into action some of the fundamental thoughts which you'll hear me
express tonight.
First of all, I'd like to ask this question. If you're a Republican,
why are? If you're not, I'd like to bring out some reasons why I
am. Let's just assume for a moment that none of us have any party
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
Digitized from Box D13 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
affiliation. Let's assume that we're average Americans, interested
in the welfare of our country, and the way we vote depends on what
we think is right for the nation.
Frankly, I think the day is gone when a man is a Republican or a
Democrat just because his father or grandfather happened to vote
a certain ticket. Today, I believe that young people make up their
own minds - especially coblege students who have the benefit of all
the educational facilities of a great institution like Michigan
State,
Therefore, I say let's assume that we're just open minded voters.
When we go to the poles in November we're going to cast a ballot
for the best man and the best party because after careful considera-
tion that's the way we want to vote.
Now if we are average free-minded Americans there is a great deal
we know about the world of 1948. We know that in the past 15 years
we have lived through the worst depression in history, the most
brutal war, and today we face a threat to world peace that seems to
2
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
be even more serious than the one just recently removed. Because
we know all this, we won't cast our ballot without a lot of thought.
We won't be sold by mere slogans. Whether it's an elephant or a
donkey, we won't just let ourselves be stampeded into a decision.
PAUSE
***
For just a moment I'd like to say a word or two about history.
Too often we think of history as so many dates in a text-book,
isolated facts without any bearing on the problems facingous head on.
But what is history after all? History is a river of circumstance
whose currents and eddies take us through the present and drive us
into the future with irresistable momentum. History is the con-
trolling channel through which the present runs, and its twistings
and turnings are bound to affect the plans of our leaders and parties.
Therefore, it behooves us to ask first of all, where does our nation
stand in the broad sweep of history?
Just for a moment imagine that we are able to get above
the commonplace events of each day and view the present in terms
of the broader vista of history.
3
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
Thinking back a few dozen decades we see the past and present in
stark contrast. A hundred years ago society was a simple affair,
largely agricultural and only losely bound together by the slow
and laborious transportation facilities of sail-boat and ox-cart.
When Adam Smith published the Wealth of the Nations in 1776 he
clearly saw some of the trends that were beginning to take shape,
but even Smith would be astounded at the extremes to which we have
been brought by technological progress. For example, Smith points
out how specialization in the nail-making trade had increased the
productivity of one laborer many times, but even this great economist
was unable to foresee that some day nails would be manufactured so
automatically that one man could superintend a dozen machines and
nails would be worth scarcely more than the metal from which they
are wrought.
Tear
Technological progress, then - that is one of the principal currents
of the immediate past that effect the present.
4
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
Next, we have the overwhelming trend of what I call the integration
of society. In less than a hundred years a world which was broken
into a thousand parts by mountains, oceans, deserts, and wilderness
became integrated into one, and the result is we have all become
dependent on one another. This integration of society has taken
place so rapidly even today we hardly realize how far it has carried
us from the world of yesterday.
Going back for a moment to Adam Smith and his Wealth of the Nations,
we are struck by the fact that his famous economic study was pub-
lished in the very year that the United States declared its inde-
pendence. 1776. That was a significant year in more ways than one.
So here we are in 1948 in an age which is the product of vast histori-
cal changes: from a losely-knit world in which men lived within their
own narrow bailiwicks to one in which the whole world is our backyard;
from a world in which nails were made through tedious application of
sweat and muscle to one in which they spew forth from a machine at a
rate of thousands per minute. These changes could not have taken
5
FORD i LIBRARY
place without presenting us with complicated problems. You and I
are the inheritors of both the blessings and the dilemmas of that
transformation. In 1948 we are not only reaping the benefits of
that vast historical change. We have also been presented with its
thorny problems.
A few moments ago I mentioned the great depression of the 30's. The
depression of the 30's was more than an economic collapse - it was
one of the great spiritual crises of all history. For the first
time, economic adversity was not merely a problem of one nation.
It was a world affair. In the remotest regions men were affected
and they turned their heads in bewilderment to ask, "Why? What has
happened? Has society become so complicated the machine has become
the master of its inventor?"
This question brought a rude awakening Sudenly all the peoples
of the world awoke to the realization that great changes had taken
place. They became acutely aware that a new reality had to be faced.
