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American Farm Bureau National Convention, Chicago, IL, December 10, 1963
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American Farm Bureau National Convention, Chicago, IL, December 10, 1963
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The original documents are located in Box D16, folder "American Farm Bureau National
Convention, Chicago, IL, December 10, 1963" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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 D16 of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary
and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
And
Tyminol
ADDRESS: GERALD R. FORD, M.C.
National Convention: American Farm Bureau
Chicago, Illinois
December 10, 1963
Titme Burran me all
meach
as a
and
hit
May I at the outset, thank you for affording me the
In
opportunity of meeting with you, the representatives of American
afour + princy
agriculture and of a great farm organization. This is the first
time that I have been privileged to attend a national convention
on
19 you bill right
of the American Farm Bureau but I have been present at innumerable
Farm Bureau community group meetings and county conventions. Less
invo what medical tat w o in
than a month ago, in fact, I spent an evening with a group at a
his
farm home near Caledonia, Michigan. Arrangements had been made by
Mrs. Glenn Clark who had written me to say:
homestly housed the & facture
"The South Kent Farm Bureau will be looking
forward to your speaking to us on November 13th
"3)0m you
Our meeting will be held at the home of Elton Smith."
That evening I drove up to a typical rural home of my
have beenght
long-standing friend, Elton Smith, a first-class dirt farmer who
operates a successful dairy farm. The meeting had just gotten
V Your
&
FORD
GERALD
underway BRART with approximately 40 folks present sitting in the living
Burear from the
grass came to
-2-
room, dining room, and family room, many on folding chairs brought
from the church not too far away.
It is always a pleasure to listen to the various committee
reports and hear the constructive suggestions that are made by and
to the Farm Bureau members. The chairman of the womens' committee
reported on a recent meeting of the county group she attended. The
moderator handled a discussion of the topic for the evening. Here
in the give-and-take among friends, I saw true democracy at work.
It was like old times to be with these home folks with whom
I had met on probably 13 or 14 previous occasions. It always impresses
me how pleased and appreciative local Farm Bureau members are to hear
about what is going on in Washington and to have an analysis of some
of the problems facing us in the Congress. Before the evening closed,
of course, we had our refreshments and you can imagine what delicious
pumpkin, apple, and mince pies we had along with coffee, ice cream,
nuts, and candy. I ate too much, as I am sure everybody did.
Since that meeting near Caledonia we have witnessed, as
perhaps never before in our history, unprecedented tragic events.
-3-
The assassination of the President has removed from our midst a man of
great charm, great dignity, and great courage.
I first met Jack Kennedy in January 1949 when I came to Congress
and was assigned an office across the corridor from his on the third
floor of the Old House Office Building. Frequently during the
ensuing four years we walked and talked together as we went to and
from the House Chamber. Although on many fundamental issues we held
different viewpoints, I always respected his ability and valued his
friendship.
From 1953 to 1960 while Mr. Kennedy served in the Senate
I saw him less frequently, but whenever we met he was most cordial and
congenial. Following his election to the Presidency in 1960 I had
several close and intimate contacts with him. In the summer of 1961
during the consideration of the controversial foreign aid authorization
bill, Mr. Kennedy asked me to come to his office in the White House
for a conference on the legislation. This half-hour session with the
President on an important legislative problem will remain one of the
highlights of my experience in the Nation's Capital. For 30 minutes
-4-
just the two of us talked about his proposal to finance the
development loan part of the mutual security program by the "back-
door-spending" method. He was friendly and extremely well informed
on the technical details of our differences. Although we didn't see
eye to eye on the controversy, I well remember his fairness and kind
consideration of my views. The memory of that discussion in the
President's office was vivid as we stood in the East Room of the
White House on that solemn Saturday afternoon following his tragic
passing.
In full realization that I vigorously disagreed with
President Kennedy on many basic issues of public policy, I did
appreciate his friendship and I do commend to all people as a fitting
tribute to his memory these words of his eloquent inaugural address:
"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you:
Ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world:
Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for
the freedom of man."
-5-
This is hardly the time, nor would you want me to indulge
in a partisan political attack on the old or new Administration.
