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Milburn - Short Hills Republican Club Dinner, Milburn, NJ, May 15, 1967
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Milburn - Short Hills Republican Club Dinner, Milburn, NJ, May 15, 1967
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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The original documents are located in Box D22, folder "Milburn - Short Hills Republican
Club Dinner, Milburn, NJ, May 15, 1967" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
Digitized from Box D22 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT
6:30 p.m., Monday, May 15, 1967
EXCERPTS FROM A SPEECH BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH,, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER,
AT THE MILBURN-SHORT HILLS, N.J., REPUBLICAN CLUB DINNER, MONDAY, MAY 15, 1967,
AT MILLBURN, N.J.
In all recent-year national elections there have been two major issues--
peace and prosperity.
Next year we may find ourselves with still another major issue--one which I
think was highly significant in shaping the outcome of the 1966 election when the
Republican Party made a net gain of 47 seats in the House of Representatives. That
issue, to put it simply, is the Credibility Gap.
The Credibility Gap has been variously defined as a Crisis of Confidence--the
people's lack of trust in the present Administration--and the gulf that separates
thinking people from the Administration. We know why and how the Credibility Gap
has developed. After being misled on many occasions by top Administration officials,
the attitude of millions of Americans has become, "Who and what can we believe?"
Republicans didn't create the Credibility Gap. Neither did the newsmen who
are so often criticized by the President, the Vice-President and some Johnson
cabinet members for honestly reporting news unfavorable to the Administration.
American newsmen are just doing their job. It is the Administration itself which
has dug the Credibility Gap and has proceeded to make it deeper and wider in a
variety of ways.
Trust is a two-way street. Small wonder there is a crisis of confidence in
this country. The Administration doesn't trust the people; therefore, the people
don't trust the Administration.
There is good reason for the people's lack of confidence in the official
statements of the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. The reason is that this
Administration from President Johnson on down has misled the American people from
the very beginning and in a myriad of ways.
It was President Johnson who told the American people during the 1964 presi-
dential campaign: "We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian
boys. We don't want to get involved in a nation with 700 million people (Red China)
and get tied down in a land war in Asia."
The Johnson Administration has repeatedly misled the American people on the
conduct, progress and cost of the Vietnam War.
(more)
-2-
This Administration has misled the American people for the past three years
on the results of the Vietnam pacification program--a program reportedly now
teetering on the edge of total collapse.
This Administration misled the American people last year and again this year
on federal spending, the federal budget and the state of the economy.
It is only fair to conclude that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is
becoming known as the incredible administration. There is great unease among the
American people. They yearn for a federal government they can trust.
***
In 1966 the Republican Party scored a victory in depth because the American
people awakened to the fact that the Democratic Party has created a pattern of
federalism hopelessly ensnarled in red tape and crushed by a huge and continuously
growing bureaucracy.
The people are taking a fresh look at the Republican Party because our Party
has come alive with a new progressive spirit. The Republican Party is hotly
pursuing new answers to the Nation's most pressing problems.
And we are coming up with those answers. Unlike the Democratic Party, we are
not content simply to throw dollars at the people's problems and hope they'll go
away. We are fashioning solutions that would give New Direction to our Nation and
give us a truly people's government.
Democrats as well as Republicans have become aware that for local communities
to obtain the categorical federal grant-in-aid is like stumbling through a
labyrinthian maze in the hope of someday finding a pot of gold at the end of the
twisting, winding bureaucratic corridor.
The situation has become so ridiculous it has spawned a new group of experts
who call themselves "grantsmen." These people are being paid fat fees by cities to
fill out grant-in-aid applications with just the right public relations touch and
an overlay of bureaucratese. One of these experts worked up a 190-page application
for a model cities grant and remarked that he could have done it in five pages but
it wouldn't have won the grant. That's what the Great Society is coming to! It is
becoming an Empty Society, a Great Facade, a society of phonies and con men.
Republicans offer a New Direction in federal aid to local units of government--
federal tax-sharing or block sum grants which skirt the federal bureaucracy and
make some layers of it ripe for the pruning knife. This would reduce the cost of
operating the federal government and at the same time speed the process of local
problem-solving.
I invited the American people to take a new reading on the Republican Party.
