Ask the Scholar

Document scope · 1 page
doc
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory. For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.

Scholar Source Context

Document identity
localId
4526165
label
Dinner Honoring Representative Ancher Nelsen, Sleepy Eye, MN, October 7, 1968
core
doc
dtoType
document
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4526165
contentType
document
title
Dinner Honoring Representative Ancher Nelsen, Sleepy Eye, MN, October 7, 1968
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Speeches
subjects
Agriculture
Congressional elections
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4526165
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1968-10-31
month
10
year
1968
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1968-10-01
month
10
year
1968
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
eac5478d1e85f6f1
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D25, folder "Dinner Honoring Representative Ancher Nelsen, Sleepy Eye, MN, October 7, 1968" 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 The Council donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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. NOTES FOR ANCHER NELSEN, SIEEPY EYE, MINN. The 2nd Congressional District of Minn.> is the most heavily agricultural district in the state. However, Nelsen is not on the Ag. Committee but on the Commerce Committee and the D.C. Committee. He is a five-termer, seeking a sixth, afe a former Minn. Lt. Gov., former state senator, former township board and school board member, and former Administrator of REA in the Eisenhower Administration. Nelsen would like you to stress his committee work in any laudatory comments you make about him in his district. 2/ NOTES FOR ANCHERNEX NELSEN TRIP If Republicans win control of the House, Nelsen will be- come chairman of the House *** District Committee. He also is ranking Republican on the Public Health and Welfare Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee. As such he has been one of the most effective workers for improvements in rural health in Congress. Nelsen was instrumental this year in passage of Health Manpower Act amendments and the Mental Health and Retardation Act. One issue in the district is the freeze on highway construction. Nelsen has protested the Administration's freeze of highway funds. He wants you to praise him for this fight against the tie-up of highway funds and to point out that the Administration didit it for purely political purposes since the money does not come out of the general fund but from highway taxes already in hand. 3/ ANCHER NELSEN Nelsen also would like tym you to talk, as he does, about the need for quota systems to protect the American farmer from forming foreign competition. He has been saying that rural America is "in terrible shape, with parity at 73 for months. He blames the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. ##### Digitized from Box D25 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R: Ford Presidential Library Office Capy CONGRESSMAN NEWS GERALD R. FORD HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER RELEASE FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. MONDAY-- October 7, 1968 Excerpts from a speech by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, at a dinner honoring Rep. Ancher Nelsen, R-Minn., Monday evening, Oct. 7, 1968, at Sleepy Eye, Minn. I have always enjoyed speaking in farm areas because farm people talk straight, and they want you to talk straight to them. They want you to tell it like it is-- and, in fact, that's what all Americans want after all the phony talk they've heard out of Washington for the last five years. If we tell it like it is, what do we find? We see that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has brought us a constant and continuing deterioration of the dollar, some of the highest interest rates in a hundred years, a spiraling national crime rate, a breakdown of law and order which has made nearly every major American city the seedbed for racial riot and a potential war between the races, price inflation and cost inflation that make special victims of the pensioner and the farmer while hurting every American, strikes that have threatened the Nation's health, education and welfare as Americans tried to catch up with Johnson-Humphrey inflation, inflation that wipes out the worker's wage gains, massive and repeated federal deficits that cause other nations to view the dollar with distrust, a gold outflow that threatens to drain away our entire gold stock, moves to restrict the freedom of Americans to travel and to invest abroad, a limited war fought in a way that is producing nothing but stalemate in Vietnam, humiliation at the hands of North Korea, the distrust of both Israelis and Arabs because of our non-policy in the Middle East, danger that the Soviet Union will upset the balance of power throughout the world and surpass us in nuclear capability. That is a long list and there's more. Kind of leaves you breathless, doesn't it? It should leave the Administration speechless. But this Administration, from the President on down, has been doing plenty of talking in the past four years--and that's on the record, too. That record is one of serious misjudgments both on the war and the home front, misleading statements if not deliberate distortions, and direct contradictions. The farmer has been caught squarely in the middle as the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has tried to put the best possible face on its mistakes. We all remember when the Johnson-Humphrey Administration made the farmer the scapegoat of inflation in 1966. Republicans know that never before have our farmers produced so much and been paid so little for it. We know that Johnson-Freeman (more) -2- Administration policies forced the Nation's farmers to take a $11/2 billion pay cut this past year while increased profits to the middlemen and the handlers pushed food prices upward. The message I bring you tonight is that no country, no matter how rich or powerful, can follow the Johnson-Freeman-Humphrey path of continuous inflation without inviting financial disaster. I invite America to follow Republicans on the road to genuine prosperity and peace. Only the kind of leadership that the Republican Party can provide will bring this Nation genuine peace and prosperity again--peace at home and abroad, and the prosperity that flows from a sound dollar. During the past three years, the Republican Party has been building a program that will meet the needs of the American people and solve the problems which have defied the Democratic Party's federal planners and spenders. Republicans have built this program in the free enterprise-human incentive image of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert Taft