Nor am I going to discuss the "farm problem" with which you are
much more familiar than I. But before you are farmers, you are
Furthermont
Americans and you are citizens of the United States. You are highly
respected leaders in your communities. Therefore, I would like to
think with you for a little while this afternoon about a basic and
very fundamental issue in American life today: The appropriate roles
of the legislative and executive branches of government in determining
public policy and the areas of responsibility of our state and federal
governments.
Most of you probably know what the aeronautical engineer
said after someone gave him the blueprint for a bumblebee. "It'll
never fly," he said. Well, for 188 years now a lot of people around
the world, and some right here at home, have been having the same
reaction when it comes to our form of representative government.
It'll never work, they say.
GERALD R. FORD X LIBRARY
-6-
Maybe in theory they have something. It's not a very
efficient form of government. It not only gives every Tom, Dick
and Harry the chance to express his political sentiments, it even
encourages him to become a part of the political system itself.
Funnything, though. Bumblebees do fly. And as Winston
Churchill has observed, "Democracy is the worst form of government
IT can be said without hesitation ov
except for any other that has ever been tried. Our form of reservation
representative government has made our people more free and more
prosperous than any other people on earth.
Maybe it's about time to start thinking and thinking hard
about why it has worked and about what we can do to keep it
working. Unless we do, we could easily fall prey to the glib
suggestions that what America has just isn't good enough for
these times, that we need streamlining to achieve efficiency, that
we need new ways of government to achieve progress.
At the heart of all these suggestions is the assumption that
government can be judged the same way you judge a cornfield or a car
GEBRID R.FORD LIBRARY
-7-
factory--by how much it produces every year.
To people who feel that way, the product of government is
programs, programs, and more programs. If it produces more, it's
these cynics
good. If it produces less, it's bad. 801 they say.
What
function of government, 2 is, first, to protect the lives
and liberties of the citizens, to maintain the sort of social order
that permits the widest expressions of individual talent, aspiration,
and action without harm to others and, second, to perform those
services which are both clearly needed by the people and incapable
of performance by any other means.
I remember, for instance, what Woodrow Wilson had to say on
the subject. Here was one of the great liberals of our history--
but at a time when "liberal" had a quite different meaning than it
has today--and here is his memorable statement of the relationship
between liberty and government:
"The history of liberty is a history of the limitation
of government power, not the increase of it. When we
resist concentrat ion of power, we are resisting the
powers of death, because concentration of power is what
GERALD E: FORD LIBRARY
always precedes the destruction of human liberties."
that has songh claims anotion a your 5" The must
In our form of government we have built in a resistance to
the concentration of power by the clear separation of government
into three equal and coordinate branches: the judicial, the
legislative, and the executive branches. Each is assigned a specific
role and responsibility. Not one is assigned a superiority.
Even though equal, however, it was clear that even our
Founding Fathers recognized that one of the branches had a special
importance when it comes to representative government. James Monroe,
our 5th President, put it this way: " the legislative, from the
nature of its powers, all laws proceeding from it, and the manner
of its appointment, its members being elected immediately by the
people, is by far the most important. The whole system of the
national government may be said to rest essentially on the powers
granted to this branch. They mark the limit within which, with
few exceptions, all the branches must move in the discharge of
their respective functions."
But what do we hear today? Let me quote the exact recent
words of a United States Senator, Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania.
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-9-
He wrote: "I have no hesitation in stating my deep conviction that
the legislatures of America, local, state, and national, are
presently the greatest menace to the successful operation of the
democratic process." I respect and would defend the right to make
the statement, but I vigorously disagree with the viewpoint.
How does the Senator propose to remove this menace? His
first recommendation is that "the executive should be strengthened
at the expense of the legislative." In short, says a member of the
Congress of the United States, don't trust the representatives of
the people, of the fifty states, with power. NO. Put that power
in the hands of the executive! Don't spread power out among all
the people, majority and minority alike, says Senator Clark. Put
that power at the disposal of the mathematical majority, concentrate
it in the single hands of a single branch of government. Does the
Senator know that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely."
When President Johnson first appeared before the Congress
as President, just 13 days age, he very properly stressed his
-10-
awareness that the Executive and Legislative branches of the
government are separate and that each must respect the other's
prerogatives.