6
FORD i LIBRARY SERVID
Idealogies that had been for centuries accepted as a matter of fact
came into question. Doctrines and creeds were looked upon askance.
Panaceas and bread-and-butter theories stemmed from the brains of
troubled thinkers and the whole world rocked with the reverberation
of the spiritual show-down. Look, they cried, we are hungry in the
land of milk and honey! See, they exclaimed, something has gone
wrong - our dream is a myth and we know not where to turn!
We may as well face the fact frankly, that our party - the Republican
Party, had the misfortune to get caught in this historical dilemma.
We were certainly not in any sense the creators of the problem; we
were merely the victims of it, and as a result the Democrats rode
into power on a wave of protest that was so violent for more than a
decade our opponents had a virtual momopoly on the affairs of state.
A Republican in Washington was an unhappy man. His voice was not
heard above the braying of the donkey and his protests were of little
avail. With rare exceptions the New Deal was free to experiment, to
err, to spend freely and to fumble along promising a better world
7
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
with any accounting either in terms of money or fundamental values.
The "outs" were "ins" and vice-versa. At that time the fortunes
of the Republican party dropped to the lowest ebb in history. The
Democrats could do no wrong and we could do no right. That was the
situation. Those were dmrk days for party members. They had to
swallow their pride and take it.
In times of crisis like those of the 30's, a great deal had to be
done in a short time. There was a wild rush to solve all the problems
of accumulated history that previously were not apparent. Conse-
quently, we witnessed some of the most radical departures from
traditional methods that were ever suggested and we stood by and
watched practices that in looking back emaze us by their naivete.
But those were times of crisis - again and again we were reminded
of the fact - and there was little to be done about 1t. The world
was in a mess and there was no denying that.
Probably the most conspicuous single trendmin those years was the
tendency of young people to look at the past and say, "Gosh, what
8
FORD i LIBRARY SERALD
awful mistakes have been made!" The old slogans of freedom, liberty,
and equality had a hollow ring because bread became more important
than theoretical rights. In some countries this contrast became so
exaggerated that sensible people were willing to exchange their
political liberties for the ranting and ravings of a Hitler. But
lest we forget, let us not overlook the fact that to a lesser degree
we did the same thing. We were willing to exchange freedom in
economic enterprise for the regulatory theories of the NRA; we were
willing to give up many of our states' rights and local authorities
for Federal subsidy and the largess of a national hand-out. For-
tunately, our desperation was never as great as that of many European
nations. That was our good fortune. But the trend was clearly marked
even here in the land of freedom. It was a historical fact and there
could be no denying it.
Let's be brutally frank. Let's call a spade a spade and let's see
this thing in its true historical perspective. It did seem absurd,
didn't it, that in a land that was blest with the most lavish
resources, men were lined up at soup kitchens and there wasn't
9
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
job to be found? It was paradoxical that in a nation that boasted
of unlimited opportunity well-qualified businessmen saw the savings
of a lifetime dwindle to nothing and even the most worthwhile invest-
ments turned to paper in the twinkling of an eye? This we can't
deny. At that time - and I remember it vividly, a college graduate
was fortunate if he got a job pumping gasoline at $15 a week. Many
of my friends went out from their universities to walk the streets
and pray for a pittance. It wasn't the exception - it was the rule.
Those were frightening times and don't ever let anyone tell you
differently. They were times of crisis like I never hope to see
again.
But despite all this, I still believe that regardless of what poli-
tical party happened to be in power at that time, certain funda-
mental problems had to be met. I personally am of the opinion that
if fate had been a little less cruel to a man like Herbert Hoover,
he too would have brought about basic changes and the world would
have come forth radically altered. Those changes were inevitable.
10
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
They were in the cards of history and nobody could stack the deck
any differently. Inadvertently - and I stress that word because
there were very few countrymen, experts or otherwise, who could see
the overall historical pattern - we had allowed the cart to get in
front of the horse; we had allowed certain principles of individual
property to become abusive and exploitative. The human factor was
abused. The scale just didn't balance. There was an undeniable
discrepancy between the rewards of capital and the just return of
labor. Look at 1t honestly - - boil it down to its essence, and
why did we have that terrible depression? The truth is that pur-
chasing power of the majority of wage earners had lagged behind
their earning power. They could fill warehouses with row on row ofd
goods, but they did not have the money or the credit to consume what
they had manufactured. The result was the inevitable plight of too
much outgo and too little income. It was essentially that simple,
but how to solve the situation was less easy to understand.
