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Ford Press Releases, August - December 1969
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Ford Press Releases, August - December 1969
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Press Releases Chronological Files
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U.S. House of Representatives. 3/4/1789-
Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994
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1969
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The original documents are located in Box D4, folder "Ford Press Releases, August -
December 1969" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
Distribution Ftpth Dist news Media
GERALD R. FORD
4:30 p.m. 8/4/69
MICHIGAN OFFICE:
FIFTH DISTRICT, MICHIGAN
425 CHERRY STREET SE.
GRAND RAPIDS 49502
Congress of the United States
Office of the Minority Leader
house of Representatives
Mashington, D.C. 20515
NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA:
I have received the following reply
from F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover in response
to my request that the F.B.I. render the great-
est assistance possible in connection with
solution of the series of co-ed slayings in the
Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor area. I thought Mr. Hoover's
letter would be of interest to you. You may
make whatever use of it you wish.
Gerald R. Ford, M.C.
Digitized from Box D4 of The Ford Congressional Papers:
Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
JOHN EDGAR HOOVER
DIRECTOR
# OF JUSTICE
Federal Bureau of Investigation
United States Department of Justice
FEDERAL FEDER BUREAU * OF )
Washington, D. C.
August 1, 1969
Honorable Gerald R. Ford
House of Representatives
Washington, D. C. 20515
My dear Congressman:
I have received your letter of July 30, 1969, and
certainly appreciate the deep interest and concern which prompted
you to write me regarding the series of murders of young women
in the State of Michigan.
Our Detroit Field Office has been in very close
contact with Michigan authorities regarding these atrocious
crimes; and as recently as July 30th, at the instructions of
Attorney General John N. Mitchell, Mr. Paul H. Stoddard, our
Special Agent in Charge in Detroit, contacted Governor William G.
Milliken and State Attorney General Frank J. Kelley to reiterate
the immediate and continuing availability of the FBI's cooperative
facilities-including the scientific services of our Laboratory
and Identification Divisions--as well as our preparedness to
cover investigative leads in these murders outside the State of
Michigan.
Mr. Stoddard was also instructed to determine
what facts had been established to indicate a possible violation
of Federal law. In the absence of such facts, the FBI does not
have the authority to assume jurisdiction over these or any other
local crimes; and Attorney General Mitchell accordingly advised
Governor Milliken by telegram yesterday.
GERALO FORD LIDRARY
Honorable Gerald R. Ford
I want to assure you that every item of information
obtained by this Bureau--including criminal intelligence data
furnished by our confidential informants--having any possible
bearing whatsoever on these murder cases has been, and will
continue to be, disseminated immediately to the appropriate
officials and agencies of your state. I also want you to know
that we in the FBI share your deep personal concern in this
matter; and you may be assured that, within its rightful juris-
diction and authority, this Bureau will continue to extend every
form of cooperation possible to the law enforcement agencies of
Michigan to help identify and bring to justice the individual or
individuals responsible for these vicious murders.
Sincerely yours,
J. Edgar Hoovem
- 2 -
5th
Diet
air
Mail
3:30p.m.
7/30/69
UP : UPI
here
3:15
p.m.
M Office Copy
7/30/69
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
July 30, 1969
NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA: I have today formally requested that the F.B.I. investigate
the series of murders in the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor area of Michigan. This
request is based on the Lindbergh Law as statutory authority. My letter to
the F.B.I. follows:
Dear Mr. Hoover:
I am writing you to formally request that the F.B.I. join in investigating
the series of seven kidnapping-murders which have occurred in the Ypsilanti-
Ann Arbor area of Michigan over a two-year period to the present.
The latest victim was Karen Sue Beineman, an 18-year-old Eastern Michigan
University student from Grand Rapids, Michigan, in my congressional district.
There is reason to believe that all of the slayings were committed by the
same killer, a sex fiend who strangles and beats his victims.
Since the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area is less than 50 miles from Toledo, Ohio,
I think there can be a presumption that the killer has at some time or other
crossed the state line with one or more of the girls he has lured to an
early and horrible death.
Col. Frederic Davids, head of the Michigan State Police, has informed me
that the Beineman case has offered local and State police authorities
the best lead yet in this series of murders. That lead is the fact that
Karen Sue Beineman was seen getting on a motorcycle behind a curly-haired
young man and was never seen alive again.
The fact that Miss Beineman last was seen riding on a motorcycle leads me
to believe that the killer may have crossed the Ohio state line with her.
Certainly we can make that presumption, and this would provide the basis
for the F.B.I. entering the case.
I have been besieged with telephone calls and telegrams from Grand Rapids
parents urging that the F.B.I. come into the case. I personally feel that
this is a case which requires a total mobilization of Federal, State and
local investigative effort if it is to be solved.
There is even talk among some Grand Rapids residents to the effect that
parents with young girls attending the University of Michigan and Eastern
Michigan University should withdraw their daughters from school until this
series of slayings is cleared up.
Please give this matter your immediate and most serious consideration. I
hope and pray for a favorable decision.
Best regards,
Gerald R. Ford, M.C.
GRF:pc
Distribution Full
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air
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169
Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON
TUESDAY, AUGUST 5,1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., in connection with introduction of a bill
providing for the minting of a commemorative half-dollar as a proof coin bearing
designs honoring the Apollo 11 astronauts and commemorating the Apollo 11 moon flight.
Mr. Speaker, I have today introduced legislation which provides for the
minting of new non-silver half dollars as proof coins commemorating the epic flight
of Apollo 11.
Mr. Speaker, the new non-silver half dollar I have proposed for minting
would not supplant the Kennedy half dollar nor would it circulate in competition with
it and thus create confusion. The moon mission half dollar could be obtained only
by placing an order with the Treasury Department, which would sell the coins at a
price not to exceed $1.
The moon mission half dollar would be a special commemorative coin with the
likenesses of Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins on the one side
and the lunar module on the surface of the moon on the other.
Under my bill, the Treasury Department would receive orders for the moon
mission coin until Dec. 31, 1970. Not only residents of the United States but also
residents of foreign countries could buy the coins from the Treasury. I felt this
was appropriate since the Apollo 11 moon mission really belongs to the world. As
Neil Armstrong said, it was "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
I think people throughout the world should have an opportunity to buy a moon mission
half dollar.
Mr. Speaker, as SO often happens in matters of this kind, the sponsor of a
bill is not always its originator. In the case of the moon mission half dollar,
I would like it known that Hugh Downs, host of the NBC "Today" show, suggested the
idea.
One last comment. I think the half dollar is the ideal coin for a moon
mission commemorative coin because in a sense it will honor not only all our Apollo
astronauts--including the late Roger Chaffee of Grand Rapids, Mich. but also the
late President John F. Kennedy. We all recall that it was Jack Kennedy who in
ringing tones told the world America would put men on the moon before the end of
this decade. We have realized that dream. We have accomplished that objective. I
think Jack Kennedy would have been proud to have a moon flight half-dollar
memorialize the reaching of his goal.
#########
Distribution Fifth District 4:30pm. 8/7/69
8/7/69
FOR USE ON RECEIPT
Office Copy
Mines began exploding all over the place, like giant firecrackers, and rifle
fire ripped the air.
Of 30 Americans sent out from the 198th Infantry Brigade toward the village
10 miles south of Chu Lai, 19 fell as shrapnel tore their bodies. One man, hit
by rifle fire as well, died.
Sp/4 Paul Ceton of Grand Rapids, Mich., clutched at his right eye and moaned.
By the time the helicopters dropped down on their mercy mission, he was in a state
of partial shock.
A whirlybird whisked Paul off to a field hospital in Chu Lai. From there he
was taken to the U.S.S. Sanctuary, lying at anchor off the South Vietnam coast.
An eye specialist on the ship said there was nothing to do but remove Paul's eye,
and he did. The shrapnel had done too much damage.
The year was 1968. Paul Ceton had served in Vietnam for three months when
he lost his eye.
From the ship he was taken to Danang, which was hit by Viet Cong rockets
that same night.
From Danang Paul was flown as a stretcher case to the Phillipines, Japan,
Alaska and to Scott Air Force Base. From Scott he was taken to the Great Lakes
Naval Hospital, where he recuperated over a two-month period.
The Army sent Paul home about June 1. Home was 219 Oakley Place N.E., Grand
Rapids, where he joined his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gerrit Ceton.
Paul wondered. All of his buddies who were wounded when the platoon ran
into the minefield in Vietnam had received Purple Hearts while still there. He
had not. But he did nothing.
On July 17, 1968, Paul Ceton was discharged from the Army. Still no Purple
Heart.
Meantime his artificial eye worked well. The eye muscles had been attached
to it. Anyone not knowing that Paul Ceton had lost an eye in Vietnam would never
have guessed it. Paul went to work in August 1968 as a stockman and warehouseman
at Horne Building Specialties, Inc., 2768 East Paris S.E., Grand Rapids.
In January 1969 Paul's twin brother, Daniel, was inducted into the Army after
graduating from Western Michigan University.
It bothered Dan that Paul had never received a Purple Heart for the wound
he suffered in Vietnam, and so Dan wrote to Congressman Gerald R. Ford.
(more)
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Ford immediately contacted the Army and urged that their records be searched.
Near the end of May the Adjutant General's Office assured Ford that Paul
Ceton was entitled to a Purple Heart and that the decoration would be presented to
him in a ceremony at Fort Sheridan, Ill. Ford wrote back asking to be notified
when the ceremony had been scheduled.
Weeks passed and Ford's office heard nothing. Finally Ford learned in a
letter from Paul Ceton himself that he had received his Purple Heart by mail.
Asked why he had not gone to Ft. Sheridan for the Purple Heart presentation,
Paul said simply: "We have about 20 men working here at Horne Building
Specialties, and when one guy is gone it makes a difference. I just didn't want
to take that much time off from work."
Paul talks casually now about the loss of his eye. He apparently has taken
it well.
In a simple yet most eloquent statement, Paul told Ford's office: "I was
thankful, because there are a lot of other guys who made greater sacrifices.
America has given me 23 years of freedom. That's the least I could do in return."
Paul says his left eye, which had been the weaker, now is stronger because
he has to rely on it entirely. Initially he had depth perception problems but he
adjusted. He even plays basketball -- and plays it well.
His mother and his girl friend are very pleased that Paul finally received
his Purple Heart. So is his twin brother, Dan, now serving with the Army in
Heidelberg, Germany.
Paul wrote a two-page letter to Ford, saying in part: "It is truly wonderful
that a man in your position would take the time to see that I got my Purple Heart.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you have done for me." He later
added in a conversation with Ford's office: "It's really tremendous that someone
high up in Washington would do this for me."
Ford commented: "It's fellows like Paul Ceton who make me very proud to be
an American. "
What does the future hold for Paul Ceton? He had attended Grand Rapids
Junior College for one year when the Army called him on Oct. 11, 1966. He hopes
ultimately to return to school and get a college degree, like brother Dan.
# # #
Distribution Full
Halleries a.m. 8/7/69
air mail 8/7/69
Office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON--
August 7, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the Congressional Record
of Thursday, August 7, 1969, immediately following the President's Message on
Public Transportation.
Mr. Speaker:
Today nearly 80 percent of all Americans live in cities. By the year 2000
it will be 90 percent. In the next 30 years our population will increase by more
than 100 million and almost all of it will be in our cities. Imagine, if you will,
an urban population twice what it is today.
Urban dwellers depend almost exclusively on the automobile to meet trans-
portation needs. There are now more than 80 million cars in use in the United
States. An estimated 160 million will be on the roads in 2000.
As automobile use has grown, public transportation has declined in both
quality and availability. This heavy reliance on the automobile for urban transpor-
tation has greatly disadvantaged the poor. While nearly all families with incomes
in excess of $10,000 have a car -- and those who don't, rent one as needed --- less
than half of those with poverty-level incomes own an automobile.
Most new jobs are opening in suburban or rural industrial areas, locations
made feasible in most cases by construction of the Federally-financed Interstate
Highway System. If an unemployed person has no car of his own and cannot work out
a car pool arrangement, he cannot get the good job unless there is public transpor-
tation. If he is lucky enough to have public transportation, it is usually low
quality, increasingly expensive, very often so indirect that a 20-mile ride takes
an hour and a half and several transfers.
If urban residents are to have a real choice in how they move about, and
whether they move at all, an estimated $20 billion is going to have to be spent on
public transportation in the next 12 years.
Our cities, alone, cannot carry this burden. State and local public debt
now exceeds $100 billion. Over the next 10 years it may well exceed $250 billion.
Federal funding for public transportation must be substantial and available on an
assured basis.
Funding must be sufficient to help finance major urban transportation
projects and to provide aid for medium and small cities.
(more)
-2-
The need is great and time works relentlessly against us. This is ample
reason to back the public transportation legislation proposed by President Nixon.
With his Message on Public Transportation, President Nixon has laid down a
blueprint for action -- action not only by the Federal Government but by the States
and local units of government. For the legislation he proposes would not simply
improve existing facilities and provide for new facilities and more research. It
would also supply urgently needed financial support to the states and local bodies
for the advance acquisition of property rights-of-way.
The President's proposals would start the country moving to solve its
public transportation problems.
This 12-year program proposed by Mr. Nixon would amount to $10 billion in
Federal funds, actually a meager sum when compared with our space effort, our war
effort and our highway effort.
The time has passed for us to study and re-study our public transportation
problems. It is time to act -- now.
I ask that this legislation be given speedy approval. We must back up this
program with our votes.
There is hardly a state in the Nation that does not have a complaint about
transportation. In fact, you now have to go into remote parts of our country to
escape from congestion, smog and the masses of people trying to get from their
homes to work and back home again.
Now is the time to show the great mass of Americans that we know and
recognize their dilemma and that we are determined to do something about it.
# # #
Distribution: Gull
Gallaries 11:45p.m. 8/11/69
air Mail 2:00 nom 8/11/69
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., regarding President Message
Maffice Nixon's Copy
on Welfare Reform, to be placed in the Congressional Record of August 11, 1969
For Release at 12 Noon, August 11, 1969
M:. Speaker, I strongly agree with President Nixon that the present welfare
system is a complete failure and should be abolished. I further agree with him
that it is far better to develop an entirely new system of family assistance than
to try to patch up and improve the existing system.
Mr. Speaker, President Nixon's Message on Family Assistance, sent to the
Congress today, is an historic document in more than the usual sense. It is an
historic declaration because it breaks new ground in the history of American
government and our attempts to perfect the American system.
There are several features in the President's new family assistance plan
which I believe especially commend it to the American people and to the Congress.
One of these features is the enlargement of opportunities which the
President's Family Assistance Plan offers to those now on welfare but able to work
and to the working poor who need an assist to enter the economic mainstream of this
country.
Another is the emphasis that the President's plan places on keeping families
together. The family is the basic building block of our society. The President's
Family Assistance Plan furnishes the foundation for economically deprived American
families to stay together and thus serves to undergird our society as a whole.
Finally, although the Family Assistance Plan initially would cost more than
the present welfare system, the President's new assistance program means greater
equity for the taxpayer.
We are telling the taxpayer that those who are able to work must work or
take training if they are to receive Government assistance, except in the case of
mothers with children under six.
Mr. Speaker, President Nixon's program is a bridge to full opportunity for
the able-bodied welfare recipient and for the working poor and a stride toward
equity for the taxpayer.
Looked at in the aggregate, the Family Assistance Program is designed to
break the vicious cycle of welfarism and at the same time provide those who cannot
work with a basic economic floor.
