Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
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
4526254
label
Lincoln Day Dinner, Lorain County, OH, February 13, 1970
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4526254
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Lincoln Day Dinner, Lorain County, OH, February 13, 1970
citationUrl
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Speeches
iiifBase
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4526254
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1970-02-28
month
2
year
1970
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1970-02-01
month
2
year
1970
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
url
mediaId
654b9ad0f08eb0f9
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D28, folder "Lincoln Day Dinner, Lorain
County, OH, February 13, 1970" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
20 Capies Mr. Fad only
O Office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 6 p.m. FRIDAY--
February 13, 1970
Excerpts from a Lorain County, Ohio, Lincoln Day Dinner Speech by Rep. Gerald R.
Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives.
One of the greatest fictions of our times is the oft-repeated statement by
Democratic leaders that if Abraham Lincoln were living today he would be a Democrat.
Lincoln not only was a great Republican, but the philosophy which guided
this great President undergirds the Republican Party today and is reflected in the
actions of the Nixon Administration.
Think back to the disastrous decade of the Sixties and the civil strife that
tore at the life of the Nation and the lives of individual Americans. Recall, if
you will, the terrible tensions and the time of the torch, the rioting in the inner
cities and the arson that set the skies of our metropolises flaming.
Under President Nixon, an air of calm has descended on the Nation. He has
brought us crisis prevention in place of chaos. He has restored a feeling of
common sense and emphasized for us the moral uprightness of man which balks at
violence and unreason.
The Nixon Administration has been characterized repeatedly in the press as
cool and pragmatic. The President has been credited with restoring reason to the
Nation.
What did Abraham Lincoln tell his countrymen on Feb. 15, 1861? "My advice,:'
he said, "is to keep cool." "If the great American people only keep their temper
on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which
now distracts the country will be settled, just as surely as all other difficulties
of a like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.
Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds
have cleared away in due time, so will this great nation continue to prosper as
heretofore.'
What is one of the chief differences between the two major parties in this
country?
The Democrats have believed and continue to believe--although their
conviction may finally be weakening--that a combination of Federal power and
Federal dollars is the answer to all of our problems.
GERALD FORD
(more)
Digitized from Box D28 of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
-2-
Republicans have never believed that and we never will. We have seen too
much Democrat spending and too few solutions.
We have seen Democratic Administrations go $57 billion into debt in the
Sixties with little to show for all the Federal dollars tossed at national problems.
We have seen the Federal Government under the Democrats spend $250 billion
on social programs in the last five years of the two previous Administrations and
yet fail to solve our problems. A quarter of a trillion dollars. Never before
has so much been spent and achieved so little.
What did we reap from this sowing of Federal dollars? This fantastic spend-
ing planted the seeds of great expectations. When the fruit proved bitter, the
harvest was one of explosive frustration.
This is why President Nixon earmarks Federal funds judiciously. This is
why our President refrains from fantastic promises.
There is no vote-buying in the Nixon Administration. There is truth and
candor and an effort to solve lingering problems with as great a fund of common
sense as money.
There is also a great effort to humanize the individual American, a movement
to make him count again rather than to be counted as a cipher, a figure for the
computer.
This effort comes under the awesome name of decentralization. But what it
really amounts to is giving the government back to the people.
Abraham Lincoln said: "In all that the people can individually do as well
for themselves, government ought not to interfere.' And, again, "The legitimate
object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they
cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves."
This is the guiding spirit of the Nixon Administration. This is the spirit
which underlies the Administration's proposal to share a percentage slice of
Federal revenue with the cities and states on a no-strings-attached basis. This
is the spirit which prompts our President to propose turning manpower training
programs over to the states when they can show themselves equipped to handle the
job. And this is the spirit which inspired our President to propose help for the
working poor and an incentive for all able-bodied Americans on welfare to put their
hands to useful, paying tasks.
I submit it is Lincoln philosophy which has Republicans believing that
Americans needing help want a hand up, not a handout.