The President himself said, "Our American unity does not
depend on unanimity." This is a cardinal principle that has and
must be continued to guide our people. Yet there are many today
in high places who demand that the legislative branch forget its
past objections to highly controversial legislation and promptly
move to pass -- lock, stock and barrel without change -- the
programs sponsored by the Executive branch of the government.
2 2 mespectfash say and
debate are the touchstones of the American
experience. National unity does not mean national conformity.
disrespect.
A responsible Congress, one which deliberates in order to produce
prudent judgments rather than just flurries of statistics, can
never be a rubber stamp:not for the Executive branch, not for any
particular economic interest, and not even for the sudden surges
of well-intentioned public emotion which sometimes are poured
upon it. The dangerous notion that the work and worth of Congress
DERALD FORD LIBRARY
-11-
can be kept like a bowler's scorecard, misses the great point of the
legislative process and of the American political genius which had
its birthplace in Independence Hall.
Actually, rejecting programs and proposals or amending them
may be as productive as any roll-over, play dead action in the
Congress. But, to view it that way, you must view the role of
Congress as being mainly involved in serving the general interests
of the republic, not just the selfish appetites of some particular
segment of it, as serving and preserving the freedom of the American
people, and not just in taking over more and more of their
responsib ilities.
The present Congress is criticized because allegedly it has
not done enough.
Well, let's see what it could have done if it just wanted to
build up a record along the lines of the scorecard view of history.
In the Senate and the House this past session alone we have been faced
with more than 11,000 public and private bills. We have enacted
about 300.
GERALD FORD LIBRAR.
-12-
But we have also filed more than 1,500 reports from our
various committees--the reports of hearings and deliberations which
are 80 vitally necessary to really understand a bill before we vote
on it. It is significant to note that during the first six months
past
of this session of Congress the President made 207 requests for
n
monies and 70 requests for Presidential powers.
Suppose we had just rubber-stamped everything that came
before us? Would we have been serving your best interests? Would
we have been serving the nation's present and future welfare?
We would not! We would, instead, have pluaged this nation
into a red tape nightmare of regimentation and controls, mortgaged
our future, and renounced our responsibility.
Then, much of the work of Congress--your Congress,
never forget--is in areas other than actual legislation.
Congress is your watchdog over the entire federal bureaucracy,
over the entire five-and-a-half million civilian and military
in
x the executive branch of the government. Except for
the President, this vast bureaucracy cannot be made directly
FORD i LIBRARY QERALD
-13-
accountable to the voters. But they can be made accountable by and
through the Congress. And they should be, unless you believe that
the largest business in the land, the Executive Branch of the
government, should be permitted to operate beyond control, beyond
restraint, and beyond responsibility to the people it is supposed
to serve.
Through its committees, Congress is chief investigator in
respect to every sector of public affairs. And, again, its role is
solely on behalf of the electorate, not on behalf of a political party
or faction, for its committees are diversified in membership,
sectional outlook, and political philosophy. These committees are
far more diversified than ever is possible within the more rigid
structure of the executive branch.
Congress, also, is our chief public forum for the criticism
and evaluation of every aspect of public life. Watched closely by
the press, not shielded by the protective armor of executive branch
secrecy and privilege, its deliberations are always under a
penetrating spotlight and because of that never-ending scouting
-14-
serve as a truly public platform of debate.
Without Congress, or with a Congress that was only a rubber
stamp, there is no question that the national government would be
more efficient in a cold, mathematical sense. many efforts to
streamline the Congress today are aimed in that direction and based
on that false premise. It is well to remember that the
legislative body of the Soviet Union, if you can call it such, is most
efficient; there is no delay, no dissent, no debate - but neithe r is
there the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which we treasure.
Any close observer has noted in the last 3 or 4 decades a
concerted effort to weaken or discard our traditional system of
checks and balances. The common argument, as put forward by
Professor
James M Byrnes, is that "our government was set up to be
a divided government with internal checks at a time when we did not
need a strong national government!" This of course assumes that we
have reached the stage in our national development where we do need
a strong national government. The next assumption is / that a strong
national government means a strong executive government and that
=15-
anything which impedes the will of the executive is old fashioned
and detrimental. From these assumptions have arisen the efforts to
reduce substantially the effective power of Congress or any other
legislative body elected by the people.