Mr. Speaker, I think all members of Congress recognize that the present
welfare system is a colossal failure. I urge that members of both bodies look at
the President's Family Assistance Plan as the handle which will enable America to
lift itself out of the rut of welfarism and to move ahead to a brighter day.
###
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
august111 1969
I believe all Americans will welcome the bold new initiatives outlined by
President Nixon tonight a move to relax the muscle-bound Federal Government's
stranglehold on people, programs and money.
What I see in the President's proposals in the areas of welfare, manpower
training and sharing of federal revenue with the states and cities is an attempt
to make government at all levèls work better for all the people of America.
The course the President has charted is a far better way of solving problems
in America than the path we have been pursuing.
I would describe the President's welfare plans as Family Assistance Reform, or
FAR, because I see his proposals for welfare reform lifting economically handicapped
Americans out of the slough of despair and placing them on a road to a better life.
FAR is an effort to give every Emericaniable to work the incentive to work, the
desire to stand on his own two feet. For the first time, if the President's
proposals are enacted, it would always pay en American to work instead of going on
welfare. This is the true spirit of America.
The old welfare system born in the depression days of the Thirties perpetuates
welfarism and kills decency in man. In addition, it taxes working Americans so that
others may live in idleness. Like the tax reform bill just passed by the House,
President Nixon's welfare reform program will be a great leap forward for the taxpayer,
I also applaud the President's plans to reorganize Federal manpower training
programs to make them perform better and to give the States and localities the
opportunityito operate them in a manner geared to local needs.
Establishing innovation as the primary role of the Office of Economic Opportunity
in the war against poverty also will serve to promote our national objectives.
I was particularly impressed with the overall theme of the President's message
to the people--that of a New Federalism, the placing of more power and responsibility
in the hands of the States and the cities.
If the States and cities are to assume more responsibility, they must have more
funds. Sharing of Federal revenue with them is the best way to solverthe many domesti
problems which confront us.
FORD
Overall, the proposals outlined by President Nixonttonight represent human
investment--and investment in people which will redound to the great
good of the country.
Henter NYT
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
10p.m.
FOR
RELEASE--
August 8, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
I believe all Americans will welcome the bold new initiatives outlined by
President Nixon tonight a move to relax the muscle-bound Federal Government's
stranglehold on people, programs and money.
What I see in the President's proposals in the areas of welfare, menpower
training and sharing of federal revenue with the states and cities is an attempt
to make government at all levels work better for all the people of America.
The course the President has charted is a far better way of solving problems
in America than the path we have been pursuing.
I would describe the President's welfare plans as Family Assistance Reform, or
FAR, because I see his proposals for welfare reform lifting economically handicapped
Americans out of the slough of despair and placing them on a road to a better life.
FAR is an effort to give every Americaniable to work the incentive to work, the
desire to stand on his own two feet. For the first time, if the President's
proposals are enacted, it would always pay en American to work instead of going on
welfare. This is the true spirit of America.
The old welfare system born in the depression days of the Thirties perpetuates
velfarism and kills decency in man. In addition, it taxes working Americans so that
others may live in idleness. Like the tax reform bill just passed by the House,
President Nixon's welfare reform program will be a great leap forward for the taxpayer.
I also applaud the President's plans to reorganize Federal manpower training
programs to make them perform better and to give the States and localities the
opportunity to operate them in a manner geared to local needs.
Establishing innovation as the primary role of the Office of Economic Opportunity
in the war against poverty also will serve to promote our national objectives.
I was particularly impressed with the overall theme of the President's message
to the people--that of a New Federalism, the placing of more power and responsibility
in the hands of the States and the cities.
If the States and cities are to assume more responsibility, they must have more
funds. Sharing of Federal revenue with them is the best way to solve the many domestic
problems which confront us.
Overall, the proposals outlined by President Nixonttonight represent human
investment--and investment in people-andrforgpgople--which will redound to the great
good of the country.
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the body of the
Congressional Record of Monday, August 11, 1969.
Mr. Speaker:
I believe all Americans will welcome the bold new initiatives outlined by
President Nixon last Friday night as a move to relax the muscle-bound Federal
Government's stranglehold on people, programs and money.
What I see in the President's proposals in the areas of welfare, manpower
training and sharing of federal revenue with the states and cities is an attempt
to make government at all levels work better for all the people of America.
The course the President has charted is a far better way of solving problems
in America than the path we have been pursuing.
I would describe the President's welfare plans as Family Assistance Reform,
or FAR, because I see his proposals for welfare reform lifting economically handi-
capped Americans out of the slough of despari and placing them on a road to a
better life.
FAR is an effort to give every American able to work the incentive to work,
the desire to stand on his own two feet. For the first time, th the President's
proposals are enacted, it would always pay an American to work instead of going
on welfare. This is the true spttit of America.
The old welfare system born in the depression days of the Thirties
perpetuates welfarism and kills decency inmman. In addition, it taxes working
Ameticans so that others may live in idlemess. Like the tax reform bill just passed
by the House, President Nixonb'welfare fefurm program will be a great leap forward
for the taxpayer.
I also applaud the President's plans to reorganize Federal manpower training
programs to make them perform better and to give the States and localities the
opportunity to operate them in a manner geared to local needs.
Establishing inmovation as the premary role of the Office of Economic
Opportunity in the war against poverty also will serve to promote our national
objectives.
I was particularly impressed with the overall theme of the President's message
to the people - that of a New Federalism, the placing of more power and responsi-
bility in the hands of the States and the cities.
If the States and cities are to assume more responsibility, they must have
more funds. Sharing of Federal revenue with them is the best way to solve the
many domestic problems thich confront us.
Overall, the proposals outlined by President Nixon tonight represent human
investment - -- an investment in people and for people - -- which will redound to the
great good of the country.
###
GERALE FORD LIBRARY
Distribution Full
Galleries
12:00
8/12/69
p.m.
8/12/69
noffice Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 2 P.M. EDT--
August 12, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the Congressional Record
of August 12, 1969, immediately following the President's Manpower Training
Message.
President Nixon's manpower training message is a vital part of the overall
formula he has produced to bring disadvantaged Americans into the economic main-
stream and to bring more funds and greater responsibilities to the states and local
communities.
With this message, President Nixon has declared it a national objective
that we extend to every American the opportunity to learn a job skill and to fulfill
all of his capabilities. This, I believe, is a national goal the Congress should
endorse and embrace.
There is no question that the most efficient and effective implementation
of our manpower training programs is necessary if we are to meet our commitment of
helping people get off welfare rolls and onto payrolls.
Every feature of the President's 7-point Comprehensive Manpower Training
Act is important, but I would call attention especially to the need for flexible
funding, the provision for decentralized administration "as Governors and Mayors
evidence interest, build managerial capacity and demonstrate effective performance,"
proposed establishment of a National Computerized Job Bank long advocated by the
House Republican Leadership, and proposed use of the comprehensive manpower training
system as an economic stabilizer.
The last of these points is one which deserves the closest possible
congressional attention.
While many economic stabilizers have been built into the American economic
system, we cannot have too many safeguards against potential economic problems.
President Nixon's proposal that appropriations for manpower services be
increased by 10 per cent if the jobless rate rises to 4.5 per cent or more for
three consecutive months is one that appears to have great merit. It would be a
welcome addition to an economic arsenal that for too long has contained little else
but pump-priming mechanisms.
###
Distribution: Full
Halleries 11:45a.m. 8/13/69
air Mail 12:05 pm. 8/13/69
affia Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 2 P.M. EDT--
August 13, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the Congressional Record
of August 13, 1969, immediately following the President's Message on Revenue Sharing.
Mr. Speaker:
Incentive and extra effort have always been essential elements of success.
It is just those elements that would be generated by Federal revenue sharing,
as proposed today by President Nixon.
Throughout the President's proposal for diversion of an assured portion of
Federal income tax revenue to the states and local units of government is woven
the idea of greater responsibility for those units of government, for governing
bodies closer to the people than is the Federal Legislature.
As a supplement to other Federal aid, revenue sharing can be the catalyst
for problem-solving on a scale we have never yet witnessed in America, problem-
solving at the local level on the basis of priorities viewed as local people see
them in their own communities.
The House Republican Leadership has long urged the adoption of Federal
revenue sharing. Together with the President's new Family Assistance Program and
his Comprehensive Manpower Training Act, revenue sharing would supply the cement
for the building of a better America.
This is the New Federalism the President spoke of last Friday night--a
channeling of new funds and new responsibilities to states and local communities,
a movement which will return government to the people.
Mr. Speaker, any proposal as bold as Federal revenue sharing will require
deep study and concentration within the Congress. I am hopeful that hearings on
the President's revenue sharing plan will begin very soon in the House and move
steadily to a favorable conclusion.
President Nixon's revenue-sharing plan is a proposal which speaks to the
future of America, a program which is needed to revitalize the American political
system and the people it serves.
# # #
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
read
+
file
[Aug. 1969]
All levels of government, industry, schools and other interested organizations
must launch a concerted effort to end economic stagnation and poverty in rural
America, Rep. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids said today.
Ford said there is a tremendous imbalance with regard to how fully rural and
urban America share in the economic product of the Nation. He cited lower income
levels and lessened economic opportunities in rural America and the disproportionate
number of rural citizens living in poverty.
One of the best ways to end this imbalance, Ford said, is to attract industry
to rural locations.
Rural areas have much to offer industry as the location for new plants, Ford
declared, but they need the help of all governmental units to bring in new industry
and the jobs it would generate.
Not only would new industry provide needed jobs for the rural poor; it would
also, Ford said, establish an adequate economic base for future development of rural
areas.
The Federal Government should provide economic development assistance to
these areas, Ford said, so that they can exploit their natural advantages--a willing
work force, uncrowded living and working conditions, and abundant natural resources.
Ford said rural areas need assistance to provide better transportation
services, better schools and better public utilities. With such assistance, Ford
said, rural areas could compete with their urban neighbors for industry.
Ford said the establishment and expansion of area technical schools is highly
important in this connection. Such schools, he said, produce a skilled work force
available to industry in rural America.
Ford said another key weapon against rural stagnation is improvement of farm
income.
He pointed out that the rural economy lost $11 billion between 1963 and 1968
due to failure of farm income to keep pace with non-agricultural income.
A substantial boost in farm income, he said, would be a tremendous help in
combatting rural poverty. He noted that this would generate increased business
activity and thus create many new jobs and new business opportunities. Finally, he
said, this would in turn produce additional tax revenues for rural towns, which then
could provide their people with better transportation, schools and other services.
Ford said: "I hope and trust that these matters are receiving full con-
sideration by United States Agriculture Department planners as they develop a farm
program to be presented to the Congress shortly."
###
8/15/69
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
All levels of government, industry, schools and other interested organizations
must launch a concerted effort to end economic stagnation and poverty in rural
America, Rep. Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids said today.
Ford said there is a tremendous imbalance with regard to how fully rural and
urban America share in the economic product of the Nation. He cited lower income
levels and lessened economic opportunities in rural America and the disproportionate
number of rural citizens living in poverty.
One of the best ways to end this imbalance, Ford said, is to attract industry
to rural locations.
Rural areas have much to offer industry as the location for new plants, Ford
declared, but they need the help of all governmental units to bring in new industry
and the jobs it would generate.
Not only would new industry provide needed jobs for the rural poor; it would
also, Ford said, establish an adequate economic base for future development of rural
areas.
The Federal Government should provide economic development assistance to
these areas, Ford said, so that they can exploit their natural advantages--a willing
work force, uncrowded living and working conditions, and abundant natural resources.
Ford said rural areas need assistance to provide better transportation
services, better schools and better public utilities. With such assistance, Ford
said, rural areas could compete with their urban neighbors for industry.
Ford said the establishment and expansion of area technical schools is highly
important in this connection. Such schools, he said, produce a skilled work force
available to industry in rural America.
Ford said another key weapon against rural stagnation is improvement of farm
income.
He pointed out that the rural economy lost $11 billion between 1963 and 1968
due to failure of farm income to keep pace with non-agricultural income.
A substantial boost in farm income, he said, would be a tremendous help in
combatting rural poverty. He noted that this would generate increased business
activity and thus create many new jobs and new business opportunities. Finally, he
said, this would in turn produce additional tax revenues for rural towns, which then
could provide their people with better transportation, schools and other services.
Ford said: "I hope and trust that these matters are receiving full con-
sideration by United States Agriculture Department planners as they develop a farm
program to be presented to the Congress shortly."
###
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
8/29/69
Congressional hearings will begin Sept. 25 on anti-obscenity legislation,
including three bills on the subject by Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids.
Ford's bills are among those on which testimony will be taken by a subcommittee
of the House Judiciary Committee. Ford's legislation is based on an Anti-Obscenity
Message sent to the Congress May 2 by President Nixon.
"I hope the Judiciary Committee finds it possible to agree rather quickly on
legislation which will prove effective, Ford said. "I found that anti-obscenity
legislation was one of the chief topics of conversation when I visited my
congressional district during the August congressional recess."
Congressional interest in anti-obscenity measures parallels that of the folks
back home. More than 200 anti-obscenity bills have been introduced in the 91st
Congress.
Ford has sponsored three bills--the Administration bills recommended by
President Nixon to halt the mailing of obscene literature and advertisements.
The first bill would place a flat ben on the sending of any obscene material
to a person under 18 years of age.
The second bill would require those sending pandering advertising materials
through the mail to first purchase from the Post Office Department a list of all
families which do not want such mail. Any smut peddler who then persisted in
sending pandering advertisements to such families would be subject to fine or
imprisonment.
The third Ford bill makes it a Federal crime to mail or transport in interstate
commerce an advertisement intended to produce a market for obscene materials by
stimulating prurient interest in the recipient.
The Ford bill dealing with obscene mailings to persons under 18 is based on a
New York S tatute which has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Violation would be
punishable with a prison term of up to five years and a $50,000 fine.
Ford commented: "These Administration bills calling for a crackdown on mail
peddlers of pornography and smut have strong support in the 91st Congress. The
need for this legislation is well-established. The Administration has requested
these laws and will enforce them. The Congress should move promptly to enact
these measures."
######
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
[sept 1969]
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT--
Rep. Jerry Ford Plays Cupid
In Trans-Atlantic Romance
The fellow who first remarked that the course of true love seldom runs
smooth might have added: If you have a problem, take it to your congressman.
That's what sweet young Maureen Szymczak of Grand Rapids did when she ran
into bad luck with love last Spring. With the help of Rep. Gerald R. Ford,
wedding bells will ring for her in October.
For Maureen, love was a grand adventure that happened to her in Europe in
the summer of 1967. It budded and bloomed in Munich when she remained on the
continent after a three-week Grand Rapids Junior College tour in 1966.
She lived in Europe for a year and a half, first visiting with a sister
married to a U.S. serviceman stationed in Bremerhaven and then working in
Copenhagen. She vacationed in Greece and Spain during the summer of 1967 and
then found work at a hotel in Munich, Germany when she ran out of money.
It was at the hotel that she met Giancarlo Vanin, an Italian who was an
on-the-job trainee in hotel administration.
"I was working as a chambermaid," she said, "and I literally met Giancarlo
over my mop and pail."
They fell madly in love, and when Maureen returned to Grand Rapids last
Christmas and then enrolled at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo it was
with plans for a Fall, 1968 wedding.
Maureen and Giancarlo agreed that he should come to Grand Rapids on a
visitor's visa in August so he could meet her family and they could be married
in September at St. James Catholic Church. After their marriage, they would
travel to Munich where Giancarlo would resume his training in hotel administration.
But then the blow fell. Giancarlo was turned down cold when he went to
the American consulate in Munich and applied for a visitor's visa so he could
go to Grand Rapids to marry Maureen. The official at the consulate told him
he would have to apply for an immigrant visa under the quota system, a procedure
which would take years because of the long waiting list.