Looking at the overall accomplishment of the past few years we see
that in general legislation has had one particular aim:
to bring
FORD is LIBRARY GERALD
11
about a balance between consuming potential and producing capacity.
I say that regardless of party we cannot deny that this was not only
desirable but it was absolutely indispensable if America was to go
forward and avoid the pitfalls that trapped many and many a nation
of the older World beyond the Atlantic.
But now we are facing a different situation. Let's consider it for
a moment and then we come to the essential question of how you and
I will vote in November. Today we have passed the crisis when there
was an urgent need for experiment and more experimentation. Today
the nation is more prosperous than it has ever been in all its long
history of privilege and achievement. True, this has come about
largely through the negative stimulus of the war and the hold-backs
in production which resulted from five years of all-out military
production. But the way in which recovery came about is a secondary
question - the fact is, we have recovered. Our employment situation
is better than it has ever been. Today we are turning out more goods
than any economist in his wildest dreams could anticipate. We are
a prosperous nation and lucky to be so. Students who go out from
12
FORD j LIBRARY GERALD
our colleges go out with the promise of good jobs and excellent
futures. These are, in an economic sense at least, prosperous
days. We can be grateful for the fact.
But remember, and this is the fact I wish to stress, that in going
through the crisis of war and depression, we have moved closer and
closer toward a centralization of authority. Today our Federal
government is the biggest business in the world. It employs over
2' million persons, or one out of every thirty workers in this country
today. Its debts and its obligation are so tremendous it is hard to
conceive how they will ever be paid - and yet they must be paid. In
order to meet the challenges of our age, the necessities of national
defense and world recovery, our national government has grown to
such fantastic proportions it overshadows the activities of our
greatest private business - more than that - it overshadows all the
governments of the world. I say that we have now reached the stage
when the increasing cost of the government threatens to rob wage-
earners of the very gains they have made in the past ten years.
We can have another depression - a kind of depression that has never
13
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
before been thought of by our economists and 1t isn't in the text-
books you study. It vill be a depression in which not capital takes
too great a share of our earning capacity so that we lack the where-
withal to purchase the goods, but government itself takes too great
a share! That is perfectly conceivable. It can happen and it might
happen! And that, my friends, would be a much greater tragedy than
ever happened in the '30's because we would be totally bankrupt.
The national government would itself be without credit, and then
where would we turn?
Today out of every dollar you earn, 31 cents of it goes to support,
state, local, or federal government. Think of it - 31 cents out of
every dollar of national income! Just to take an oversimplified
illustration, let's assume that in this way approximately 1/3 of
your income is diverted to government. If this increases, how
then can wage-earners purchase the goods they produce? Oh, yes,
you can say that the 31 cents out of every dollar isn't totally
wasted. It comes back to you in terms of services by those govern-
mental units - that is partially true, but that depends entirely on
14
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
the efficiency of those governmental functions and we all know
that the wastes and dissipations of government are far greater than
those of private industry. Eventually the discrepancy will come
just as inevitably as the discrepancy of the past between capital
and labor came. Yes, there is a new animal in the circus and that
animal is the government itself! - a very dangerous breed, to put
it mildly.
Personally, I don't think that the Democratic administration has any
conception of this threat. They have served their purpose under a
philosophy of pump-priming and today with their leadership enfeebled
by the loss of Franklin Roosevelt and the derelictions of brain-
trusters, they are incapable of understanding the times in which we
are now living. Just as other parties have in the past gotten
caught in the swim of history, so now have the Democrats. Truman
has neither the mental capacity nor the historical perspective to
understand what is going on. He continues to talk the language
he learned from his predecessor, who is now the subject of history
books. The times move ahead, and it's never the danger of the past
15
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
that counts - the known and evaluated factors. It's the unpre-
dictable, the unforseen, and this requires young leadership, vision,
and imagination.
We are living in an age in which the inevitable trend toward centrali-
zation is thrusting us forward at a pace that is breathtaking. Look
at your map! See how distance has been whittled down to nothing at
all, and whether we like it or not we are rubbing elbows with the
Hottentots just as in another era we rubbed elbows with our next
door neighbors.