It is Lincoln philosophy and Republican philosophy which holds that no man
stands so tall as when he stands on his own two feet.
And I submit that this is the basic philosophy of all Americans, and it is
the reason that the people are turning to the Republican Party and will turn the
Congress over to us next fall as they did the White House in '68.
###
Distribution: 20 Capies m. Ford
Moffice
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 6 p.m. FRIDAY--
February 13, 1970
Excerpts from a Lorain County, Ohio, Lincoln Day Dinner Speech by Rep. Gerald R.
Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives.
One of the greatest fictions of our times is the oft-repeated statement by
Democratic leaders that if Abraham Lincoln were living today he would be a Democrat.
Lincoln not only was a great Republican, but the philosophy which guided
this great President undergirds the Republican Party today and is reflected in the
actions of the Nixon Administration.
Think back to the disastrous decade of the Sixties and the civil strife that
tore at the life of the Nation and the lives of individual Americans. Recall, if
you will, the terrible tensions and the time of the torch, the rioting in the inner
cities and the arson that set the skies of our metropolises flaming.
Under President Nixon, an air of calm has descended on the Nation. He has
brought us crisis prevention in place of chaos. He has restored a feeling of
common sense and emphasized for us the moral uprightness of man which balks at
violence and unreason.
The Nixon Administration has been characterized repeatedly in the press as
cool and pragmatic. The President has been credited with restoring reason to the
Nation.
What did Abraham Lincoln tell his countrymen on Feb. 15, 1861? "My advice,:
he said, "is to keep cool." "If the great American people only keep their temper
on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which
now distracts the country will be settled, just as surely as all other difficulties
of a like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.
Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds
have cleared away in due time, so will this great nation continue to prosper as
heretofore."
What is one of the chief differences between the two major parties in this
country?
The Democrats have believed and continue to believe--although their
conviction may finally be weakening--that a combination of Federal power and
FORD
Federal dollars is the answer to all of our problems.
GERALD
(more)
-2-
Republicans have never believed that and we never will. We have seen too
much Democrat spending and too few solutions.
We have seen Democratic Administrations go $57 billion into debt in the
Sixties with little to show for all the Federal dollars tossed at national problems.
We have seen the Federal Government under the Democrats spend $250 billion
on social programs in the last five years of the two previous Administrations and
yet fail to solve our problems. A quarter of a trillion dollars. Never before
has so much been spent and achieved so little.
What did we reap from this sowing of Federal dollars? This fantastic spend-
ing planted the seeds of great expectations. When the fruit proved bitter, the
harvest was one of explosive frustration.
This is why President Nixon earmarks Federal funds judiciously. This is
why our President refrains from fantastic promises.
There is no vote-buying in the Nixon Administration. There is truth and
candor and an effort to solve lingering problems with as great a fund of common
sense as money.
There is also a great effort to humanize the individual American, a movement
to make him count again rather than to be counted as a cipher, a figure for the
computer.
This effort comes under the awesome name of decentralization. But what it
really amounts to is giving the government back to the people.
Abraham Lincoln said: "In all that the people can individually do as well
for themselves, government ought not to interfere." And, again, "The legitimate
object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they
cannot, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves."
This is the guiding spirit of the Nixon Administration. This is the spirit
which underlies the Administration's proposal to share a percentage slice of
Federal revenue with the cities and states on a no-strings-attached basis. This
is the spirit which prompts our President to propose turning manpower training
programs over to the states when they can show themselves equipped to handle the
job. And this is the spirit which inspired our President to propose help for the
working poor and an incentive for all able-bodied Americans on welfare to put their
hands to useful, paying tasks.
I submit it is Lincoln philosophy which has Republicans believing that
Americans needing help want a hand up, not a handout.
It is Lincoln philosophy and Republican philosophy which holds that no man
stands so tall as when he stands on his own two feet.
And I submit that this is the basic philosophy of all Americans, and it is
the reason that the people are turning to the Republican Party and will turn the
Congress over to us next fall as they did the White House in '68.
###