(more)
-2-
Maureen wrote to the Immigration and Naturalization Service Office in
Detroit but received no help.
Then she appealed to Congressman Ford, detailing how the American consulate
official in Munich insisted there was no assurance that Giancarlo would marry
during his visit to the United States and that he would return to Europe with
his bride.
Ford went to work on the case. Four months, seventeen letters, three
telephone calls and one notarized statement later, the American consulate informed
Ford that a visitor's visa had been granted to Giancarlo. With Ford's assistance,
Maureen and Giancarlo had finally satisfied the consul that they would in fact
be married in Grand Rapids and would then leave for Europe.
Bubbling over with happiness, Maureen wrote Congressman Ford:
"I would like to sincerely thank you for your assistance in helping my
fiance obtain the visa. We are so thrilled and excited. It's hard to believe
he actually has it! It's a nice feeling to know that when you have a problem
you can take it to your congressman--and get results!"
Expressing his gratitude, Giancarlo wrote Ford: "I want you to know that
all my life I will never forget you. I will never forget what you did for me.
I will never forget the man who with his help gave me the opportunity to go to
America and marry the girl I love so much."
A daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Szymczak, 731 Stocking, N.W., Maureen
will be married to Giancarlo Vanin at 6 p.m. Oct. 17 at St. James Catholic
Church with Msgr. Walter Grill reading the Nuptial Mass. There will be a
reception at St. Hyacinth's Club.
True to the word given the American consul in Munich, Germany, Maureen and
Giancarlo will make their home there for four months after the wedding and
then will live for two or three years in Rome where Carlo will complete his
hotel management training. They plan untimately to live in America.
Mrs. Szymczak hasn't met her future son-in-law yet but already she is
proud of him.
"He speaks five languages," she said. "I am very happy for Maureen
although I am sad at losing her." "You should have seen all the letters they
wrote to each other after she came home last Christmas. This just has to be
the real thing."
And that is how the course of true love was made smooth by a congressman.
# # #
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
[Sept. 1969]
Congressional hearings will begin Sept. 25 on anti-obscenity legislation,
including three bills on the subject by Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids.
Ford's bills are among those on which testimony will be taken by a subcommittee
of the House Judiciary Committee. Ford's legislation is based on an Anti-Obscenity
Message sent to the Congress May 2 by President Nixon.
"I hope the Judiciary Committee finds it possible to agree rather quickly on
legislation which will prove effective, "Ford said. "I found that anti-obscenity
legislation was one of the chief topics of conversation when I visited my
congressional district during the August congressional recess."
Congressional interest in anti-obscenity measures parallels that of the folks
back home. More than 200 anti-obscenity bills have been introduced in the 91st
Congress.
Ford has sponsored three bills--the Administration bills recommended by
President Nixon to halt the mailing of obscene literature and advertisements.
The first bill would place a flat ban on the sending of any obscene material
to a person under 18 years of age.
The second bill would require those sending pandering advertising materials
through the mail to first purchase from the Post Office Department a list of all
families which do not want such mail. Any smut peddler who then persisted in
sending pandering advertisements to such families would be subject to fine or
imprisonment.
The third Ford bill makes it a Federal crime to mail or transport in interstate
commerce an advertisement intended to produce a market for obscene materials by
stimulating prurient interest in the recipient.
The Ford bill dealing with obscene mailings to persons under 18 is based on a
New York tatute which has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Violation would be
punishable with a prison term of up to five years and a $50,000 fine.
Ford commented: "These Administration bills calling for a crackdown on mail 1
peddlers of pornography and smut have strong support in the 91st Congress. The
need for this legislation is well-established. The Administration has requested
these laws and will enforce them. The Congress should move promptly to enact
these measures."
######
FORD is LIBRARY GERALD
Distribution Full Galleries 10,30a.m. 9/8/69
Office
air mail 11:15a.m. 9/8/69
Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
September 8, 1969
Comment on the death of Senator Dirksen
A great American is dead. Some of the life has gone out of the Congress
with the departure from this life of Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen. Of
Sen. Dirksen it must be said he was larger than life. He was the kind of man
who not only filled the canvas but spilled over from it. He was SO colorful
that whether you agreed with him or not you loved to hear him talk. He was a
giant in American politics. He had a uniqueness that was peculiarly Dirksen.
There was nobody like him before; there will be nobody like him again. I am
proud to have been the junior half of the "Ev and Jerry Show."
###
Dirksen
10/8/69
Mr. Speaker: It was with great sadne SB and a feeling of deep loss that
I learned Sunday afternoon of the death of the imaboloved Republican leader of
the Senate, Everett Millinley Dirksen of Illinois.
Mr. Speaker, it is apprepriate that the skies should be overcant today and
should weep, for this reflects the mood of a Nation bereft of the services of
the Grand Old Man from Pekin. It is with a somber heart that I address this House
today.
I knew Ev Dirksen well--perhaps hatterlthen most. Ours was a close relationship
by virtue of our positions. Yet while I am proud to have been the junior half of
the "Ev and Jerry Show," I must note that BV never made me feel that I was junior to
him. That was not his style.
Ev was a giant in American politics. He had nofuse normeed to steal the show from
others in order to feel his full stature.
Ev was a giant as a legibiator. Perhaps more than any other statemen in modern
American history, Ev Dirksen was a master in the art of compromise. He captured the
essence of democracy in that he made democracy work. He made manifold and tremendous
montributions to the legislative shelves of this Nation.
Ev was a giant as a speaker. I know of no man who was more articulate than
Ev Dirksen, whither he was speaking of landmark legislation or remimiscing about
soldiering
his/days in # Europe during World War HI. When he was calle the
Wisard of Cose, it was a good-natured compliment. It was in fact the supreme compliment
Mr. Speaker, the Flag hangs at half-mast over the Capitol today. It tells of
what we all feel-the loss of a great American and the heavy sorrow for having lost
LIBRARY
a
dear
and
good
friend.
Mv
wife
Rattv
and
T
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
September 10, 1969
One appointment to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, three appointments
to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and one appointment to the U. S. Air Force
Academy at Colorado Springs are available to young men of Kent and Ionia Counties,
Congressman Gerald R. Ford announced today.
These all-expense college scholarships are open to high school seniors and
graduates who are interested in careers in the armed services of the United States.
In addition, applicants must be U. S. citizens, under 22 years of age, unmarried, and
able to pass the physical and scholastic requirements.
Applications may be obtained from Ford's Grand Rapids office at 425 Cherry
Street, S.E. (telephone 456-9747) and from his Washington office in the Capitol
Building. The deadline for filing applications is September 25.
Selection of the appointees from the Fifth Congressional District of Michigan
will be based on the results of an open, competitive Civil Service examination to be
given on Saturday, October 4th. The examination will be held at Grand Rapids,
Lansing, and other cities thoughout the country to accommodate those who may be
residing temporarily away from home. An examination will also be conducted on Tues-
day, November 4, for those who cannot report for the October examination; these
applications will be considered if received as late as October 30.
Rep. Ford reported that applications also will be received for appointment to
the U. S. Merchant Marine Academy and the U. S. Coast Guard Academy, but selection to
these institutions is not limited to congressional districts. Michigan congressmen
may nominate ten candidates for the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York,
to compete on a state-wide basis for 12 available scholarships. The Coast Guard
makes its own selection of cadets to attend the Academy at New London, Connecticut,
from a nation-wide competition.
"The opportunities for training and a career offered by the United States
Military, Naval, Air Force, Merchant Marine, and Coast Guard Academies should be
seriously considered by many young men in Kent and Ionia Counties, Rep. Ford said.
He emphasized that the opportunities offered qualified young men who choose these
four-year courses lead not only to a bachelor's degree in science but also to a
commission in one of the Services.
"At the present time," Ford stated, "we have at the academies ten young men
from Grand Rapids, two from Ionia, and one each from Cedar Springs, Comstock Park,
Grandville, and Wyoming. I hope a large number of applications representing every
community in the Fifth District will be received this fall."
Distribution: Fifth District media
Dailies - 9/15/69
FOR USE ON RECEIPT
Wuklies - 9/12/69
Office Copy
SEE: CORRES- FORD FOR CORRESPONDENCE
Congressman Gerald R. Ford today announced that he will mail out a
questionnaire to all 141, 491 residences in the Fifth Congressional District to
sample the thinking in Kent and Ionia Counties on the issues of the day.
"I am sending out this questionnaire," Ford said, "to get the advice of the
people in the district on important questions facing the Congress. "This survey
will provide me with a valuable guide in voting on legislation. While I must bear
the responsibility for votes I cast, it will be most helpful to me to know what
my constituents think. "
Ford noted that nine of the 10 questions in the poll will require yes or no
answers, with no space for an undecided reply.
"I have done this because my votes in the House of Representatives must be
'yea' or 'nay, Ford said. "At no time can I vote 'maybe,' so I am posing these
questions to my constituents on much the same basis that I will have to vote on
them in the House."
One question -- that on Vietnam -- offers Fifth District constituents a
multiple choice.
"I am offering a multiple choice question on Vietnam because it is a policy
question which will not come up in the House as a yes or no vote on legislation,'
Ford explained. "In addition, it is a most complicated question, and I felt that
a multiple choice was mandatory.
Ford said he had weighed the formulation of every question most carefully to
make sure it was phrased fairly.
"I am not looking for any particular answer to any of the questions, " Ford
said. "The questions were chosen to reflect the most important issues facing the
Congress, and the wording of them is intended to let the respondent make up his
mind for himself."
Ford added that the questions in the district poll could not parallel
exactly the voting decisions he must make in the House, because the votes in the
House will be on legislative language. But the basic issues, he said, will be the
same.
Ford noted that his questionnaire card has been designed so that a respondent
need only place a six-cent stamp on it in the designated space and mail it back.
It will not be necessary to place it in an envelope or to do any addressing.
It will take about a week for all of the questionnaires to be delivered
throughout Kent and Ionia Counties, Ford said. As soon as sufficient returns have
been received by his office, they will be compiled and the results announced, he
said.
###
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U. S. House of
Representatives, on the floor of the House, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 1969.
Mr. Speaker:
President Nixon's statement yesterday concerning further troop
withdrawals makes it abundantly clear that the President intends to have
peace in Vietnam, but that it will be peace with honor.
Although the emphasis in the press is on the new troop withdrawal,
the emphasis in this Administration is that it will not negotiate away
the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future,
free of outside interference.
In other words, we will not abandon South Vietnam.
However, we will continue to work diligently for peace.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that it would be well to go over the steps this
Administration has already taken in that effort.
We have renounced an imposed military solution; we have proposed free
elections under international supervision; we have said we will retain no
military bases; we have offered to negotiate an internationally supervised
cease fire; we are willing to settle for the de facto removal of North
Vietnamese troops so long as there are guarantees against their return;
we are prepared to accept any results of a free election and we are
prepared to discuss the 10-point program put forward by the North Vietnamese.
Mr. Speaker, the President is indeed walking the extra mile in the
quest for peace. It is up to the North Vietnamese to see that he does not
walk it alone and in vain.
Distribution: Full
Galleries 1:45 p.m. 9/18/69
2:10p.m. 9/18/69
M Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
September 18, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader. U. S. House of
Representatives, on the floor of the House, Thursday, September 18, 1969.
Mr. Speaker, if the United Nations is to be more than a debating society
and a propaganda forum, the members of that organization must respond meaningfully
to President Nixon's urging that they persuade Hanoi to engage in productive
peace negotiations at Paris.
I would like at this time to commend President Nixon for going before the
United Nations to make this eloquent appeal for peace, this plea that member
nations of the U.N. seek to use their good offices on behalf of an early peace
in Vietnam.
Mr. Speaker, there is no problem facing this Nation that is more pressing
than the Vietnam War. Any effort, therefore, that the President makes which may
have beneficial results is very much to be applauded.
I mentioned yesterday during House discussion of the prisoner of war issue
that world opinion counts for something even among Communist nations. I believe
that to be true, and it is for that reason I feel that President Nixon's appeal
to the United Nations may have some impact on North Vietnam.
If all 126 members of the U.N. were to pressure North Vietnam for more
meaningful peace negotiations, I believe the result would be beneficial in the
cause of peace.
If only a fraction of the U.N. members but a sizable number were to raise
their voices in protest against the unyielding position of North Vietnam at Paris,
the result might be to move the other side to some degree.
Mr. Speaker, I believe President Nixon's initiative in going before the
United Nations on behalf of world peace will have a salutary effect. I feel he
deserves the commendation of the entire House.
###
Distribution: Full
Galleries 11:00 a.m. 9/23/69
11:20 a.m. 9/23/69
affice Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
September 23, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U. S. House of
Representatives, on the floor of the House, September 23, 1969.
Mr. Speaker:
One of the underlying causes of youthful unrest in our nation is
uncertainty about the future. One of the great reasons for that uncertainty is
the present draft system that makes a man eligible for the draft for seven years.
We all know that no man can plan his future if he never knows when the long arm
of government is going to reach out and take him.
The resulting uncertainty can only breed resentment among our youth,
regardless of their race or socio-economic background.
Knowing this, we have gone along with such a system far too long a time.
Finally, the time has come for us to change that system, for it will be
done either by Congressional action or -- if we refuse -- by Executive decision.
President Nixon asked this Congress in May to provide a random selection
system that would limit the draft to 19 year olds. To date we have not acted.
As an alternative, the President will take Executive action after the first of
the year that will accomplish much the same objective although, in his own words,
"not as clearly and as fairly" as legislation would.
Mr. Speaker, Congress has three months to act on this very important
matter before the first of the year. I hope we will get on with the job.
# # #
Distribution Full
Galleries $2:45p.m. 9/24/69
air Mail 3:15p.m. 9/24/69
M Office Capy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
September 24, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U.S. House of
Representatives, on the floor of the House, September 24, 1969.
Mr. Speaker:
Today more than 75 Members of the House, including 7 from the Ways and
Means Committee, have joined to introduce legislation that will make federally-
collected revenues available for percentage sharing with the states and cities.
When passed, this legislation will effectively carry out the proposal made
by President Nixon last August 13 that federal revenues should be made available
for use by the states and cities on a no-strings-attached basis.
Mr. Speaker, introduction of this legislation today marks the first time
in recent history that a concerted effort has been begun to give states and local
governments the funds that will allow them effectively to live up to their
committments and their responsibilities to their citizens.
I think it is generally agreed that the central government until now has
increasingly pre-empted the sources of revenue available to states and local
governments, thus leaving no alternative except for the federal govenrment also
to pre-empt their responsibilities.
Until now, money flowing from the federal government to the states has been
sent in the form of categorical grants, with the federal government determining
how and where the funds will be spent. Often, in doing so, we have put such
grants on matching bases. This forced the recipients to increase their own taxes
to take advantage of projects and programs they need less than some for which we
have provided no grants.
The legislation we are seeking today will provide additional funds that
states and counties and cities can spend as they see fit.
Mr. Speaker, there are those who lack confidence in the ability of states
and local governments to spend money effectively or properly. I would agree
there will be cases where money is badly spent.
But we have no farther to look than the federal government to see great
sums badly spent on poorly devised programs devised for questionable reasons.
(more)
-2-
Mr. Speaker, we are a self-governing people. The Constitution ordains
our system as such, and the vast majority of Americans want it that way.
Self-governing begins with the government closest to the people -- local,
county and state government.
Revenue sharing will make it possible to make that government more
effective and more able to meet the needs of those it governs.
Mr. Speaker, remembering that big government is not necessarily the best
government, I urge the members of this House to give this legislation not only
their careful study but also their votes of approval.
Our nation will be the stronger for it.
# # #
Distribution Galleries Full
mail 2:00p.m. 9/26/69 9/26/69
1:45p.
Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
September 26, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives,
re: President Nixon's press conference comments.
I expect an increasing majority of the American people will support
President Nixon's declarations on policy in Vietnam.
The facts cited by Mr. Nixon at his press conference Friday showing progress
in Vietnam -- the decline in U.S. casualties, the sharp drop in enemy infiltration
as compared with the first nine months of last year, and other indicators -- prove
to my satisfaction that the President's Vietnam policy is sound.
I agree with President Nixon that setting an arbitrary date for complete
U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam would not only undermine but completely destroy our
bargaining position at Paris. Such a pronouncement would be harmful, not helpful.
There is an unfortunate tendency among some Americans to abandon that
objective which the President has declared as "non-negotiable" -- the right of
the South Vietnamese people to decide for themselves who their leaders shall be.
Any willingness to junk that objective plays into the enemy's hands and
encourages them to drag the war out instead of negotiating a political solution.
As President Nixon has repeatedly made clear, we are pursuing a negotiated
settlement in Vietnam. The only ingredient lacking at present is enemy willingness
to negotiate.
The other side will negotiate, as the President said, when the enemy
becomes convinced they have nothing to gain by waiting us out.
On another subject, I would also like to comment on President Nixon's
prospects for winning congressional approval of automatic cost-of-living increases
in Social Security benefits.
It should be emphasized that both the Democratic and Republican platforms of
1968 contained planks endorsing automatic rises in Social Security payments to
keep pace with the cost-of-living.
Under the circumstances, I think chances for enactment of such legislation
are good. Any failure will be the responsibility of the Democratic Congress.
###
Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE FRIDAY AM's--
September 26, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the Congressional Record
of September 25, 1969
Mr. Speaker, if it is possible to be both amused and saddened simultaneously,
this best sums up my reaction to the dramatic by-play which has been diverting
some of my dear Democratic friends of the Majority side in recent weeks. The
theme of this miní-melodrama seems to have been "Are We a Do-Nothing Congress?"
And their resounding denials of such a horrid accusation were given added
dignity and stature in the September 17th Congressional Record by the distin-
guished Majority Leader, the gentleman from Oklahoma.
Mr. Albert appears to have been alarmed by what he terms "reports in the morning
press that Republican colleagues are hoping President Nixon will try to pin the
'do-nothing' label on Democratic members of the 91st Congress."
I cannot pretend to bespeak the secret hopes of all my Republican colleagues,
any more than my friend from Oklahoma can divine the designs of all his Demo-
cratic colleagues. But I wonder who first suggested a "Do-Nothing" description
for this 91st Congress. Was it President Nixon? Not that I know of. Certainly
I have never leveled any such charge against my friends across the aisle; on the
contrary, I have been generous in my praise, both public and private, for the
cooperation which you, Mr. Speaker, and the Majority Leadership of this Congress
has given on several outstanding occasions, such as the extension of the 10%
income tax surcharge. Nor do I think the late Senate Minority Leader was ever
party to a "Do-Nothing" accusation, although it is perhaps true that the other
body has dilly-dallied in this session a bit more than we have. In fact I know
of no leader of my party who has branded this a "Do-Nothing Congress" although
- 2 -
some allegations of "foot-dragging" and "stalling" have, not without justice,
been mady by Republican legislators.
So who started all this "Do-Nothing Congress" charge and countercharge? Why,
my friends, it was planted by no less an authority than the last Democratic
candidate for President, the Honorable Hubert H. Humphrey.
I would like to quote from the eminent national columnist, Marquis Childs, in
the Washington Post of September 17th, reporting on a closed-door session which
the former Vice President had with Senate Democrats before the Labor Day recess.
Mr. Childs quotes Mr. Humphrey as saying:
"In 1970 President Nixon can go to the country with the same battle
cry that President Truman used in 1948. He can talk about the
legislative failures of a Congress with solid Democratic majorities.
The President has put one program after another up to you and you
haven't acted. He can appeal for the election of Republicans to help
him get his programs through. And if the Republicans make substantial
gains in the Senate and the House the chances for a Democrat winning
in 1972 will be a lot worse than they are today. Unless the record of
Congress improves in the second session and unless the Democratic Party
gets behind its own legislative program, I can see Nixon aiming a
campaign at the '90-worst' Congress just as Truman went after the
'80-worst' Congress and won against all the odds."
So, the alarm having been sounded in the first place by their own Mr. Humphrey,
my friends on the other side have now indignantly and officially denied that
they are running a "Do-Nothing Congress." While I am loath to take sides in
fights among Democrats, I must point out for the record that this entertaining
side-show has been scripted solely by them. It is histrionics, not history. As
the Biblical Proverb puts it so well: "The wicked flee when no man pursueth."
My good friend Mr. Albert compared the number of Presidential messages sent up to
the 89th and 90th Congresses by Former President Johnson and to this Congress by
President Nixon. I do not think this numbers game is particularly relevant, but
I wonder why the distinguished Majority Leader limited himself to the first 3
months of each of these Congresses, during which he says President Johnson
- 3 -
submitted 25 messages in 1965, 23 in 1967, and President Nixon only 12 in 1969.
Is there extra merit in Administration plans that have only baked, or half-baked,
90 days or less? If the Democrats' researchers had brought the record up to date,
they would have logged 30 Presidential messages from President Nixon during his
first eight months in the White House. This compares with 31 and 28 messages,
respectively, for the first 8 months of 1965 and 1967 from President Johnson. In
President Nixon's 30 messages there are, of course, many more than 30 specific
legislative proposals, of which the Democrat-controlled 91st Congress has
completed action on only four.
But, Mr. Speaker, we all know that the workload of Congress cannot be measured so
easily. I have said before and I say again that I would like this 91st Congress
to be known as a Quality Congress rather than a Quantity Congress. My friend
from Oklahoma in his recent remarks laid great stress upon the Great Society
legislative proposals which were rubber-stamped into law in 1965 by the lopsided
89th Congress. That was the Congress with 295 Democrats to 140 Republicans in
the House and 68 Democrats to 32 Republicans in the Senate.
I believe the wise words of the distinguished Majority Leader of the other body,
Sen. Mansfield, about the legislative landslide of 1965 are still eminently worth
repeating:
"We have passed a lot of major bills at this session, some of them very
hastily, and they stand in extreme need of a gcing-over for loopholes,
rough corners, and particularly for an assessment of current and ultimate
cost in the framework of our capacity to meet it."
So I, for one, don't think there is any magic merit in sheer quantity of
Presidential messages or Public Laws enacted by any particular Congress. And I,
for one, intend to withhold judgment on the record of this session of the 91st
Congress until we are finished. If it turns out then that this has been a "Do-
Nothing Congress", I will have to agree with Former Vice President Humphrey that
the American people will know who was responsible and will know what to do about it.
----
Distribution: Full
Galleries
9:45a.m.
9/26/69
nail 10:15a.m. 9/26/69
Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR FRIDAY PM's RELEASE-
September 26, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich.
I think all members of Congress would agree that social security benefits
today are terribly inadequate. The questions facing the Congress, then, are how
much benefits will be increased, when that increase will take effect, and how the
increase will be financed.
In his message sent to the Congress Thursday, President Nixon has gone beyond
these questions by proposing that future increases in social security benefits
be made automatic, in line with the cost of living. I not only fully endorse
that proposition at the present time but point out that I joined with the Republican
National Coordinating Committee in calling for cost-of-living social security in
1966, and thereafter. Cost-of-living social security also became part of the
Republican platform adopted at the 1968 Republican National Convention.
This is the only way that we can make sure the social security system will
fill its role in helping to provide our elderly and other beneficiaries with an
adequate income -- by tying it to the cost of living.
I also endorse without hesitation the President's proposal that future
increases in social security benefits be financed by automatically increasing the
base on which social security taxes are levied.
It seems to me eminently fair that we finance future benefit increases in
this way. Not only have social security tax rates reached extremely high levels,
but to increase them further would impose an unreasonable burden on our young
people when they are just starting their careers and families. To increase the
taxable base would be to act in accordance with the principle we have employed in
the past in the field of income taxation -- taxing most heavily those most able
to pay.
The President's social security proposals not only point toward an adequate
income for our elderly and other social security beneficiaries but also toward an
end to political opportunism in the social security field.
(more)
-2-
It is long past time when the Congress should remove social security from
the political arena -- eliminate it as a biennial political exercise aimed at
winning the votes of senior citizens through an auction-type bidding up of benefits.
Let neither major political party seek political profit out of the plight
of our elderly.
Let us aid our elderly and improve our social security structure simply
because it is right -- and let us provide for automatic adjustments in the name
of equity for the future.
###
Distribution Full
Galleries 1:00 p.m. 9/29/69
air mail 2:30 p.m. 9/29/69
maffice Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
September 29, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives,
on the floor of the House, September 29, 1969.
Last Friday the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee joined a small
group of Congressmen who would limit the President's options in Vietnam by demand-
ing a specific timetable for a United States withdrawal -- a withdrawal without
terms and without honor, a withdrawal tantamount to surrender.
The National Chairman, who also is a Democratic Senator from Oklahoma,
presumably speaks for a segment of the Democratic Party when it is out of power.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that Chairman Harris speaks or acts for all
the members of his Party, or even a majority of it.
I cannot believe he speaks for the Speaker of the House, or for the
Majority Leader, or for hundreds of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Mr. Speaker, there was a time when politics in the Congress stopped at the
water's edge. There was a time when Republicans and Democrats alike supported our
Presidents in their conduct of foreign affairs and in the waging of war.
I hope that era has not ended. Today, with a Republican President in office,
there are those who would intensify the effort to make war and foreign affairs
matters for partisan politics.
But, Mr. Speaker, I still do not believe that any one man, regardless of
his party position, does speak or can speak for the Democrats in this Congress and
in this nation, especially in an area where national commitments and national
integrity are at stake.
Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that for most Americans, of both parties,
politics still does end at the water's edge. And I am sure that the leadership in
both parties agrees with that position.
###
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
Office Copy
Distribution: all Fifth District newspapers
10/10/69
Congressman Gerald R. Ford today reported the results of balloting on his
congre ssional questionnaire by students at Lowell Senior High School, St. Patrick's
High in Portland, and Kelloggsville government classes in Wyoming.
"At the request of principals and government teachers, I sent thousands of
copies of my questionnaire to high schools in Kent and Ionia Counties," Ford said.
"I found the initial results as reported to me most interesting, and I will be
comparing the schoolballoting with the public responses to my questionnaire as the
overall results are tabulated."
Ford said the responses at Lowell and Kelloggsville pretty much paralleled
each other, particularly on Vietnam. But the voting on Vietnam at St. Patrick's
took a somewhat different tack.
At Lowell, S tudents voted 56 per cent in favor of President Nixon's policy of
phasing out U.S. combat troops in Vietnam and 13 per cent for his policy of pursuing
the peace talks at Paris. for a combined total of 69 per cent. Only 10 per cent
voted for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces and only 16 per cent for resuming bombing
of North Vietnam.
At Kelloggsville, the balloting was 51 per cent for the phaseout and 12 per cent
for pursuing the peace talks. for a combined total of 63 per cent. Of the rest, 20
per cent favored immediate withdrawal and 17 per cent resumption of the bombing.
At Portland's St. Patrick's, 44 per cent favored the phaseout while 8 per cent
were for pursuing the peace talks, giving a combined total of just 52 per cent for the
Nixon policies. Of the remainder, 31 per cent favored immediate withdrawal and 17 per
cent wanted to resume bombing the North.
In balloting on the other nine questions in Ford's questionnaire, students involved
at all three schools heavily favored President Nixon's Family Assistance and Workfare
Program, his plan to give cities and states a percentage slice of Federal income tax
revenue to use as they see fit, a cutoff of Federal aid from students disrupting college
classes and administration, direct popular election of the President, and a constitutional
amendment giving 18-year-olds the right to vote.
udents at all three schools favored deployment of the Safeguard anti-ballistic
missile system-62 per cent in favor at Lowell; 60 per cent at St. Patrick's; and 55
per cent at Kelloggsville.
The S tudents opposed increased space spending to put a man on Mars, drafting young
men by random selection (lottery), and creation of a government-owned self-supporting
postal corporation. Ford said he believes students might not have understood the
question involving the government postal corporation.
#####
House Falleries Sat. A.M. 10/11/69
mailing Mon. A.M. 10/13/69
Office
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M.--
Saturday, October 11, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U.S. House of
Representatives, in comment on the President's Message.
Sunday is Columbus Day, but it should be with no sense of discovery that
Congress receives President Nixon's Message detailing the tremendous amount of
work yet to be done by the 91st Congress.
It should, however, be with a sense of public-minded cooperation and a
spirit of deep determination that Congress considers the tasks remaining as spelled
out by the President.
I personally pledge that I will bend every ounce of my energies to the
goals enunciated by the President, and I fervently hope that the Democratic
Leadership of the Congress will do likewise in a spirit that eschews partisanship
in favor of what is best for the country.
I think the President has set a splendid example for the Congress by
displaying in his Message exactly the kind of nonpartisan spirit now needed to get
the Congress moving on the President's program and to get this country moving
ahead.
I agree with the President that "neither the Democratic Congress nor the
Republican Administration is without fault for the delay of vital legislation."
It is because I wished to proceed affirmatively and positively with the
Presdient's program that I have repeatedly refused to call the 91st Congress a
"do-nothing Congress" and have counseled waiting until the final scorecard is in
before we judge the 91st.
The 91st Congress is potentially a great Congress, and the President has
made clear how the 91st can achieve greatness.
The route to greatness for the 91st Congress is to enact President Nixon's
excellent reform proposals -- his proposals which would turn the country into New
Directions, away from centralism to a New Federalism and away from recognized
failures to new successes.
I have spoken of the Nixon Administration throughout the country as a
Reform Administration -- and that is what we must have at this juncture in our
history. But we cannot have those reforms unless the Congress implements the
President's program.
I therefore join with President Nixon in urging the 91st Congress to act on
the administration program -- and to act now.
###
Distribution: House Dalleries 2:30p.m. 10/15/69
air mail 3:00p.m. 10/15/69
M affice Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON EDT--
October 15, 1969
HOUSE AND SENATE LEADERS SPONSOR RESOLUTION
REPUDIATING OPEN LETTER FROM NORTH VIETNAM
House Majority Leader Carl Albert, D-Okla., and House Minority Leader
Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., today joined in sponsoring a resolution calling upon the
House of Representatives to repudiate North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong's
open letter to the American people.
Ford drafted the resolution in cooperation with Senate Minority Leader
Hugh Scott, R-Pa. Scott introduced an identical resolution in the Senate.
The resolution resulted from a meeting of House Democratic and Republican
Leaders, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Thomas E. Morgan, D-Pa., and House
Foreign Affairs ranking minority member E. Ross Adair, R-Ind.
Albert read the resolution to the House, expressing the hope that the
House would adopt it later Wednesday under unanimous consent procedure.
The resolution not only repudiates Pham Van Dong's letter but also calls
upon the American people to disassociate themselves from "North Vietnam's
insolent and intolerable declaration" that the Vietnam Moratorium is "their fall
offensive" aimed at forcing immediate U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam. At
the same time, the resolution upholds the right of every American to dissent
from public policy.
The resolution is attached.
###
91st Congress
1st Session
House Res.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 15, 1969
Mr. Albert, for himself and Mr. Gerald R. Ford submitted the following House
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on
HOUSE RESOLUTION
Relating to demonstrations for peace
Whereas responsible dissent and freedom of speech are among the most sacred
traditions of the American people; and
Whereas many Americans are demonstrating their concern for peace pursuant to
rights enjoyed under the Constitution of the United States, from which springs
our nation's deep commitment to peaceful debate, the essence of our free
political system; and
Whereas the Premier of North Vietnam has publicly described the Vietnam Moratorium
in an open letter to the American people as "their fall offensive" aimed at forcing
the United States "to withdraw completely and unconditionally" from Vietnam; and
Whereas the said Premier greatly misjudges Americans, and deceives himself if
he believes that those who demonstrate are doing so with a desire to assist
Hanoi; and
Whereas the said Premier's letter to the American people is a blatant and
insolent intrusion into the affairs of the American people by an enemy;
Resolved by the HOuse of Representatives, That we support the inherent right of
all Americans to responsible and peaceful dissent, but we abhor the attempt of
Premier Pham Van Dong to associate those Americans who demonstrate for peace
with the cause of our enemy; and resolved further that we repudiate the premier's
letter and call upon all Americans to disassociate themselves from North Vietnam's
insolent and intolerable declaration.
Distribution: we 5th District news media
M. Office 10/17/69 Copy
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids today said he has sent the
estimated 20,000 responses to his congressional questionnaire to a computing firm
for tabulation and is waiting to see if there is a generation gap in Kent and Ionia
Counties.
While marking time on the general results, Ford meantime announced question-
naire returns from four high schools -- Catholic Central in Grand Rapids, Rockford
Public Schools, and Godwin Heights and Godfrey-Lee in Wyoming. Ford last week
announced results from Lowell High School, St. Patrick's High in Portland, and
Kelloggsville in Wyoming.
"I am anxious to get back the tabulations on votes cast by the general
public because this will indicate whether there is a generation gap between the
young people and the older generation on the issues posed by my questionnaire,"
Ford said. "The school voting thus far has pretty much formed a pattern."
At Catholic Central, 945 students were involved in the questionnaire
balloting, although all did not vote on each and every question.
The voting took place before the Oct. 15 Vietnam Moratorium, but it seems
significant that on the Vietnam question only 17 per cent of Catholic Central's
students favored immediate withdrawal of American forces. Another 13 per cent
favored resuming and expanding the bombing of North Vietnam. Of the remaining
70 per cent, 52 per cent were for President Nixon's policy of gradually phasing
out U.S. troops and turning more combat duties over to the South Vietnamese, and
18 per cent favored Nixon's policy of carrying on limited military action while
pursuing the Paris peace talks.
The Vietnam pattern was the same at Rockford and the two Wyoming schools.
At Rockford, 53 per cent favored phaseout and 7 per cent pursuit of the Paris
peace talks for a combined total of 60 per cent supporting present Nixon policies.
Of the rest, 33 per cent favored immediate withdrawal and 7 per cent were for
resuming the bombing. Students voting at Rockford numbered 206.
At Godwin Heights, where 214 students voted, 49 per cent favored phaseout,
8 per cent pursuit of the peace talks, 22 per cent immediate withdrawal, and
21 per cent bombing of North Vietnam.
Godfrey-Lee's 39 participants voted 49 per cent for phased withdrawals,
15 per cent for pursuing the peace talks, 21 per cent for immediate withdrawal,
and 15 per cent for resumed bombing of the North.
(more)
-2-
Students at Catholic Central, Godwin Heights and Godfrey-Lee Schools
favored Nixon's Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system by substantial margins
but Rockford students opposed it 56 to 44 per cent.
Students at all four schools favored Nixon's new Family Assistance Program
in place of the present welfare system, percentage sharing of Federal income tax
revenue with cities and states, a cutoff of federal aid from students disrupting
college classes and administration, election of the President by direct popular
vote, and amending the U.S. Constitution to give 18-year-olds the vote.
All four schools opposed creation of a government-owned, self-supporting
postal corporation, selection of draftees by lottery and an increase in Federal
space spending to put a man on Mars.
Including those schools previously reporting results to Ford, Rockford is
the first school to oppose the Safeguard ABM system. Results from the other
schools were similar to the current batch on Vietnam and all other questions.
# # #
Distribution: all 5th District news media
M Office Copy
FOR USE ON RECEIPT
The Nixon Administration has come up with a novel plan aimed at saving the
Great Lakes from slow death, Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids said today.
Ford said the program involves picking a lake, making a laboratory out of
it and testing a variety of ways to control certain kinds of pollution now
threatening to kill Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes.
The program has been developed by the National Council on Marine Resources
and Engineering Development.
The testing planned by the Council for the laboratory lake will take about
two years. The Council will decide during the next several months what lake to
use for the tests and what testing techniques to employ.
"Whatever techniques are finally developed for controlling certain kinds of
pollution in Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes will be no substitute for
the regulatory type of pollution control," Ford warned. "Both kinds of pollution
control will have to go forward at the same time. In fact, we must step up all
our efforts."
Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes are threatened with slow strangulation
because nutrients in municipal sewage cause algae to grow fast and this growth takes
oxygen from the water that the fish need. Ultimately, the weeds die and form a
marsh.
How do you deal with this "slow death" for the Great Lakes?
The best answer is to turn off the pollution.
If you can't do that sufficiently, what is the alternative? This is what
the Marine Council is determined to find out with its laboratory lake.
Some of the methods to be tried to keep the "slow death" weeds and algae
from flourishing include pumping air into the water as is done in home aquariums;
coating the bottom with a thin film of plastic or with asphalt to prevent weeds
from taking root; getting the lake water to "turn over" by heating the bottom
layers of water and thus generating currents that rise to the top and cause the
air near the surface to move to the bottom. Still another method is filtering the
lake inflows to remove chemicals before they hit the lake. Another is "harvesting"
the lake weeds as is presently done with seaweed.
The lake laboratory program is estimated to cost $35 to $50 million,
according to the Marine Council. First funding would be in President Nixon's fiscal
1971 budget. But preparations will begin immediately with presently available
funds, Ford said.
###
distribution: Full
Dalleries 11:15a.m. 10/22/69
Mail-Mail- 11:30 a.m. 10/22/69
M Office Capy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
October 22, 1969
I have been polling my constituents during the past few weeks and have
been amazed to find how few Americans are fully aware of what President Nixon
has done to promote peace in Vietnam.
There are, in fact, some who profess to see no difference in President
Nixon's Vietnam policies and those of his predecessor in the White House. This
of course is an unfortunate indication of blindness to the facts.
Now we have a summing up of Nixon Policy facts on Vietnam from the White
House, and this White House paper is one which should be studied by all Americans.
It spells out succinctly how different the Nixon Policy on Vietnam has been and
the results which have been obtained. It is most timely and much needed.
One of the results should have been a breakthrough at Paris. Logic would
indicate this, in view of President Nixon's announced willingness to negotiate
on every point raised by the other side and his willingness to make every issue
negotiable except the right of the South Vietnamese to determine their own future
through free elections.
The White House paper makes clear the dual track that the Nixon
Administration has followed in pursuing peace in Vietnam -- a wide-open agenda
at Paris, and a Vietnamization process that has us turning the war over to the
South Vietnamese.
The unspoken element in the White House paper is this: We will not
simply hand over South Vietnam to the Communists -- not at Paris or in the field.
And for this as well as his great pursuit of an honorable peace I salute the
President.
###
instribution Full
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Mail -
Office
Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
October 23, 1969
For the first time since the Eisenhower years, America has a positive
program to again bring this Nation into the front rank of seafaring countries.
That is the significance of the merchant ship building program which
President Nixon has outlined in the message he sent to the Congress today.
This is a program which gives American shipyards the incentive to modernize
and expand. Unlike the previous Administration, President Nixon is not throwing
our shipbuilding business into foreign shipyards. Instead he is offering American
shipbuilders -- industry and labor -- a challenge and an opportunity.
Under the Nixon maritime program, American shipbuilders have the opportunity
to invest $4 billion in modernizing their yards over the next 10 years so they
can become truly competitive with other shipyards throughout the world
in
techniques, facilities, and production.
If American shipbuilders accept the challenge and avail themselves of the
opportunity, the program outlined by President Nixon will succeed. But it must
be remembered that the Nixon program is predicated on a responsible response from
industry and labor. The Federal Government cannot carry this program forward
alone, because it is not just another subsidy program. It is a program under
which the Federal Government is providing the leadership and incentive for a
great surge forward in America's maritime fortunes.
This is a program of deeds and not words -- a multi-year shipbuilding
program to make longrange planning possible, a trebling of Federal mortgage
insurance from $1 billion to $3 billion, payment of construction differential
subsidies directly to shipbuilders instead of through ship owners, extension of
subsidy payments to bulk carriers.
I think the Nixon maritime program will revitalize the American merchant
marine and revive our shipbuilding industry. If industry and labor respond, we
can once more make our merchant fleet a source of pride for every American.
###
Distribution Fifth District
Sal. Oct.25, Oct. 1969
M Office Capy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON WEDNESDAY--
October 29, 1969
A solid majority of Kent and Ionia County citizens responding to his
questionnaire favor President Nixon's Vietnam policies, Congressman Gerald R. Ford
of Grand Rapids reports.
Ford today released the complete results of his poll, which drew answers
from 24,360 people in the Fifth Congressional District. The questionnaires were
tabulated by a Washington, D.C. computer firm (the Aztech Corp.) at no expense to
the government.
Ford found that 50.2 per cent of those sending back questionnaires endorsed
the Nixon policy of gradually phasing out American troops in Vietnam and replacing
them with South Vietnamese. Another 4.3 per cent favored limited military action
while pursuing the peace talks in Paris. This produced a combined total of 54.5
per cent in favor of policies now being carried out by the Nixon Administration.
Roughly one out of five (21.4 per cent) favored immediate withdrawal from
Vietnam. Only 13 per cent wanted to resume and expand the bombing of North Vietnam.
Others gave multiple answers or none.
"I feel that the Fifth District voting on Vietnam probably reflects
sentiment nationwide," Ford said. "Although the actual balloting took place
before the Vietnam Moratorium, it indicates to me that a majority of the American
people support the policies President Nixon is pursuing in an effort to end the
Vietnam War on honorable terms."
The narrowest division of opinion on the questionnaire issues came on
Nixon's projected anti-ballistic missile system, already approved by the Congress.
Slightly more than half of those answering the question opposed the Safeguard ABM
system. The totals were 44.8 per cent "no;" 42.2 per cent "yes;" and 12.9 per cent,
no opinion. Many of those leaving the question unanswered commented that the
subject was too technical for them to vote on.
The Senate narrowly approved the Safeguard proposal but the House over-
whelmingly endorsed it.
Fifth District residents responding to the poll heavily favored Nixon's
proposed welfare plan (72.15 per cent), return of a percentage of Federal income
tax revenue to the cities and states (63.6), election of the President by direct
(more)
-2-
popular vote (88.5 per cent), establishment of a government-owned self-supporting
postal corporation in place of the present postal system (71.9), and a cutoff of
federal aid to disruptive college students (89.6 per cent).
A majority of Kent and Ionia citizens favored Nixon's proposed lottery or
random selection system for the draft, with 52.4 per cent for it, 36 per cent
opposed and the rest undecided.
"This tells me that the people in my district want the reforms that
President Nixon has laid before the Congress," Ford declared.
Fifth District residents emphatically rejected any stepup in space spending
to put a man on Mars (86.7 per cent against, 10.6 per cent for, and the rest
undecided).
The poll revealed a generation gap in the Fifth District on draft changes,
giving 18-year-olds the vote, and creating a government-owned postal corporation.
Adults balloting on Ford's questionnaire opposed giving 18-year-olds the
vote (63.9 to 33.4 per cent, with the rest undecided), while favoring postal and
draft reform.
Results from Kent and Ionia County high schools reporting on Ford question-
naire balloting showed them heavily in favor of 18-year-old voting and opposed to
a lottery system for the draft and a government-owned postal corporation.
Student and adult views on the other Ford questionnaire issues pretty much
paralleled each other except that the school balloting generally favored Nixon's
Safeguard ABM system. Voting at Rockford Public Schools was the only case where
the adult and student balloting ran about the same on ABM.
Ford said he was extremely pleased with the response to his questionnaire.
He sent the questionnaire to all 141,491 mailing addresses in Kent and Ionia
Counties and received replies from 24,360.
"That's a return of better than 17 per cent, as compared with the 10 per cent
that most congressmen get," Ford said. "It proves to me that Fifth District
residents are more interested in good government than the average citizen."
Ford added: "I want to thank everyone who took the time to fill in and
send back my questionnaire, with special thanks to the thousands of people who
wrote comments on their questionnaires or sent me letters. I am very much
gratified, because this gives me a good idea of what the people in my district
are thinking."
# # #
LIBRARY
10/23/69
QUESTIONNAIRE ANALYSIS FOR HOUSE MINORITY LEADER
0801
BY AZTECH CORP.
GERALD
THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PESPONDENTS PER ANSWER AND THEIR PERCENT OF THE TOTAL IS CALCULATED.
SUMS
PERCENT
QUESTION #
YES
NO
UNANSWERED
TOTAL
YES
NO
UNANSWERED
1
17576
3762
3022
24360
72.15%
15.44%
12.41%
2
15491
7098
1771
24360
63.59%
29.14%
7.27%
3
21818
2065
477
24360
89.56%
8.48%
1.96%
4
21547
2117
696
24350
88.45°
8.69%
2.86%
5
8143
15553
664
24360
33.43°
63.85%
2.72%
6
17512
5190
1658
24360
71.89%
21.31%
6.80%
7
12754
8780
2826
24360
52.36%
36.00%
11.64%
8
2582
21119
659
24360
10.60%
86.70%
2.70%
9
10284
10933
3143
24360
42.22%
44.88%
12.90%
QUESTION #
A
B
C
D
UNANSWERED
MULTIPLE
TOTAL
ANSWERS
10
1050
12233
3183
5229
982
1683
24360
PERCENT
4.31°
50.22%
13.07%
21.47%
4.03%
6.91%
Distribution: Full
Galleries 11:15a.m. 10/30/69
air Mail 11:40a.m. 10/30/69
M Office Capy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON EST--
October 30, 1969
I congratulate President Nixon on his proposed Buyer's Bill of Rights. The
proposals the President has outlined in the consumerism message sent to Congress
today are easily the most far-reaching of any consumer protection measures yet laid
before the Federal Legislature.
Under the President's proposals, the American consumer at last would have
full protection under the law and laws that would fully protect him. He would have
complete representation in Washington and access to product testing information
which Federal agencies have gathered over the years.
President Nixon's consumer protection package is indeed an historic stride
forward, a step that will cultivate greater confidence in U.S. consumer products
and thus benefit not only the buyer but the seller. A byproduct doubtless will
be increased world confidence in the quality of American goods, already recognized
in world markets as outstanding.
In my view, Mr. Nixon is the first American President to take complete
cognizance of the buyer's problems in all of their ramifications. He has struck
a blow for the consumer that will have permanent and most beneficial impact.
###
office Capy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
November 5, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., Republican Leader, U. S. House of
Representatives, of the floor of the House, Wednesday, November 5, 1969.
Mr. Speaker, we have all heard considerable comment recently about
special election trends, so perhaps I may be permitted to do some vote
analyzing of my own today, on the first anniversary of President Nixon's
victory in 1968.
It seems plain to me that the great silent majority of Americans who went
to the polls yesterday continued and intensified the Republican tide which
began to flow in the Congressional elections of 1966 and will inevitably lead,
I am confident, to further gains in the 92nd Congress and in other State and
local elections next year.
While a spot poll shown me at the White House this morning showed that
77 percent of the American people rallied behind President Nixon on his Vietnam
policy of peace with honor, it is hard to say what effect, if any, this had on
yesterday's balloting. What is obvious is that the impressive Republican
victories rolled up were not restricted to any local district or to one region
of the country. As David Broder observed in this morning's Washington Post:
"Republican candidates have won important victories in two important
states, one the most urbanized state of the populous Northeast, and
the other a former Democratic bastion in the South. Local GOP candi-
dates ran well in Philadelphia, Newark and a number of other major
cities."
Republicans will now hold 32 of the 50 State governorships, and I want to
congratulate our colleague, Bill Cahill, on his impressive victory in New Jersey
(where the contest for a vacant Democratic seat in the House is still a cliff-
hanger) and also Lin Holton, and the other successful Republicans in Virginia,
for their fine showing.
One further point: let it be remembered that President Nixon campaigned
vigorously and personally for both Governors-elect. Had either of these
candidates been defeated, it certainly would have been widely interpreted as a
rebuke to the President and a repudiation of his Republican Administration
policies.
Since they were not defeated, but instead were elected by larger-than-
BERALD FORD LIBRARY
expected majorities, I hope the opposite conclusion will be conceded. It was
a great victory for the Nixon Administration and a great day for the Republican
Party.
########
Distribution : Fifth District news media
11/7/69
moffice Copy
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
The Creston High School A Cappella Choir will make at least
two public appearances in Washington, D.C., next April, Congressman
Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids announced today.
Ford said arrangements have been made for the choir to sing both
on the House and the Senate steps of the U.S. Capitol Building on
April 2.
The choral group will sing for about 20 minutes on the Senate
steps, beginning at 10:30, and then is scheduled to sing on the House
steps starting at 11:30 a.m.
###
Distribution: Fifth District news media
11/7/69 M Office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
November 8, 1969
NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA: This radio script taped by Rep. Gerald R. Ford for use by
Fifth District stations the weekend of November 8-9 is being made available
to you for use as you see fit beginning Saturday, November 8.
Today I want to talk with you about a variety of topics
action by the
Congress and other important developments here in the Nation's Capital.
The most significant happening here, of course, has been President Nixon's
address to the nation on Vietnam, and the show of support for him that followed
that speech.
As you know, thousands of telegrams in support of the President's Vietnam
policy poured into the White House after Americans heard Mr. Nixon explain why he
has chosen to pursue his plan for peace in Vietnam and has rejected immediate
withdrawal and surrender.
I think this tremendous show of support for the President was primarily in
response to four sentences in his Vietnam speech. "Let us be united for peace.
Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam
cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that."
I agree completely with this statement by President Nixon. And I feel sure
that a solid majority of all Americans agree with him too.
That is why I believe the second Vietnam Moratorium, planned for Nov. 13
through 15 will not only fail to arouse greater support for immediate U.S.
withdrawal from Vietnam but will boomerang on those who urge a U.S. surrender in
Vietnam.
One reason I believe the Vietnam Moratorium next week will boomerang is
that while some of the leaders are simply idealistic young men others are dedicated
American Communists. It is Communists like David Dellinger and other members of
the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam who will be leading the
Moratorium demonstration in Washington on Nov. 15. I believe the American people
will feel repelled by this demonstration and will make their feelings known.
President Nixon has made clear what the choice for America is in Vietnam:
Defeat by the Communists -- what I call an American Dunkirk in Vietnam -- or his
pursuit of a peace with honor either through negotiations or through Vietnamization
of the war.
(more)
-2-
As the President has said, the consequences of an American defeat in Vietnam
would be a disaster of the greatest magnitude -- "a collapse of confidence in
American leadership not only in Asia but throughout the world," and, ultimately,
it would not bring peace but more war.
Now there are a number of other items to which I would like to call your
attention.
The House of Representatives, by an overwhelming vote, has passed a bill
which would allow President Nixon to establish a lottery system -- a true random
selection system -- for picking draftees. Unfortunately, the Democratic leaders
in the Senate have indicated there will be no Senate action on this bill. I hope
the members of the Senate will enter into a gentlemen's agreement to approve the
one change in the draft law the President is asking for now and to take up
comprehensive reform of the draft law next year. This is the course of action
which is indicated now. It is vital for the Nation.
In recent actions, the House of Representatives passed a long-needed measure
to protect coal miners. It requires mine owners to adopt safety practices
recommended by President Nixon and the House Education and Labor Committee.
The House also has passed a bill providing Federal funds to help schools
educate their pupils on the dangers of drug abuse. This is a much-needed three-
year program in drug abuse education.
Finally, I want to point out that President Nixon has sent the Cognress
proposals to greatly strengthen protection for the American consumer. He is
asking for a fair deal for the consumer in the market place. He proposes a
Buyer's Bill of Rights that would set up a new Office of Consumer Affairs,
strengthen the Federal Trade Commission, and in other ways protect the consumer
against fraud and dishonesty. I hope the Congress acts soon on the President's
consumer proposals.
# # #
Distribution : Full
Galleries
12:40 p.m.
11/18/69
1:00pm. 11/18/69
Moffice Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
November 18, 1969
Comment by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives, to
be placed in the Congressional Record immediately after the President's Message on
trade.
Mr. Speaker: President Nixon has today sent the Congress a Message which reaffirms
this Nation's devotion to the principles of free trade. I am pleased that the
President has outlined a course which will steer us toward the objectives of freer
trade but at the same time shows an awareness of the shoals and sandbars along the
way.
I believe the trade policies recommended by the President will be helpful in
restoring our Nation to a position of trade surplus. There is no question that
movement toward freer trade is necessary if we are to move toward the much-desired
goal of a favorable balance of trade.
To that end, I fully support the President's request for authority to make
limited tariff reductions. The President has quite accurately stated that lack of
authority to make such reductions exposes our exports to foreign retaliation.
The Congress also should give serious consideration to the President's request
for elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade. As the President stated, a clear
statement of Congressional intent in this regard is needed to achieve the reciprocal
lowering of non-tariff trade obstacles.
The President's Message on Trade is a prime example of the balance that
President Nixon has brought to our domestic and foreign affairs. I refer particularly
to his realistic recommendations regarding aid for industries and individuals
adversely affected by increased imports and the need to take effective action in
cases where American exports are illegally or unjustly discriminated against.
By and large, the President's trade recommendations commend themselves to the
Congress. Prompt action on these recommendations is vital to our Nation's future
well-being.
#######
Distribution: all Fifth District media
a.m. of 11/20/69
office
Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
November 20, 1969
NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA: This radio script taped by Rep. Gerald R. Ford for use by
Fifth District stations the weekend of November 22-23 is being made available
to you for use as you see fit beginning Saturday, November 22.
First I would call your attention to the fact that President Nixon has
signed into law a $610 million bill to provide food stamps for poor Americans.
By signing this bill, the President broke a deadlock in Congress. Now the way
is open for the Congress to appropriate funds for the food stamp program for the
rest of this fiscal year through next June 30.
In another important development, Congress has sent the President a bill
which sets up a commission to find out exactly how the Defense Department and
the rest of the Federal Government spend $50 billion a year buying goods, services
and facilities. I believe this is a most healthy action by the Congress. It's
time we checked up on all of our government procurement practices, and that is
what the 12-man commission to be named under this new legislation is going to do.
The House has approved and sent to the Senate a bill which would add another
4.5 million non-farm workers to the unemployment compensation program. The bill
raises to about 62.5 million the number of workers who are covered by the joint
Federal-state program of unemployment "comp." This is a big step forward, under
legislation recommended by the President.
On Nov. 15 we witnessed a peaceful mass march here in Washington. There
also was some violent behavior by a relatively small segment of the Anti-Vietnam
War demonstrators gathered in Washington during the three-day Moratorium.
I certainly believe in the right of responsible dissent. That is one of
the great strengths of America -- the fact that individuals in our country are
permitted freedom of expression, guaranteed under the Constitution.
While the mass march itself was peaceful, there was some violence during
the three days of protests here, and there were some ugly manifestations of
radicalism. The Washington Board of Trade reported upwards of 75 plate glass store
windows broken in downtown Washington and the Georgetown section of the city.
Coupled with that we had an attempt by the radicals to charge the South Vietnamese
embassy, and some nastiness near the Justice Department building.
(more)
-2-
It is naive to ignore the ugly occurrences simply because the mass march
itself was peaceful.
It is also naive to believe that because an estimated 250,000 or more
people gathered in Washington to demonstrate against the war the President of the
United States should alter a carefully considered policy based on his desire for
a just peace in Vietnam.
Some will choose to ignore the Communist role in the Washington demonstra-
tions, but none of us can afford to ignore the tragic consequences that would
ensue from a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. It is precisely because
the consequences would be disastrous for the future of world peace that I am
supporting the President's policies on Vietnam.
At this point, Congress has completed action on a one-sentence bill
of tremendous importance to our Nation's young men. That one-sentence bill will
allow the President to institute a system under which men will be subject to the
draft only during the year they are 19 years old or their college deferment has
expired. Selection will be by the lottery method -- so-called random selection.
In a recent poll I conducted, people in Kent and Ionia Counties voted
heavily in favor of the lottery or random selection method of choosing draftees.
This is a means of reducing to only one year's time the period when a
young man is vulnerable to the draft. It also limits that one-year period of
vulnerability to the period before the young man has to make his important career
and marriage decisions. I favor going to an all-volunteer Army. But until it is
possible to do so, it is vital that the lottery system of draft selection be
instituted.
President Nixon has cancelled the November and December draft calls, and
he is making progress in bringing our combat troops home from Vietnam. I expect
there will be even more encouraging developments if the President gets the support
of the American people in his efforts to extricate us from the war.
# # #
istribution:
all
Fifth
District
News
11/13/69 P.M.
Maffice Copy
FOR USE THURSDAY, NOV. 20, 1969, AND THEREAFTER
In-prison job training of the kind being carried out at the Michigan
Reformatory in Ionia is one of the keys to a reduction of crime in America,
Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids declared today.
Ford made his comment when the Labor Department announced that three
projects involving 36 trainees at the Ionia Reformatory are included in a program
to give in-prison occupational trainees job bonding assistance after they get out.
Ford said: "The Nixon Administration program providing vocational training
and job placement for prison inmates and ex-offenders promises to be a real
breakthrough toward the control of crime and deliquency."
Ford noted that about 60 per cent of the persons released from prisons find
themselves back in jail within four years.
"The released prisoner is what I would call a specially disadvantaged
person," Ford said. "He needs special help under the Federal Government's
manpower training and assistance program, and President Nixon has noted this."
Ford cited the fact that Nixon has directed Attorney General John N. Mitchell
to coordinate a 13-point program of prison reform with special emphasis on
rehabilitation, particularly of the young offender.
"The reformatory at Ionia fits right into this picture," Ford said.
Ford said the U.S. Labor Department now is funding training programs for
more than 4,000 inmates in prisons in 24 states at a cost of over $5 million.
These men are taught to become auto and diesel mechanics, carpenters, electricians,
bricklayers, welders, machine operators, computer programmers, electronics
mechanics and keypunch operators.
"Manpower development is not the whole answer to the problem of crime,"
Ford said, "but it holds much promise for a strong attack on it."
Ford said the crime statistics give prisoner rehabilitation programs
special urgency.
He noted that 4.5 million crimes were committed in the United States in
1968, a 17 per cent rise over 1967. From 1960 to 1968, he said, the volume of
serious crime rose 122 per cent while the population increased only 11 per cent.
Juvenile crime increased 300 per cent faster than the increase in juvenile
population, he reported.
The money spent on rehabilitation seems large, he said, until you consider
that crime cost this country at least $31 billion last year, a rise of $4 billion
over 1967.
###
Distribution Full
Galleries
12:15p.m.
11/24/69
2:30p.m. 11/24/69
moffice Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
November 24, 1969
Remarks prepared for delivery by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., on the floor of the
U.S. House of Representatives, Monday, Nov. 24, 1969.
Mr. Speaker: The march of an estimated 250,000 Vietnam demonstrators down
Pennsylvania Avenue on Nov. 15 was a peaceful protest sanctioned by the Constitution.
Because it was peaceful, little attention has been paid to the destruction and
violence engaged in by the relatively small radical element among the demonstrators.
I take this opportunity to inform the House that the three-day Vietnam
Moratorium cost the taxpayers over one and a half million dollars and cost private
business interests an estimated $240,000 to boot.
In addition to detailing these costs, the Justice Department reports that
606 persons were injured during the Moratorium and it was necessary to arrest 361
individuals.
Treatment was administered to individuals at six area hospitals and
various first-aid stations for everything from trauma to the effects of tear
gassing. Twenty-six police officers were among those receiving treatment.
Total estimated cost of the Moratorium is placed at $1,816,622 on the
basis of reliable estimates made by the Federal Government, the D.C. Metropolitan
Police Department, and knowledgeable business firms.
In the aftermath of the demonstrations, 503 area firms placed orders for
replacement of broken glass. Of that number, 25 were downtown financial
institutions.
In government buildings, 111 windows were broken. There also was paint
damage and damage to nine glass doors. Twenty buildings owned or leased by the
government were involved. Greatest damage was to the Justice Department and
Internal Revenue Service buildings. Repairs will cost an estimated $10,000.
Damage of up to $12,000 was done to United States parks property, and
$6,000 damage to 76 law enforcement vehicles.
Overall costs included $936,088 for standby military support of civil
authority; $473,776 in overtime pay for members of the three major metropolitan
area police departments during the three-day Moratorium; $91,760 in General
(more)
-2-
Services Administration costs; $38,497 for support personnel fo the United States
Marshals Service and Justice Department legal divisions; and $8,500 for debris
removal.
The Moratorium record in terms of injuries, arrests, damage and other
costs is as follows:
SUMMARY
Injured
606
Arrests
361
Damage to 503 private buildings
$240,000
Damage to 20 government buildings
$ 10,000
Damage to 76 law enforcement vehicles
$ 6,000
Damage to park property
$ 12,000
Military operations costs
$936,088
Law Enforcement overtime pay
$473,776
Department of Justice support personnel
$ 38,497
General Services Administration
$ 91,761
Debris removal
$ 8,500
TOTAL
$1,816,622
###
Distribution: Full
Galleries 12:15p.m. 11/25/69
12:45p.m. 11/25/69
m Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
November 25, 1969
Statement prepared for delivery by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., on the floor of
the U.S. House of Representatives, Nov. 25, 1969.
MR. SPEAKER: President Nixon's decision to seek Senate approval of
United States participation in the Geneva Protocol banning first use of gases and
bacteriological methods of warfare is an initiative toward peace that may have
far-reaching effects.
This affirmative action by the White House could have a highly salutary
impact on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks now in progress in their preliminary
phase.
In taking the United States out of the field of germ warfare, the President
has made abundantly clear to the American people and to peoples throughout the
world the great devotion that this Nation has to the objective of universal peace.
Not only is this action reassuring to our own people but it is also fresh
proof to the people of other nations that the United States wants nothing so much
as peace for itself and for all countries in the world commonwealth.
I believe this move by President Nixon will greatly enhance the standing
of the United States in the eyes of the world. I would go further and say that
seldom has the prestige of the United States been greater than at this moment in
our glorious history.
###
Distribution Full
Galleries 5:00p.m. 12/8/69
mail 5:30p.m. 12/8/69
office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
December 8, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
I join with House Majority Leader Carl Albert in inviting the American
people and the press to look at the record of the 91st Congress. Look at the
record and what do you see? The cupboard is almost bare of legislative achieve-
ment.
That is the record of the Democratic-controlled 91st Congress. That is
the record that Mr. Albert so proudly points to. It is the record of a Congress
that has been spinning its wheels and going nowhere.
As for the Nixon Administration, the President has sent the Congress more
than 40 substantive proposals ranging over a wide variety of problems including
welfare abuses, the breakdown in the courts, the violence of organized crime,
crime in the streets, narcotics traffic, chaos in the postal system, and a host
of other defects in our society.
President Nixon has laid a great program of domestic reforms before the
91st Congress, but the only reform on which there has been any final action is
the draft. In that case the legislation enacted was a one-sentence repealer. On
tax reform, the Democratic-controlled Senate is ranging so far afield from
President Nixon's recommendations and the House bill that final enactment of a
good meaningful reform bill has been placed in jeopardy.
I am amazed that Mr. Albert would invite attention to the record of this
Mark-Time 91st Congress. But to that invitation I say amen. The Democratic-
controlled 91st Congress to date has a do-little record. The Administration has
a record of which President Nixon may justly be proud.
###
Distribution House Galliries only
Mollice Coky
11:15 a.m. 12/11/69
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Remarks of Rep. Gerald R. Ford (Michigan), House Republican Leader,
during general debate on the Voting Rights Act Extension.
Mr. Chairman, there are several points upon which I hope we can all agree as
we begin this debate.
First, we can surely agree with the statement of the distinguished chairman of
the Committee on the Judiciary that "Every American must have an equal right
to vote; no duty weighs upon the Congress more heavily than the duty to assure
that right."
The gentleman from New York's eloquence was echoed by my friend from Ohio who is
the ranking minority member on the committee, who said: "The elective franchise
is the cornerstone of our representative Republic."
We must agree with that, also.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to implement the guarantee of the
Constitution that no American's right to vote should be abridged because of his
race or color. At the time Congress took this action, it was apparent that the
right to vote of many Americans, mainly black Americans, was being abridged
on account of color; the remedy was compounded to fit the situation then pre-
vailing. A formula was devised, based upon the registration and voting pattern
of the 1964 presidential election. This formula was very carefully fashioned so
as to include certain Southern States and exclude others.
Leaping over all the debate of 4 years ago, it was generally accepted then by the
Congress that the unprecedented intervention of Federal authority, represented by
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, into the constitutional power of States to
determine the qualification of voters, would only be temporary. It was felt,
quite properly, that the extension of the right to vote would, in time, be self-
sustaining for those previously denied the franchise because of racial discrimina-
tion. Once they could vote they would, through the power of the ballot box, make
certain that they were never disenfranchised again -- this is the theory to which
most of us subscribe. Therefore, the key provisions of the 1965 Act were
supposed to become unnecessary and to expire in August, 1970 -- although there
would still be a probationary period under the law.
It is these key provisions, which single out six Southern States and portions of
several others, which the committee bill would have us continue unchanged for
another 5 years. We are told we must not even change the existing law so much as
to update its triggering formula from 1964 to the 1968 election statistics. Why
not?
The answer is incredible, but here it is: The 1964 formula should not be changed
because a 1960 formula would permit most, if not all, of those six or seven
Southern States to escape further discrimination from the Federal Government.
This is because they have now registered or now allow more than half their voting-
age citizens to vote -- because they have sucessfully passed the test Congress
set in 1965.
I am highly gratified that 300,000 -- perhaps as many as 1 million black Americans
in the seven specially covered States have been registered since the 89th Congress
passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I believe the 91st Congress should not stop
there but should 80 forward to protect and expand this fundamental right for all
citizens, whatever their race, creed, or color, whereever they reside.
But I believe there are other fundamental rights that are equally precious to
Americans -- the right of equal justice under law, which surely applies to the
50 States of the Union as well as to individuals -- the presumption of innocence
which puts the burden of proof on the accuser -- the principle that there is one
law in this land for black and for white, for rich and for poor, for Georgian and
for Californian.
If it is agreed we have a duty to implement the voting rights guaranteed by the
15th amendment and elsewhere in the Constitution, if we agree that substantial
-2-
progress has been made under the 1965 Act but that much room for improvement
remains, and if we are honest enough to admit that the present law, for all its'
commendable results, is discriminatory in spirit and in practice against one
part of our country, then let us get on with a nationwide standard in the spirit
of 1970 rather than 1964.
To do this President Nixon and his Administration have proposed, and I have
introduced -- with my distinguished colleagues -- 12695, the Nationwide
Voting Rights Bill which will be before us as a substitute for the Committee Bill.
Mr. Chairman, I have in my possession a letter dated December 10 from President
Nixon which I will not read at this point. I will insert it at this point in the
RECOND as a part of my remarks:
Hon. Gerald R. Ford
Minority Leader of the U. S. House of Representatives
Washington,m D. C.
Dear Jerry:
I am aware that the House is considering a five-year extension of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, and alternatively, as an amendment, the
Administration-proposed nationvide voting rights bill, 12695.
I strongly believe that the nationwide bill is superior because it is
more comprehensive and equitable. Therefore, I believe every effort must
be made to see that its essence, at least, prevails.
I would stress two critical points:
1. Instead of simply extending until 1975 the present Voting Rights
Act, which bans literacy tests in only seven states, as the Committee
bill would do, the nationwide bill would apply to all states until
January 1, 1974. It would extend protection to millions of citizens
not now covered and not covered under the Committee Bill.
2. 12695 assures that otherwide qualified voters would not be denied
the right to vote for President merely because they changed their state of
residence shortly before a national election.
In short, the nationwide bill would go a long way toward insuring a vote
for all our citizens in every state. Under it those millions who have
been voteless in the past and thus voiceless in our government would have
the legal tools they need to obtain and secure the franchise. Justice
requires no less.
For certainly an enlightened national legislature must admit that justice
is diminished for any citizen who does not have the right to vote for
those who govern him. There is no way for the disenfranchised to consider
themselves equal partners in our society.
This is true regardless of state or geographical location.
I urge that this message be brought to your colleagues, and I hope they
will join in our efforts to grant equal voting rights to all citizens of
the United States.
Sincerely,
RICHARD NIXON
Mr. Chairman, I am notivated not only by the idea of relieving the citizens and
authorities of a few States from unjust discrimination, but also by a firm con-
viction that the laws of the United States, which we write here, ought to be the
same for all 50 States; that the benefits of good laws should benefit citizens
everywhere; that the penalties for defiance or evasion should be the same
North, South, East and West; and that the right to vote may be -- and often is --
abridged in many ways and for many reasons in addition to race or color.
The right to vote for President and Vice President, and for other Federal
elective offices, is a nationwide right entitled to nationwide protection. Our
Nationwide Voting Rights Bill, to summarize it briefly, is nationwide in all of
its parts.
-3-
Specifically:
1. It would suspend. nationwide, all literacy tests in all 50 States until
January 1, 1974.
2. It would provide, nationwide, a uniform residence requirement for all
Americans who want to vote in Presidential elections.
3. It would grant, nationwide, statutory authority to the Attorney General to
station voting examiners and observers in any jurisdiction in all 50 States to
enforce the right to register and to vote.
4. It would provide, nationwide, statutory authority for the Attorney General
to start voting rights lawsuits in Federal Courts to prevent discriminatory
practices and suspend discriminatory voting laws in all 50 States
5. It would launch a nationvide study of the use of literacy tests or devices
and other corrupt practices which may abridge voting rights in all 50 States.
A national voting advisory commission would be created to report its findings
prior to the expiring of the nationwide literacy test suspension in 1974.
I cannot see anything among these five nationwide proposals to which any
reasonable person could disagree except, perhaps, the temporary ban on all
literacy tests for four years. Literacy tests are not wrong or unConstitutional
in themselves; what is illegal is their misuse to deny the right to vote not for
illiteracy but on account of race or color. Even the present Act does not
prohibit literacy tests in some 20 States that have them; it temporarily suspends
them in six or seven States under certain conditions.
Our Nationwide Voting Rights Bill says, in effect, if any State is to be
temporarily denied the right to have a literacy test of any kind, let's temporar-
ily deny this right to all States; let's see what effect this has on registration
of minority groups and upon voting patterns in all 50 States, and then let's
decide what to do about such tests and other devices for the nation as a whole.
What could be fairer ?
There is one provision of my Nationwide Voting Rights Bill which the proponents
of a simple 5-year extension do not, so far as I know, openly oppose; that is the
provision nationalizing residency requirements for Presidential elections. This
simply recognizes the fact of life in the super-highway and jet age; Americans
are the most mobile people in the world; more than 5 1/2 million of them were
prevented from voting in 1960 because they had recently moved. They thus lost
their vote in their place of previous residence too last to reacquire it in their
new home.
With all deference to my Vice President's reservations, the news media keep
transient Americans just as well (or just as badly) informed of national issues
and national candidates as they do voters who stay in one precinct all their
lives. It makes no sense to deny anyone his right to vote because his employer,
or his child's health, or whatever, transfers him abruptly to another part of
the United States. The main argument against this overdue remedy seems to be
that it has nothing to do with race or color -- although population movements in
recent years clearly have included both black and white voters in large numbers.
Congress should not be precluded from doing anything in the legislation before
us simply because it has no racial or color ramifications. Voting rights are
voting rights and I have always believed ve should be colorblind -- nondiscriminatory
if you will -- about them.
The President is the representative of all the prople and all the people should
have a reasonable opportunity to vote for him.
Perhaps the most significant change which my Nationvide Voting Rights Bill
would effect in comparison with the existing 1965 statute is found in the spirit
of it. Today, any State or county which is under the shadow of the 1964 formula
cannot make any change in its election laws without coming to Washington for
permission. Under the 1965 act it is assumed that any such change is intended
to cheat the law and circumvent the Constitution.
-4-
The fundamental presumption of innocence is denied these six or seven States,
under an arbitrary, outmoded, mathematical formula. They are presumed guilty
and prevented -- though 43 other States are not so prevented -- from managing
their own electoral affairs until they prove themselves innocent in Federal
court -- not their own district courts but in the District of Columbia.
Maybe -- I do not concede it, but maybe -- past sins justified such severity
in past legislation. But this is not the Reconstruction Era and neither is
this 1965. Four eventful years have passed; evils and errors of another time
have yielded. Now, today, it is wrong and it is shameful for this House to
perpetuate a punitive and discriminatory provision for another 5 years beyond
the point where the original authors of the act intended it to expire.
My Nationwide Voting Rights Bill shifts the burden of proof back where it ought
to be -- to the Attorney General -- and empowers him to go after any State which
does, in fact, discriminate against voters on racial grounds or which might
backslide in the future. Just as we do not want any second class citizens in
this country, neither do we want any second class states.
My friends, the choices before us here are usually difficult choices.
I do not believe they are at all difficult today.
We have before us two proposals -- one to continue unchanged for five more years
a measure intended as strorg uemporary medicine to cure racial discrimination
in one part of the country, which in working a commendable and partial cure has
itself discriminated in unneassary ways. The alternative is my Nationwide
Voting Rights Lill which builds upon the lessons of the 1965 Act, continues its
Federal oversight but climinated its serious shortcomings.
This Administration with this bill intends to protect all the gains in voting
rights protection which have been made in the past four years. More than that,
we intend to extend these gains to all states and all Americans who may still be
denied their full franchise. The very fact we have made such spectacular
gains rules out any notion of standing still, or of singling out a few scapegoat
States. We mean to step up and broaden the Federal concern for voting rights
anywhere and everywhere in America.
***
office capy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12/10+11/69
Remarks of Rep. Gerald R. Ford (Michigan), House Republican Leader,
during general debate on the Voting Rights Act Extension.
Mr. Chairman, there are several points upon which I hope we can all agree as
we begin this debate.
First, we can surely agree with the statement of the distinguished chairman of
the Committee on the Judiciary that "Every American must have an equal right
to vote; no duty weighs upon the Congress more heavily than the duty to assure
that right."
The gentleman from New York's eloquence was echoed by my friend from Ohio who is
the ranking minority member on the committee, who said: "The elective franchise
is the cornerstone of our representative Republic."
We must agree with that, also.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted to implement the guarantee of the
Constitution that no American's right to vote should be abridged because of his
race or color. At the time Congress took this action, it was apparent that the
right to vote of many Americans, mainly black Americans, was being abridged
on account of color; the remedy was compounded to fit the situation then pre-
vailing. A formula was devised, based upon the registration and voting pattern
of the 1964 presidential election. This formula was very carefully fashioned so
as to include certain Southern States and exclude others.
Leaping over all the debate of 4 years ago, it was generally accepted then by the
Congress that the unprecedented intervention of Federal authority, represented by
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, into the constitutional power of States to
determine the qualification of voters, would only be temporary. It was felt,
quite properly, that the extension of the right to vote would, in time, be self-
sustaining for those previously denied the franchise because of racial discrimina-
tion. Once they could vote they would, through the power of the ballot box, make
certain that they were never disenfranchised again this is the theory to which
most of us subscribe. Therefore, the key provisions of the 1965 Act were
supposed to become unnecessary and to expire in August, 1970 -- although there
would still be a probationary period under the law.
It is these key provisions, which single out six Southern States and portions of
several others, which the committee bill would have us continue unchanged for
another 5 years. We are told we must not even change the existing law so much as
to update its triggering formula from 1964 to the 1968 election statistics. Why
not?
The answer is incredible, but here it is: The 1964 formula should not be changed
because a 1963 formula would permit most, if not all, of those six or seven
Southern States to escape further discrimination from the Federal Government.
This is because they have now registered or now allow more than half their voting-
age citizens to vote because they have sucessfully passed the test Congress
set in 1965.
I am highly gratified that 300,000 perhaps as many as J. million black Americans
in the seven specially covered States have been registered since the 09th Congress
passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I believe the 91st ongress should not stop
there but should go forward to protect and expand this fundamental right for all
citizens, whatever their race, creed, or color, whereever they reside.
But I believe there are other fundamental rights that are equally precious to
Americans -- the right of equal justice under law, which surely applics to the
50 States of the Union as well as to individuals the presumption of innocence
which puts the burden of proof on the accuser -- the principle that there is one
law in this land for black and for white, for rich and for poor, for Georgian and
for Californian.
If it is agreed we have a duty to implement the voting rights guaranteed by the
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
15th amendment and elsewhere in the Constitution, if we agree that substantial
-2-
progress has been made under the 1965 Act but that much room for improvement
remains, and if we are honest enough to admit that the present law, for all its'
commendable results, is discriminatory in spirit and in practice against one
part of our country, then let us get on with a nationwide standard in the spirit
of 1970 rather than 1964.
To do this President llixon and his Administration have propcsed, and I have
introduced -- with my distinguished colleagues -- 12695, the Nationvide
Voting Rights Bill which will be before us as a substitute for the Committee Bill.
Mr. Chairman, I have in my possession a letter dated December 10 from President
Nixon which I will not read at this point. I will insert it at this point in the
RECOND as a part of my remarks:
Hon. Gerald R. Ford
Minority Leader of the U. S. House of Representatives
Washington, D. C.
Dear Jerry:
I am aware that the House is considering a five-year extension of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, and alternatively, as an amendment, the
Administration-proposed nationvide voting rights bill, 12695.
I strongly believe that the nationwide bill is superior because it is
more comprehensive and equitable. Therefore, I believe every effort must
be made to see that its essence, at least, prevails.
I would stress two critical points:
1. Instead of simply extending until 1975 the present Voting Rights
Act, which bans literacy tests in only seven states, as the Committee
bill would do, the nationwide bill would apply to all states until
January 1, 1974. It would extend protection to millions of citizens
not now covered and not covered under the Committee Bill.
2. II.R. 12695 assures that otherwide qualified voters would not be denied
the right to vote for President mercly because they changed their state of
residence shortly before a national election.
In short, the nationwide bill would go a long way toward insuring a vote
for all our citizens in every state. Under it those millions who have
been voteless in the past and thus voiceless in our government would have
the legal tools they need to obtain and secure the franchise. Justice
requires no less.
For certainly an enlightened national legislature must admit that justice
is diminished for any citizen who does not have the right to vote for
those who govern him. There is no way for the disenfranchised to consider
themselves equal partners in our sóciety.
This is true regardless of state or geographical location.
I urge that this message be brought to your colleagues, and I hope they
will join in our efforts to grant equal voting rights to all citizens of
the United States.
Sincerely,
RICHARD NIXON
Mr. Chairman, I am notivated not only by the idea of relieving the citizens and
authorities of a few States from unjust discrimination, but also by a firm con-
viction that the laws of the United States, which we write here, ought to be the
same for all 50 States; that the benefits of good laws should benefit citizens
everywhere; that the penalties for defiance or evasion should be the same
North, South, East and West; and that the right to vote may be -- and often is --
abridged in many ways and for many reasons in addition to race or color.
The right to vote for President and Vice President, and for other Federal
elective offices, is a nationvide right entitled to nationwide protection. Our
Nationwide Voting Rights Bill, to summarize it briefly, is nationwide in all of
its parts.
GERALA FORD LIBRARY
-3-
Specifically:
1. It would suspend, nationwide, all literacy tests in all 50 States until
January 1, 1974.
2. It would provide, nationvide, a uniform residence requirement for all
Americans who want to vote in Presidential elections.
3. It would grant, nationvide, statutory authority to the Attorney General to
station voting examiners and observers in any jurisdiction in all 50 States to
enforce the right to register and to vote.
4. It would provide, nationwide, statutory authority for the Attorney General
to start voting rights lawsuits in Federal Courts to prevent discriminatory
practices and suspend discriminatory voting laws in all 50 States
5. It would launch a nationvide study of the use of literacy tests or devices
and other corrupt practices which may abridge voting rights in all 50 States.
A national voting advisory commission would be created to report its findings
prior to the expiring of the nationvide literacy test suspension in 1974.
I cannot see anything among these five nationvide proposals to which any
reasonable person could disagree except, perhaps, the temporary ban on all
literacy tests for four years. Literacy tests are not wrong br unConstitutional
in themselves; what is illegal is their misuse to deny the right to vote not for
illiteracy but on account of race or color. Even the present Act does not
prohibit literacy tests in some 20 States that have them; it temporarily suspends
them in six or seven States under certain conditions.
Our Nationwide Voting Rights Bill says, in effect, if any State is to be
temporarily denied the right to have a literacy test of any kind, let's temporar-
ily deny this right to all States; let's see what effect this has on registration
of minority groups and upon voting patterns in all 50 States, and then let's
decide what to do about such tests and other devices for the nation as a whole.
What could be fairer ?
There is one provision of my Nationvide Voting Rights Dill which the proponents
of a simple 5-year extension do not, so far as I know, openly oppose; that is the
provision nationalizing residency requirements for Presidential elections. This
simply recognizes the fact of life in the super-highway and jet age; Americans
are the most mobile people in the world; more than 5 1/2 million of them were
prevented from voting in 1960 because they had recently moved. They thus lost
their vote in their place of previous residence too last to reacquire it in their
nev home.
With all deference to my Vice President's reservations, the news media keep
transient Americans just as well (or just as badly) informed of national issues
and national candidates as they do voters who stay in one precinct all their
lives. It makes no sense to deny anyone his right to vote because his employer,
or his child's health, or whatever, transfers him abruptly to another part of
the United States. The main argument against this overdue remedy seems to be
that it has nothing to do with race or color -- although population movements in
recent years clearly have included both black and white voters in large numbers.
Congress should not be precluded from doing anything in the legislation before
us simply because it has no racial or color ramifications. Voting rights are
voting rights and I have always believed we should be colorblind -- nondiscriminatory
if you will about them.
The President is the representative of all the prople and all the people should
have a reasonable opportunity to vote for him.
Perhaps the most significant change which my Nationwide Voting Rights Bill
would effect in comparison with the cxisting 1965 statute is found in the spirit
of it. Today, any State 01" county which is under the shadow of the 1964 formula
cannot make any change in its election laws without coming to Washington for
permission. Under the 1965 act it is assumed that any such change is intended
to cheat the law and circumvent the Constitution.
FORD is LIBRARY
-4-
The fundamental presumption of innocence is denied these six or seven States,
under an arbitrary, outmoded, mathematical formula. They are presumed guilty
and prevented though 43 other States are not so prevented -- from managing
their own electoral affairs until they prove themselves innocent in Federal
court -- not their own district courts but in the District of Columbia.
Maybe -- I do not concede it, but maybe -- past sins justified such severity
in past legislation. But this is not the Reconstruction Era and neither is
this 1965. Four eventful years have passed; evils and crrors of another time
have yielded. Nov, today, it is wrong and it is shameful for this House to
perpetuate a punítive and discriminatory provision for another 5 years beyond
the point where the original authors of the act intended it to expire.
My Nationwide Voting Rights Bill shifts the burden of proof back where it ought
to be -- to the Attorney General -- and empowers him to 80 after any State which
does, in fact, discriminate against voters on racial grounds or which might
backslide in the future. Just as we do not vent any second class citizens in
this country, neither do we want any second class states.
My friends, the choices before us here are usually difficult choices.
I do not believe they are at all difficult today.
We have before us two proposals -- one to continue unchanged for five more years
a measure intervied as street comporary medicine to cure racial discrimination
in one part cf the country. chach in working a commendable and partial cure has
itself discriminated in unneacusary ways. The altranative is my Nationwide
Voting Rights Lill which builds upon the lessons of the 1965 Act, continues its
Federal oversight but climinated its serious shortecmings.
This Administrat with this bill intends to protect all the gains in voting
rights protection which have been made in the past four years. More than that,
we intend to extend these gains to all states and all Americans who may still be
denied their full franchise. The very fact we have made such spectacular
gains rules out any notion of standing still, or of singling out a fev scapegoat
States. We mean to step up and broaden the Federal concern for voting rights
anywhere and everywhere in America.
***
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
Distribution: Full
House mail Galliress 7:00p.m. 6:45pm. 12/12/69 Maffice Copy
Regular mail 12/16/69
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
December 15, 1969
I applaud the 50,000-man U.S. troop cut announced by the President and
suggest that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong can expect to deal with a stronger
South Vietnam in the future.
The President's latest cut in U.S. troops in Vietnam should convince even
the "most doubting of Thomases" that he has a carefully drawn program to end the
Vietnam War and that he is proceeding with that plan on schedule.
It is difficult to understand why the North Vietnamese leaders do not seek
to hasten U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam by meaningful steps toward a military and
political settlement of the conflict.
The evidence to date indicates that the South Vietnamese are measuring up to
what is being demanded of them in connection with Vietnamization of the war. To
that the North Vietnamese should pay heed.
###
Distribution we Fifth District media
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT
3:30p.m. 12/18/69
Maffice Copy
For Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids, Christmas 1969 carries a
special note of poignancy.
Ford, who sent Christmas greetings to all overseas Kent and Ionia County
servicemen whose addresses were known to him, was surprised and deeply moved when
many of these young soldiers, sailors and Marines sent him cards and letters in
return.
In many of the notes, the servicemen expressed pleasure over Ford's
assurances that "everybody back home is thinking about you as we enter the holiday
season" and "everybody in the states who deserves to be called an American is mighty
proud of the job you are doing in the service of your country."
Ford went on to say that since it is impossible to have these young men
home for the holidays, "let us tell you how much we care about you and how we pray
for your safe return at a later time."
Marine PFC Michael G. Littell replied in part from his station in Vietnam:
"I am glad to hear there are some people who are proud of our job over here.
At times you really wonder if it is all worth it when you hear of the moratorium
at home, all the demonstrations and all the violence. But then when you figure
what a great life you have back in the states, you figure it is worth it."
L/Cpl Dennis M. Madden wrote from Vietnam:
"I take heart in the thought of the people back home backing us. As I read
the papers, I sometimes wonder. I hope you will not take offense if I state my
mind.
"I believe in the United States and I am proud to serve in the forces which
protect our way of life. It is not easy to be so far from home. I left my wife
and family to be here. I left willingly, though, because I believe in what we are
doing here. I do not think I am the exception but the rule for my generation.
Often the minority--those who take the easy way out of responsibility--are taken
for the whole. I am not what is referred to in the Marine Corps as a 'lifer' but
merely one man who believes in his country and is willing to fight for it."
Cpl. Gordon Grabke replied: "What can I say except thank you and Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us servicemen in Vietnam from Michigan.'
Pfc. Charles Dykstra penned a note from his duty station in Thailand
100 miles south of Bangkok. Chuck is with the 379th Battalion, a support unit for
the 1st Signal Brigade in Vietnam.
S/Sgt. Edwin L. Fiers sent Ford Christmas greetings from Vietnam, and so did
Spec. 4 Michael D. Mortensen. S/Sgt. James A. Flak sent a message from Europe.
Keith VanderWerp, who is serving aboard the U.S.S. Batapsco, sent an "Aloha"
from Honolulu and a "Mele Kalikimaka" (Merry Christmas), too.
###
Distribution Fifth District news media
6:00 p.m. 12/19/69
maffice Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT--
December 20, 1969
NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA: This radio script taped by Rep. Gerald R. Ford for use by
Fifth District stations the weekend of December 20-21 is being made available
to you for use as you see fit.
I wish you all a happy holiday season. But even as I do so I am saddened
by the thought that America is still at war -- and that thousands of our families
are separated from sons, brothers and husbands by the realities of that war.
I thank God, therefore, that President Nixon has announced another troop
cut that brings to 115,000 the number of U.S. troops he has eliminated from our
Vietnam commitment since he took office last January.
Some letter writers ask me why we are still sending new men to Vietnam, now
that we are cutting back on our total commitment there. The reason for that is
our rotation policy. Our policy is that no man shall serve in Vietnam for more
than a year. So we have to send over fresh troops to replace the veterans who are
coming home on rotation. Of course, the number of new men we send to Vietnam each
month is dropping as the President reduces our overall troop commitment in Vietnam.
One of the saddest aspects of war during this holiday season is that 1,359
Americans are either missing in action in Vietnam or held captive in Communist
prison camps. It is pitiful that the families of these men do not even know if
they are alive. These prisoners of war are in the hands of a ruthless enemy which
completely disregards the accepted standards for humane treatment of war prisoners
as laid down by the Geneva Convention of 1949.
Both the United States and North Vietnam are bound by the Geneva Convention.
The Convention covers undeclared as well as declared wars. We honor the Geneva
Convention but North Vietnam refuses to abide by it.
The House of Representatives has adopted resolutions calling upon North
Vietnam to honor the Geneva Convention, and joint teams from the Pentagon and the
State Department have been briefing the families of Americans held captive in
Vietnam.
What can the people of America do about this prisoner of war tragedy?
Everyone can do as Sen. Robert P. Griffin and I are doing, at the suggestion
of the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.
(more)
-2-
We can put moral pressure on the North Vietnamese by deluging Xuan Thuy,
chief of the North Vietnamese delegation in Paris, with messages.
I, like many others, have sent a Christmas card to Xuan Thuy with a message
urging that North Vietnamese leaders abide by the Geneva Convention and make
arrangements for the early release of U.S. prisoners of war.
I urge that all of you listening do this, too. Your cards should be
addressed to: Project Xuan Thuy, Box 2600, Washington, D.C., 20013. That is the
collection point for the cards. The Jaycees will see that they are delivered to
the North Vietnamese leaders.
I do have one bright note to comment upon at this time. It is a kind of
Christmas present to the elderly in America, to all of those on Social Security.
It is virtually certain that Social Security benefits will be increased
by 15 per cent across the board, effective Jan. 1.
Now, something to remember is that the increased payments will not show up
in Social Security checks until the check of April 3. The Social Security
Administration takes that long to crank up its mechanical operations to write the
new checks. And then the retroactive sums for January and February will be sent
out in a special check later in the month of April. So it will be a belated
Christmas present.
The extra 15 per cent increases the monthly checks of single retired persons
from $100 to $116. Other average increases are $170 to $196 for a couple;
$254 to $296 for a widow with two children; and $237 to $273 for a disabled worker
with a wife and two children.
Another piece of good news during this holiday season is that tax cuts are
on the way, along with tax reform.
# # #
distribution Galleries 12:15p.m.
12/20/69
Ford dietated to Rutk
m affice Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
December 20, 1960
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
The House and Senate Republican leaders with Representative John Byrnes and
Senator Wallace Bennett met with the President at breakfast to discuss the tax bill.
Because it more nearly conforms to the House version, the tax bill is non-
inflationary in its effect in 1970 and 1971. Compared to the Senate version the
tax conference report saves approximately $10 billion in federal revenue in an 18-
month period. Enactment into law could help to ease the tight money policy and have
a beneficial impact on the housing industry in 1970.
The President's strong leadership in insisting on a non-inflationary tax bill
contributed materially to the great improvements in the final version compared to
the Senate's high cost of living tax bill.
In some important respects the tax bill conference report follows the
President's tax reform message of April 22 in that the federal tax burden on the
lowest income taxpayers will be removed or lessened and many loopholes will be closed.
The bad features of the bill--the revenue losses after 1972-- make the final
veto decision by the President a very close question. The revenue losses down the
road will make it very difficult for the President and the Congress to fund some of
the environmental improvement and education programs that badly need attention.
########
m office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
Dec. 23, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, Republican Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
The 91st Congress will have to come on strong in the second half--the second session--
if it is to point to a respectable record of accomplishment.
Overall, this has been a do-little Congress in the first session. In terms of President
Nixon's reform proposals, this has been almost a mark-time Congress. Except for the tax
bill and draft reform, this has been a treading-water Congress, a stick-in-the-mud assembly.
Of 46 Administration bills, Congress has passed just 14. That is only a .300 average,
mighty poor in any league. My chief concern is lack of action on Nixon reforms and
initiatives: Anti-crime legislation, welfare reform, postal reform, Social Security
reform, consolidation of grants-in-aid, electoral reform, drug control, airport and
airways improvement, and a new mass transit program.
The Congress has been sitting on five major anti-crime bills affecting the Nation and
six anti-crime measures involving the District of Columbia.
Instead of joining hands with the President to legislate in the best interests of the
people, Democrats in the Congress have sought political advantage by turning tax reform
into tax relief.
On balance, the tax bill as finally enacted must be counted an achievement of sorts.
But it assumed respectable form only because President Nixon insisted that the tax bill
itself be reformed to more nearly conform to the House version or it would be vetoed.
Both on revenue matters and appropriations, Democrats flaunted the President's efforts
to fight inflation. With House Democrats not altogether faultless, Senate Democrats
dropped all pretense at responsible behavior and fattened spending bills in a manner
calculated to curry the greatest possible public favor.
I feel the President had no choice but to announce flatly that he would veto the
Labor-H.E.W. appropriations bill as passed by the Senate.
Apart from such merit as attaches to the tax bill, the only other Nixon-recommended
reform to which Congress responded was draft reform. And that was only a one-sentence
repealer making a luck-of-the-draw lottery system possible.
No other assessment can legitimately be made. Except for the tax bill and draft reform,
this Congress did little this session. In fact, it almost struck out.
#####
GERALD FORD LIBRARY