and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We are laying before the people our positive proposals, drafted not to catch votes but to solve problems and meet human needs. Our program is a human renewal program, aimed at improving the quality of American life in the cities and in our rural communities. We would cut back low-priority federal spending and at the same time launch a Human Renewal Action Program. We would enlist all of the creativity and know-how of private enterprise in the solution of America's social problems through the imaginative use of tax credits. We would help our cities and states meet their problems through a system of federal revenue-sharing. Republicans propose a National Economic Opportunity Corporation to mix the genius of government and business in providing jobs for unskilled workers. We propose a Domestic Development Bank to make investment capital available for white and non-white businessmen in the central cities. We would fashion a farm program which would give farmers 100 per cent of opportunity to share fully in the economic riches of America. We propose to rejuvenate our rural areas through realistic incentives for business expansion which will stem the heavy tide of migration to the cities. The Johnson-Humphrey Administration and the Democrats in Congress have repeatedly said NO to these Republican initiatives. The party in power is wedded to the past which has produced the failures of the present. The people--I believe-- will say YES in November. ### cistribution 20 capies Mr. Ford M office Copy CONGRESSMAN NEWS GERALD R. FORD HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER RELEASE --FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. MONDAY-- October 7, 1968 Excerpts from a speech by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, at a dinner honoring Rep. Ancher Nelsen, R-Minn., Monday evening, Oct. 7, 1968, at Sleepy Eye, Minn. I have always enjoyed speaking in farm areas because farm people talk straight, and they want you to talk straight to them. They want you to tell it like it is-- and, in fact, that's what all Americans want after all the phony talk they've heard out of Washington for the last five years. If we tell it like it is, what do we find? We see that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has brought us a constant and continuing deterioration of the dollar, some of the highest interest rates in a hundred years, a spiraling national crime rate, a breakdown of law and order which has made nearly every major American city the seedbed for racial riot and a potential war between the races, price inflation and cost inflation that make special victims of the pensioner and the farmer while hurting every American, strikes that have threatened the Nation's health, education and welfare as Americans tried to catch up with Johnson-Humphrey inflation, inflation that wipes out the worker's wage gains, massive and repeated federal deficits that cause other nations to view the dollar with distrust, a gold outflow that threatens to drain away our entire gold stock, moves to restrict the freedom of Americans to travel and to invest abroad, a limited war fought in a way that is producing nothing but stalemate in Vietnam, humiliation at the hands of North Korea, the distrust of both Israelis and Arabs because of our non-policy in the Middle East, danger that the Soviet Union will upset the balance of power throughout the world and surpass us in nuclear capability. That is a long list...and there's more. Kind of leaves you breathless, doesn't it? It should leave the Administration speechless. But this Administration, from the President on down, has been doing plenty of talking in the past four years--and that's on the record, too. That record is one of serious misjudgments both on the war and the home front, misleading statements if not deliberate distortions, and direct contradictions. The farmer has been caught squarely in the middle as the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has tried to put the best possible face on its mistakes. We all remember when the Johnson-Humphrey Administration made the farmer the scapegoat of inflation in 1966. Republicans know that never before have our farmers produced so much and been paid so little for it. We know that Johnson-Freeman (more) LIBRARY -2- Administration policies forced the Nation's farmers to take a $11/2 billion pay cut this past year while increased profits to the middlemen and the handlers pushed food prices upward. The message I bring you tonight is that no country, no matter how rich or powerful, can follow the Johnson-Freeman-Humphrey path of continuous inflation without inviting financial disaster. I invite America to follow Republicans on the road to genuine prosperity and peace. Only the kind of leadership that the Republican Party can provide will bring this Nation genuine peace and prosperity again--peace at home and abroad, and the prosperity that flows from a sound dollar. During the past three years, the Republican Party has been building a program that will meet the needs of the American people and solve the problems which have defied the Democratic Party's federal planners and spenders. Republicans have built this program in the free enterprise-human incentive image of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Robert Taft and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We are laying before the people our positive proposals, drafted not to catch votes but to solve problems and meet human needs. Our program is a human renewal program, aimed at improving the quality of American life in the cities and in our rural communities. We would cut back low-priority federal spending and at the same time launch a Human Renewal Action Program. We would enlist all of the creativity and know-how of private enterprise in the solution of America's social problems through the imaginative use of tax credits. We would help our cities and states meet their problems through a system of federal revenue-sharing. Republicans propose a National Economic Opportunity Corporation to mix the genius of government and business in providing jobs for unskilled workers. We propose a Domestic Development Bank to make investment capital available for white and non-white businessmen in the central cities. We would fashion a farm program which would give farmers 100 per cent of opportunity to share fully in the economic riches of America. We propose to rejuvenate our rural areas through realistic incentives for business expansion which will stem the heavy tide of migration to the cities. The Johnson-Humphrey Administration and the Democrats in Congress have repeatedly said NO to these Republican initiatives. The party in power is wedded to the past which has produced the failures of the present. The people--I believe-- will say YES in November. ###