They will see a responsible party--a party that encourages individual responsibility,
individual initiative, strong local and state government, a healthy federal govern-
ment which joins with state and local governmental units and with private industry
to fashion a partnership of progress.
#HH
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT
6:30 p.m., Monday, May 15, 1967
EXCERPTS FROM A SPEECH BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH,, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER,
AT THE MILBURN-SHORT HILLS, N.J., REPUBLICAN CLUB DINNER, MONDAY, MAY 15, 1967,
AT MILLBURN, N.J.
In all recent-year national elections there have been two major issues--
peace and prosperity.
Next year we may find ourselves with still another major issue--one which I
think was highly significant in shaping the outcome of the 1966 election when the
Republican Party made a net gain of 47 seats in the House of Representatives. That
issue, to put it simply, is the Credibility Gap.
The Credibility Gap has been variously defined as a Crisis of Confidence--the
people's lack of trust in the present Administration--and the gulf that separates
thinking people from the Administration. We know why and how the Credibility Gap
has developed. After being misled on many occasions by top Administration officials,
the attitude of millions of Americans has become, "Who and what can we believe?"
Republicans didn't create the Credibility Gap. Neither did the newsmen who
are so often criticized by the President, the Vice-President and some Johnson
cabinet members for honestly reporting news unfavorable to the Administration.
American newsmen are just doing their job. It is the Administration itself which
has dug the Credibility Gap and has proceeded to make it deeper and wider in a
variety of ways.
Trust is a two-way street. Small wonder there is a crisis of confidence in
this country. The Administration doesn't trust the people; therefore, the people
don't trust the Administration.
There is good reason for the people's lack of confidence in the official
statements of the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. The reason is that this
Administration from President Johnson on down has misled the American people from
the very beginning and in a myriad of ways.
It was President Johnson who told the American people during the 1964 presi-
dential campaign: "We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian
boys. We don't want to get involved in a nation with 700 million people (Red China)
and get tied down in a land war in Asia."
The Johnson Administration has repeatedly misled the American people on the
conduct, progress and cost of the Vietnam War.
(more)
-2-
This Administration has misled the American people for the past three years
on the results of the Vietnam pacification program--a program reportedly now
teetering on the edge of total collapse.
This Administration misled the American people last year and again this year
on federal spending, the federal budget and the state of the economy.
It is only fair to conclude that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is
becoming known as the incredible administration. There is great unease among the
American people. They yearn for a federal government they can trust.
* *
In 1966 the Republican Party scored a victory in depth because the American
people awakened to the fact that the Democratic Party has created a pattern of
federalism hopelessly ensnarled in red tape and crushed by a huge and continuously
growing bureaucracy.
The people are taking a fresh look at the Republican Party because our Party
has come alive with a new progressive spirit. The Republican Party is hotly
pursuing new answers to the Nation's most pressing problems.
And we are coming up with those answers. Unlike the Democratic Party, we are
not content simply to throw dollars at the people's problems and hope they'll go
away. We are fashioning solutions that would give New Direction to our Nation and
give us a truly people's government.
Democrats as well as Republicans have become aware that for local communities
to obtain the categorical federal grant-in-aid is like stumbling through a
labyrinthian maze in the hope of someday finding a pot of gold at the end of the
twisting, winding bureaucratic corridor.
The situation has become so ridiculous it has spawned a new group of experts
who call themselves "grantsmen." These people are being paid fat fees by cities to
fill out grant-in-aid applications with just the right public relations touch and
an overlay of bureaucratese. One of these experts worked up a 190-page application
for a model cities grant and remarked that he could have done it in five pages but
it wouldn't have won the grant. That's what the Great Society is coming to! It is
becoming an Empty Society, a Great Facade, a society of phonies and con men.
Republicans offer a New Direction in federal aid to local units of government--
federal tax-sharing or block sum grants which skirt the federal bureaucracy and
make some layers of it ripe for the pruning knife. This would reduce the cost of
operating the federal government and at the same time speed the process of local
problem-solving.
I invited the American people to take a new reading on the Republican Party.
They will see a responsible party--a party that encourages individual responsibility,
individual initiative, strong local and state government, a healthy federal govern-
ment which joins with state and local governmental units and with private industry
to fashion a partnership of progress.
###