And how may I ask you, in the face of this overwhelming tide of
history do the Democrats propose to guard your individual liberty
and mine? How do they propose to assure your security and make this
a world in which we can hope to live peacefully!
As near as I can see, the Democratic party has only one way to
solve any problem: impose regulation and authority from above.
They are a lot like the militarists you and I know so well who
solve problems by issuing an order or imposing a restriction.
16
GERALD R.ISORD LIBRARY
that the kind of world you and I want to live in? I for one say
emphatically "No". That is the worst way possible to get at the
trouble. It's appealing - I'll admit that because of its apparent
simplicity. But I submit that good government never was a simple
matter and it won't start now.
The trend toward centralization today is the greatest single problem
we face. Now 1s the time for a real Republican idealogy - not an
idealogy of empty platitudes and threadworn phrases. It is not a
time for the old opportunism of the 20's or the laisez faire theories
of weary editorial writers. Our nation today must have youthful
leadership! It must have men who have lived through the troubled
times of the past fifteen years and who understand the tide, Gentle-
men, as you all know very well, there's a vast difference between
intelligence and wisdom. Today we are in crying need of that rare
thing called wisdom in our leadership.
Sometimes amid the clamour of a noisy age, certain facts become
completely obscured. Recently I heard Congressman Judd of Minnesota
make this statement, and it impressed me as profoundly wise:
17
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
"Some people seem to regard the first ten
amendments to the Constitution, the so-called Bill of
Rights, as guarantees that our government will do this
or that for the citizen. Rather they are guarantees
that the government cannot do this or that to the
citizen. Each is a guarantee to the individual citizen
against the powers of his government."
That kind of thinking is refreshing in this day of totalitarian
abuse. There is the fundamental distinction in philosophy between
our party and the Democrats. They have completely abandoned the
principle that there are and should be limits within which good
government should operate.
Personally I think it's high time we go back to fundamentals. We go
back to the original wisdom of those men who wrote the constitution
of the United States. I'm not saying they were oracles, I'm not
saying they had some mysterious power to see into the future and
to anticipate every technological change that has since taken place.
18
FORD is LIBRARY GERALD
But they had something which is very applicable in our day and age:
they understood one fundamental that we now must take into considera-
tion. They knew that of all enterprises the enterprise of government
is subject to the most drastic diminishing returns imaginable. They
more
knew that one private laborer produces three times as much, in a given
the ordenary
period of time as three government bureaucrats. They knew that the
dignity of man, the exercise of the sacred right of personal choice,
is after all the most valued possession that any man in any age can
hope to attain. Economic security? Yes, of course it's important.
We must do everything in our power to make sure the present prosperity
continues for years to come. But when the stomach is filled and when
we have roofs over our heads, what is the next thing that all men yearn
for - whether it's in America, or Europe, and even in Russia where
for the time being the light of personal freedom has gone out.
LIBERTY - that's still a big word, the word that gives meaning to
life itself and that means the possible achievement of what you and
I are always striving for, namely, personal happiness.
Gentlemen, I wish there were time to go deeper into the philosophyforo
19
GERALD LIDRANY
of modern Republicanism which after all is not the easiest thing
to describe because it is not over-simplified like some doctrines
which today threaten the very spirit of mankind. True Republicanism
never will be a doctrine or a panacea that can be written down in
simples phrases or explained in terms of one, two, three. Modern
Republicanism is a spirit of living. It is a deep understanding of
the times in which we live, of the historical trends that brought
us to this age and the patterns which are likely to follow.
You ask me, gentlemen, why I am a Republican? You ask me why I
think you should be?
In plain words I can put it this way: I am a Republican because I
believe in the essential dignity of mankind. I am a Republican
because I believe that out of the traditions of that party alone can
come the wisdom and perception that will guide us along the perilous
paths of the unwritten history of the future. I am a Republican
because to me there is no greater challenge in the world today than
to prove to the lost and bewildered peoples of the earth that
20
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
FREEDOM is essentially the hope of mankind and the very essence of
LIFE and HAPPINESS on earth!
That is why I am a Republican! I think that these are reasons
enough.
Thank you. Goodnight.
21
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD