Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
4525757
label
Michigan Association of Professions, Detroit, MI, January 23, 1960
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4525757
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Michigan Association of Professions, Detroit, MI, January 23, 1960
citationUrl
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Speeches
subjects
Federal budget
Political affairs
iiifBase
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4525757
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1960-01-31
month
1
year
1960
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1960-01-01
month
1
year
1960
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
url
mediaId
926558c9fbf05453
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D15, folder "Michigan Association of
Professions, Detroit, MI, January 23, 1960" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press
Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box D15 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Two Information
Excerpts from an address
resp.
by
Representative Gerald R. Ford, Jr.
Michigan Association of Professions
Home
Detroit, Michigan, January 23, 1960
I'd like to point out this Today morning what I believe are some alarming developments
in our national internal life and to suggest the role that you can play in helping
N
our nation to meet these challenges. As I do so, I hope can avoid either the undue
optimism of a Pollyanna or the unwarranted pessimism of a modern Cassandra.
However, at the start, I should make clear that I am basically an optimist. In
the past few months, I have had some opportunity to travel about our country and, once
again, I was reassured by what I saw. We live in a marvelous country. As one leaves
the hothouse atmosphere of Washington and goes out among the people, one cannot help
but be deeply impressed by the basic strength of our country. That strength is
reflected in our abundant resources, in their dynamic development, and, above all,
in our energetic, freedom-loving and God-fearing people.
the long have
I have no fear for the future of such a nation and such a people. I believe
they can meet and conquer any problem once they understand the nature of the problem
and its significance.
It is in this area, the area of recognizing our problems, of understanding them
and of choosing the right solutions, that we face our greatest challenge, and it is
more Than
here where my basic feeling of optimism is tempered by a few nagging doubts. They
are brought on by a number of warning signals in our economic and political life
which we cannot afford to ignore as we move into the decade of the fabulous 60's.
As a prospering, highly-developed nation, we face the same danger which has
confronted every successful nation or civilization since history began. Our danger
is that, as we enjoy our strength and prosperity, we neglect, and thus weaken, those
very institutions and principles which made us strong and prosperous and free. Our
danger lies in complacency, selfishness, ignorance, and irresponsibility.
And, while my message today is 1 that it need not happen here, let us not delude
ourselves. It can happen here. Just because in our lifetime we have seen our nation
move from one plateau to the other, each higher than the last, until we now stand the
greatest nation in the world, let us not think that we cannot fall in fact The prescysice
maybe closer then
I have often thought that perhaps the first thing which should be taught in
we The
the civics and political science courses in our schools is the story of the decline
and fall of the Roman Empire. The story of a nation which became the undisputed
ruler of the world and then collapsed so utterly and so completely that it plunged
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-2-
the civilized world into darkness for centuries, should be studied by every American.
We would learn that just because an economy and a civilization rises to
will memorin at The pronecle
spectacular heights is no reason it is going to stay there m perpetenty
We would learn that stupidity, selfishness, and ignorance on the part of the
population and its rulers can bring on not just a temporary reversal but a collapse
so complete as to wipe out the whole structure with all of its accomplishments. The
Roman Empire collapsed because it became rotten within. It became rotten because the
people and the government failed to preserve those virtues which had led to its strength
and because its citizens refused to apply any restraint to their demands upon the
government. Literally, the Roman Empire tore itself to pieces through the weakness and
demagoguery of its rulers and the enormous burden of expenses they incurred in meeting
the demands of a citizenry which forgot the public interest in its selfish fight for
the fruits of national prosperity.
The comparison between our nation and the Roman Empire is not a perfect one, but
abvious
we cannot ignore the warning signals which are flying today.
with +
As a nation, in spite of the heaviest tax burden in its history, we appear to be
Itis almost beyond comprehension that This year our federal government cannot itowaj
Howev, deficit financing slems to be habit froming + wen describle economics among some government officials
constitutionally unable to restrain our expenditures below the level of our income. 1 We pay
have balanced our budget (lived within our income as a government) in only five out
3'
gravely concerned that this fiscal year will end on
of the last 29 years. Needless to say, I am more than pleased with the President'
June 30 #4 bobbion in the mil + responsible Arrecasts predict a deficit of over 93 Willion m the nept months trudve
recommendations for & $4.2 surplus in fiscal year 1961. Basically however, we
298
appear unable to reduce our tremendous national debt which now stands at $290 billion.
over
Interest on that debt alone amounts to $9 billion dollars each year which is more than
our total annual expenditures for every purpose only 20 years ago. As a result of
this profligacy with our national wealth, coupled with the selfish demands of the
more highly organized segments of our economy, we are fighting a losing battle against
inflation. Over The the cost past of thesty goods years and services have is been going up. The value of our money Los
done
1 laught in This vise
going down. In that struggle the victims are those who are least able to protect
themselves. Unfortunity victims are our Amion citizens who have return on fixed incomes, + the
young, even These the inton, results, who however, must assume grave though the nesponsibity they may of be, payong are but the debts the symptoms of our generation. of what
I believe to be a far more serious defect in our national !ife. I refer to the growing
tendency of our people, encouraged by demagogues whose only principle is a lust for
power, to take the easy way out. We know, each of us in our own hearts and minds,
that the right way is not always the easy way and that no nation which has consistently
taken the path of least resistance, including the Roman Empire, has ever survived. The
easy way, if it is the wrong way, leads only to the misery of retraced steps or the
finality of disaster. Yet, what are our constantly recurring deficits, what is our
huge debt, what is our inflated currency--if they are not the symptoms of a people
and a nation which have fallen into the habit of taking the easy way out?
GERALD LIBRARY
President federal Invenuing
-3-
will encrease
The hard way, we know, is to rely on our own individual initiative and self
reliance for the solution of our problems. The easy way is to pass these problems
on to government. The easy way is for the local units to pass them on to the state
government and for the state government, in turn, to pass them on to the federal
government This Frend in the last eighteen months has added almost 100, on
federal employees If Empless anacts several of the major legislative proposate recommended by the
Too many of our politicians and self-appointed leaders seem to find it politically
expedient to suggest that the solution to any problem should rest on government. And
no politician has found it difficult, seemingly or has lost any votes, by suggesting that the
solution for any state or local problem was the responsibility of the national govern-
ment. How simple and easy it is to shift responsibility to government. It is also
much less risky, from the politicians point of view, to remove a problem from the
careful scrutiny of the folks back home and dump it in the legislative pit of the
national congress where its costs, complexities, and waste are hidden in a multitude
of other federal activities, This concentration of has one very slows
fault a gont by sangh gove no everything we want its
This is the easy way to avoid responsibility. This is the path which our people
are being encouraged to take by those who think more of the next election than they do
of the next generation.
If you think I overstate the case, examine the proposals that are being advocated
daily for the solution of most of our problems. Pass a federal law, create a new agency,
appropriate billions. allegelly That ends the problem.
It is not a question of the need for the program or project. The tragedy is
that we have succumbed to what we have been led to think is the easy way of meeting
a recognized need. The demagogue has no difficulty in selling us on the idea of using
federal funds, which incidentally must be borrowed by a debt-burdened government, in
preference to raising the funds locally, probably through increased taxes. There has
been spread across our land the idea that there is some magic in federal money and
a bottomless pit.
that its supply is somehow unlimited. The demagogue is not concerned with the true
facts of our precarious fiscal position. He is interested only in providing painless
benefits for his greater glory.
The demagogue, and those like him, have also discovered that it is easier to
influence one legislative body, the federal congress, than it is 50 state legislatures
or thousands of local governing bodies. He knows the national government is further
away from the close scrutiny of the people. He knows he can more easily bring to bear
on the national legislature the heavy influence of powerful pressure groups.
The net result of deluding ourselves into believing that the easy way can safely
be traveled is not alone the financial and fiscal difficulties it inevitably creates.
FORD
In the process, we not only weaken our basic economic strength through lavish and
-4-
uncontrollable expenditures, but we weaken ourselves as individuals and we weaken
our local and state governments. Weakness and lack of power is the invariable con-
sequence of the constant sloughing off of responsibility to someone else. If we choose
to make figureheads of our local governments whose function, under our constitutional
form of government is to help preserve our individual liberties, then we have laid the
basis for the complete concentration of power in the federal government and its
inevitable corruption into absolute tyranny. This consentation of power has one
mat services implication agrt by though to gave me everything we want is a government in 4 take
I have spoken pessimistically of what I have described as the tendency of a from
everything
prosperous and successful people to rest on their oars, to avoid difficult decisions,
he Rave.
and to take the easy way out of their difficulties. I have spoken of it in terms of
our fiscal difficulties, in terms of its dangers to our liberties and, specifically,
some the
2 hope
in terms of its relationship to the problemsin which you are primarily interested. I is
have suggested that a continuation of this trend to its logical conclusion can only
lead to a grave weakening or possible collapse of our nation. I have said this collapse
is possible, and I call to your attention, as another reminder, the work of the
British historian, Toynbee, whose study led him to the conclusion that of the 26
major civilizations in world history, 16 are now dead and buried and the remaining 10
are rapidly losing their character.
But, early in my remarks, I said I was an optimist, that I had great faith in
your people
the basic strength of our nation and that, while it can happen here, it need not
happen here. Whether it does or doesn't happen depends on you and me and every citizen
in this land. It is up to us to determine whether we will continue to forever adopt
the easy solution, the expedient answer and the least distasteful course of action,
or whether we will pursue the right course, the sound solution and the intelligent
program regardless of how difficult they may first appear to be.
Several centuries ago, the Italian poet, Dante, put it this way:
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral
The communities in now
crisis, maintain their neutrality." My plea to you today, as leaders in the professions
is to discard your neutrality in this period of moral crisis and to enlist in the fight
to preserve our nation and its institutions.
But I would be derelict in my duty if I merely summoned you to battle and left
it at that. Certainly, you are entitled to a knowledge of the nature of the struggle
and to my ideas as to the kind of strategy and tactics which must be employed by those
who choose to fight for the right rather than the easy way.
When I speak of a summons to battle, let me make clear what I mean. I call upon
professions, in the breamess community & thems
you, as individual leaders in your communities and in your professions, and I eall
LIBRARY
2 believe what Thomas mcCanley once sail,"
-5-
upon your professional organizations and this new organization, to take part,
your individual varine organizations
with enthusiasm, with courage, and with determination, in the political life of our
in Tower
nation. I do not refer to political theorizing or polite discussions on a high plane
among a yourselves; I refer to the down-to-earth, back-breaking job of nominating and
electing candidates to political office. I refer to the only kind of political action
which has any meaning if we are to reverse the trend I have described today. I refer
to the defeat of those who oppose everything for which you stand through the victory of
those who will work shoulder to shoulder with you on behalf of the principles which
brought greatness to America.
I can give you one word of encouragement at the outset. It is my considered
opinion, as one who has spent some years in American politics, that the principles of
government in which you believe are held by a majority of the American people. If the
cause of common-sense conservatism, with its dynamic urge to preserve the best American
institutions, has suffered in recent years, it has not been because of any change in
the basic philosophy of the majority of Americans. It has come about instead because
radicalism and the proponents of the easy way have done a vastly better job of mobilizing
their strength and in hammering home their something-for-nothing philosophy. You know
that is so without my telling you. The really effective political action groups in
this nation are in radical hands. They are working the soil which produces the most
abundant harvest. They are developing and electing candidates who will promote their
viewpoint. These extremists in political philosophy have all developed highly-effective
political organizations which are producing results when the votes are counted. While
I violently disagree with their philosophy and with many of their ruthless methods, I
am not one to stand on the sidelines and criticise their activities. Fundamentally, they
are doing what every citizen should do in a representative republic. They are taking
part in the basic process of representative government. They are electing office-holders
who will advance their views and the answer to this activity is not criticism. The
answer to radical political action is middle-of-the-road or conservative counter-action,
and the sooner we realize that fact the sooner we can restore the balance of power in
our internal political life.
wh?
What I am saying, I believe, has particular meaning for you, and your new organi
zation. I hold you in high regard, for I selve member of one of the professions repre-
sented here, but I ask you quite frankly whether our professional people and their
too many Jma of the organizations to which
we belong
organizations in the crucial struggle for the preservation of our institutions, have
taken the easy way out by an excessive preoccupation with political neutrality? That
is a question which every individual or group in our nation should now be asking itself,
GER
LIBRARY
individually and collectively.
-6-
Political success cannot be achieved by well-meaning attempts to influence men
who have already been elected to office. That is the easy way, but, unfortunately,
like many other expedient methods, it just doesn't work. The farmer well knows the
finest seed ever produced will not sprout if it is sown in a bed of concrete. Your
a legulative body
efforts to achieve political success cannot be harvested in the legislature unless
you have prepared the soil in the precincts at home.
What is called for, I sincerely believe, is a decision on your part, both as
individuals and as members of your localgrape professional associations to renounce political
neutrality during elections and to bring your entire individual and organizational
strength to bear on behalf of candidates who meet your rigid specifications of honor
and outlook.
As individuals, you have the responsibility and duty to become actively engaged
in partisan politics. I am not here as a recruiter for the Republican Party, although
I will be glad to take membership applications at the door. What I am saying is that
you cannot, as individuals, expect to achieve concrete political results if you are
unwilling to join and work for the party of your choice. It is only within a party
that you can help to determine party policy, help select candidates for party nomination
and work for their eventual election. It is only within a political party that you can
till and fertilize the soil which will produce the kind of legislators who will, for
state national,
example, get some of our basic problems out of politics. Many like myself in the
political arena are disappointed that professional people are not working as actively
more of our highly instructed citizens
the american people their good mid Priferm perce in lature chambers and in advisory
as they should in a political party If this is true across the land, then I say councily.
professionally trained people have no complaint when they find the halls of our legis lature
holies
latures slowly filling up with those whose views are diametrically opposed to their own.
I will go even further and say that, beyond your clear call to duty as individuals,
your professional Insurers associations
their
spokers
your association, if hopes to be effective in promoting its program$ must take an
organized groups
active interest, as an in the nomination and election of legislative
candidates. You can deliberate at this Congress and devise the finest program in the
descuss usues an local arganystem meetings + come my with strongly
zet
world and all of your efforts will go for naught if your drgadization is willing to
the group
stand namely the sidelines and permit the election of legislators whose views are contrary
to your basic philosophies. The day has long since passed when you can confine your
political efforts to education after the elections have been held. How, I ask you, can
local,
even the most efficient state or national association staff sell your philosophy to a
Congressman who owes his political allegiance to some other group or organization leader.
The load Chanbe Commerce, the P.T.A, or the groups representation the FORD
I am not suggesting that your organization become the wing or adjunct to one of
our political parties. I hope, however, that I have made it crystal clear that believe
LIBRARY
-7-
your organization cannot afford to be neutral in any political contest where one
candidate is for and the other against everything for which you stand. Nor indeed, do
I see much hope for America if our best citizens and our most respectedgroups stand
smugly aside while the real struggle is being fought and permit victory by default for
those whose policies can lead only to the collapse of our nation.
The 18th century British statesman, Edmund Burke, said:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." He
also said that "the people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
The gravest danger confronting our nation today is that the people delude themselves
into believing there is an easy way out of all their difficulties. The triumph of
such evil can only come about if good men stand idly by. Let it never be said that
you and I were among those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintained our neutrality
and did nothing.