Those who are so critical of the Congress completely overlook,
and certainly not unknowingly, that the House of Representat ives
(you people)
probably has the closest kinship with the electorate of any segment
of the federal government. Every one of the 435 members of the
House must put his record on the line and obtain the approval of
his constituents every two years. I do not mean to imply that the
Congress should not be criticized or that members of any legislative
body always reflect fully the views of their constituents. On the
other hand, it is the House of Representatives, and those of us
who are elected periodically, who do go directly to the people for
a mandate, and the authority to cont inuo our gover ment service.
We are on the firing line and expect to receive our share of the
sniping. It is not the criticism that troubles me but the aura
of distrust generated by it; the feeling that Congress is a roadblock,
1 GERALD LIBRARY FORD
=16=
halting progress, and failing to fulfill its role and, therefore,
should relinquish some of its authority to the executive.
What are some of the specific criticismlevied at the
Congress. You see them enumerated in the newspapers and hear
them on radio or television fairly often.
INSERT
Those who point the accusing finger at the legislative
branch often say the Congress is a negative body, obstructing
justice. I contend that in certain instances any legislative
body after proper deliberat ion makes the best decision for the
people when it rejects unwise and poorly thought out programs.
It will be an evil day indeed when it is wrong to say "NO."
From the viewpoint of those who crave power, who want to
determine your destiny by their will and whim, the Constitution
is negative. This historic document is negative in many
instances--often a "go slow" or "stop" sign. Frequently it says
"hold on a minute" to those that govern. Its foundation is laid
on the basic belief that a government not controlled by the people
will control the people. Affirmatively, this means there is a basic
faith in the electorate and in elected representatives.
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
-17-
The accusing finger waved at the Congress frequently
alleges there are evils in the seniority system for committee
chairmen. Directly or otherwise they condemn Congressman Carl
Vinson of Georgia, who as chairman of the House Committee on Armed
Services has contributed significantly to the military security
of America. These critics also condemn a system which has produced
Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, a statesman whose efforts to achieve
economy in government and fiscal responsibility has saved our
nation billions of dollars.
What is offered in place of the seniority system? Each
alternative suggested in one way or another wo uld raise the ugly
menace of behind-the-scemes politics or closed-door deals in the
selection of committee chairmen. To abandon the seniority system
for committee chairmen would place another weapon in the hands of
the executive for it could use its influence to pick a chairman
later on
who would bow to White House domination. All substantial evidence
1
leads one to the conclusion that a system which has given us the
Vinsons, and Byrds, and other renowned and respected chairmen is
FORD :- LIBRARY GERALD
the best.
-18-
Those who point the accusing finger at the elected repre-
sentatives complain about the appropriation process, alleging it
hamstrings the operations of the multitude of federal agencies,
bureaus, and departments. Of course those who seek to place
maximum authority in the executive really seek authority to spend
those hard-earned tax dollars without restriction or limitation.
Yes, the appropr iation process in the Congress does take
time but in the next session of the Congress do you want your
Senators and Representatives to rubber stamp a $100 billion
federal budget? Do you want the Congress next year to appropriate
to the Department of Agriculture for its many openations and
programs over $6 billion in a lump sum to be used as the Secretary
of Agriculture determines at his discretion.
Isn't it better for America that the Congress does
scrutinize the President's budget with care and deliberation?
The answer is crystal clear--in the past 10 budgets submitted by
several
the Presidents Congress has cut over $34 billion from the executive
department spending demands. As we look back at this past decade
FORD is LIBRARY GERALD
no one would honestly contend that the bureaucrats in Washington
-19-
needed that extra $34 billion plus to run our government. Most
Americans would agree that the collective judgment of your
elected representatives, the watchdogs of the public purse, did
our nationaa service in trimming the spending schemes of those
PASS Johns Seling
who never put their record to the test of the ballot box.
bru bb:
With the current attempts to downgrade the Congress and
1
angel
strengthen the pawer of the Executive bureaucracy, there is a
because
companion force at work to weaken the states and local units of
dost
government by expanding federal authority.
culden
Unfortunately few Americans realize the numerical strength
trday
of decision makers in the federal government. Today Uncle Sam
employs approximately 2,500,000 civilians and the army of bureaucrats
is supplemented by 2,700,000 men on active duty with the Armed
Forces. The annual payroll for over 5 million federal employees
is approximating $32 billion.
I he White How recently annomed a
proposed reduction of 25,000 federal employees. May 2 kamind you This
is a drop in
The fundamental point, however, is that working for the
the breaket, if it is carred
federal goverment in the Executive Branch of the national government
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
-20-
there are about 5-1/2 million employees who are never really "called
to account" by the voters. The President representing the
Executive branch, it is true, puts his record on the line once
every four years and the voters in a broad sense pass judgment
on an Administration whether it be Republican or Democratic. On
the other hand a vast, entrenched and potentially arbitrary
bureaucracy backed up by the power of $100 billion a year in
federal funds never really puts its record to the test of the
ballot box.
We in Michigan have recently seen a dramatic and discouraging
example of the abuse federal of executive authority and the helplessness of a
state government in meeting unwarranted bureaucratic power from the
Nat ion's Capital.
At the request of Governor Romney the state legislature
passed a law covering aid to dependent children of the unemployed.
The bill had been carefully drawn by experts in the field who
consulted with officials in the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare to make certain that the bill satisfied all Departmental
FORD is LIBRARY CERALD
-21-
regulations. These officials approved the bill. Moreover, the
Congress had said specifical ly in the basic legislation that the
definition of unemployed parents was to be "determined by the
states." Nevertheless, after the Michigan bill became law,
Secretary Celebrezze refused to release federal funds to Michigan,
alleging that Michigan's definition of an "unemployed person" was
discriminatory. While it was perfectly clear from the federal law
and congressional debate, that the definition was to be left to the
states, Michigan to date has not received one cent of federal funds
for this program of aid to dependent children solely because of the
arbitrary action of a federal agency.
The lesson for all Americans could not be more clear. The
We should never forgot - a government take bin enough ml to give us everything
more extensive the federal aid, the more likely and more serious the
( we want federal is a government dictation. Play And enough fundamentally, to Michigan's from everything experience we
dramatizes an erosion of the basic strength of our federal system,
which is the opportunity for conformity of purpose and action on
national issues with a diversity of policy and methods on state and
local affairs.
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
-22-
If we are to preserve the best in our way of life, the balance
of powe r between the legislative and executive branches of
government must be strengthened.
Of course, the question arises at this point, why should the
imbalance be redressed? What evils will flow from presidential
supremacy? What dangers are attached to this concentration of
authority and power?
There is no easy answer to these questions and there has
been much speculation about the likely consequences of these
trends. If we believe the maxim, deeply held by our founding
fathers, that the concentration of all power in the hands of one or
the few is the very definition of tyranny, the future is not
promising.
First, there is the increasing danger of arbitrary govern-
ment. Eventually, if the trend toward concentration of power
continues, there will be no centers of power in our institutional
fabric capable of withstanding the presidential will. When this
occurs, those who may disagree with a President, for whatever reason,
-23-
will not have to be consulted nor will compromise with their
position be necessary.
Those who persist in their resistance to the Executive,
largely because the Executive can claim to present the "general
will", will doubtless face the charge of being obstructionists or
representatives of vested interests. I ask this question: Was
the Farm Bureau an obstructionist or did it in reality represent
the general will when it opposed the Secretary of Agriculture on
the wheat referendum?
Secondly, decision-making in our society will without
question be more secretive. As matters stand now the President is
at least forced by Congress to give reasons for his decisions and
to present rational arguments for his proposed programs. Such
debate and the ensuing deliberation might well disappear when there
is no one with the power or authority to call a President to account.
There are examples of this in the foreign policy area, particularly
in connection with our World War II agreements with the Soviet
Union.
-24-
Finally, local self-goverment, an ideal highly cherished by
most of the nation's founders, stands absolutely no chance of
survival. Differences in policies, values, and beliefs between
communities will be transferred to the national arema of public
debate, and we can hardly expect a national majority to show the
restraint necessary to allow local diversity on important matters
of public policy to flourish.
Centralism will be checked only when national leaders refuse
to encourage the "easy way" of federal assistance, and state and
local leaders assume the responsibility and privilege of local
action and control. The answer is not a call to easy living but an
opportunity for strength. through struggle.
The big issue 100 years ago was whether the excess
sovereignty of the states was going to destroy the Union and the
Constitution. One big issue today is whether the excess concentration
of Federal power and sovereignty is going to destroy state, local
and individual freedom and responsibility.
Another, the issue of executive absolutism, whether achieved
-25-
by artifice, device, "purchase," or by our own complacency, is a great
threat to our country today. Much has been said recently about the
rantings and ravings and dangers that confront us from the "fanatical
left" and the "fanatical right." I am not so concerned about the
"fanatical left" and "fanatical right" as I am about the "complacent
center" and the "power hungry top."
You and your local officials throughout the country have
the answer. When in concert, local and state leaders proclaim
loudly and clearly "we will do the job," the first step will be
taken. But one more thing is essential. You and I, all of us
who are concerned, must continue to show our citizens, the voters,
the significance of this issue and that those political candidates
who promise the most from Washington are not the most deserving
of our support. Beware of the man who promises to bring "free
gifts" from the banks of the Potomac. Likewise let us beware of
those who promote distrust by the people of the elected
representatives of the people.
I close as I opened-- with the Farm Bureau community group
-26-
meeting at the Elton Smith home near Caledonia. There was the
source of America's strength; there was the answer to the
troublesome American problems; there were citizens at home
working together for constructive purposes; there were the
people sending up the ladder their recommendations for positive
group action.
Policy-formulation from the bottom up rather the n from the
top down; the willingness of citizens to assume positions of
leadership; careful choice combined with faith in elected
representatives; and a determination to preserve the integrity
of the states and local communities through responsible and often
difficult endeavor--this will keep America strong.
ADDRESS: GERALD R. FORD, M. C.
National Convention: American Farm Bureau
Chicago, Illinois
December 10, 1963
May I as a fellow Bureau member at the outset, thank you for
affording me the opportunity of meeting with you, the representatives
of American agriculture and of a great farm organization. Let me congra-
tulate the Farm Bureau Federation on reaching an all-time high in
membership. In my judgment your organization has bhe best record of
integrity and principles on legislative recommendations, (1) You were
right on the tax bill; no cut in taxes without a reduction in spending.
(2) The American Farm Bureau has honestly and effectively favored
balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility. (3) On farm legislation--
you have been right. You have been right because Farm Bureau recom-
mendations come from the grass roots. This is the first time that I have
been privileged to attend a national convention of the American Farm
Bureau but I have been present at innumerable Farm Bureau community group
meetings and county conventions. Less than a month ago, in fact, I spent
an evening with a group at a farm home near Caledonia, Michigan. Arrange-
ments had been made by Mrs. Glenn Clark who had written me to say:
"The South Kent Farm Bureau will be looking forward to
your speaking to us on November 13the... Our meeting will be
held at the home of Elton Smith."
That evening I drove up to a typical rural home of my long-
standing friend, Elton Smith, a first-class dirt farmer who operates a
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
&
successful dairy farm. The meeting had just gotten underway with
approximately 40 folks present sitting in the living room, dining room,
and family,room, many on folding chairs brought from the church not too
far away.
It is always a pleasure to listen to the various committee reports
and hear the constructive suggestions that are made by and to the Farm
Bureau members. The chairman of the womens' committee reported on a
recent meeting of the county group she attended. The moderator handled
a discussion of the topic for the evening. Here in the give-and-take
among friends, I saw true democracy at work.
20 vas like old times to be with these home folks with whom I had
met on probably 13 or 14 previous occasions. It always impresses me
how pleased and appreciative local Farm Bureau members are to hamr
about what is going on in Washington and to have an amalysis of some of
the problems facing us in the Congress. Before the evening closed,
of course, we had our refreshments and you can imagine what delicious
pumpkin,apple, and mince pies we had along with coffee, ice cream, nuts,
and candy. I ate too much, as I am sure everybody did.
Since that meeting near Caledonia we have witnessed, as perhaps
never before in our history, upprecedented tragic events. The assassi-
nation of the President has removed from our midst a man of great charm,
great dignity, and great courage.
I first met Jack Kennedy in January 1949 when I came to Congress
and vas assigned an office across the corridor from his on the third
floor of the 01d House Office Building. Frequently during the ensuing
FORD LIBRARY
-3-
four years we walked and talked together as we went to and from the
House Chamber. Although on many fundamental issues we held different
viewpoints, I always respected his ability and valued his friendship.
From 1953 to 1960 while Mr. Kennedy served in the Senate I sav him
less frequently. Following his election to the Presidency in 1960 I had
several close and intimate contacts with him. In the summer of 1961
during the consideration of the controversial foreign aid authorization
bill, Mr. Kennedy asked me to come to his office in the White House
for a conference on the legislation. This half-hour session with the
President on an important legislative problem will remain one of the
highlights of my experience in the Nation's Capital. For 30 minutes
just the two of us talked about his proposal to finance the
development loan part of the mutual security program by the "back-
door-spending" method. He was friendly and extremely well informed
on the technical details of our differences. Although we didn't see
eye to eye on the controversy, I will remember his fairness and kind
consideration of my views. The memory of that discussion in the
President's office was vivid as we stood in the East Room of the
White House on that solemn Seturday afternoon following his tragic
passing.
In full realization that I vigorously disagreed with President
Kennedy on many basie issues of puBlic policy, I did appreciate his
friendship and I do commend to all people as a fitting tribute to his
memory these words of his eloquent inaugural address: "And so, my fellow
Americans, ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can
BERALD FORD LIBRARY
who
do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what
America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of
man."
This is hardly the time, nor would you want me to indulge in a
partisan political attack on the old or new Administration. Nor am I
going to discuss the "Sarm problem" with which you are much more familiar
than I. But before you are farmers, you are Americans and you are citizens
of the United States. Furthermore you are highly respected leaders in
your communities. Therefore, I would like to think with you for a little
while this afternoon about a basic and very fundamental issue in American
life today: The appropriate roles of the legislative and executive
branches of government in determining public policy and the areas of res-
ponsibility of our state and federal governments.
Most of you probably know what the aeronautical engineer said
after someone gave him the blueprint for & bumblebee. "It'll never fly,"
he said. Well, for 188 years nov a lot of people around the world, and
some right here at home, have been having the same reaction when it comes
to our form of representative government. It'll never work, they say.
Maybe in theory they have something. It's not a very efficient
form of government. It not only gives every Tom, Dick and Harry the
chance to express his political sentiments, it even encourages him bo
become a part of the political system itself.
Funny thing, though. Bumblebees do fly. And as Winston Churchill
has observed, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for any
other that has ever been tried." It can be said without hesitation or
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-5-
reservation our form of representative government has made our people
more free and more prosperous than any other people on earth.
Maybe it's about time to start thinking and thinking hard about
why it has worked and about what we can do to keep it working. Unless we
do, we could easily fall prey to the glib suggestions that what America
has just isn't good enough for these times, that we need streamlining
to achieve efficiency, that we need new vays of government to achieve
progress.
At the heart of all these suggestions is the assumption that govern-
ment can be judged the same way you judge a cornfield or a car factory--
by how much it produces every year.
To people who feel that way, the product of government is programs,
programs, and more programs. If it produces more, it's good. If it
produces less, it's bad. So these cynics say.
What is the function of government? First, to protect the lives
and liberties of the citizens, to maintain the sort of social order that
permits the widest expressions of individual talent, aspiration, and
action without harm to others and, second, to perform those services which
are both clearly needed by the people and incapable of performance by
any other means.
I remember, for instance, what Woodrow Wilson had to say on the
subject. Here vas one of the great liberals of our history-but at a
time when "liberal" had a quite different meaning than it has today--
and here is his memorable statement of the relationship between liberty
and government:
FORD if LIBRARY GERALD
-6-
"The history of liberty is a history of the limitation
of government power, not the increase of it. When we resist..
concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death,
because concentration of power is what always precedes the
destriction of human liberties."
In our form of government-that which has permitted 13 poor,
struggling colonies to grow into 8 nation of 50 states-the most
powerful, most prosperous-ve have built in a resistance to the con-
centration of power by the clear separation of government into three
equal and coordinate branches: the judicial, the legislative, and the
executive branches. Each is assigned a specific vole and responsibility.
Not one is assigned a superiority.
Even though equal, however, it vas clear that even our Founding
Fathers recognized that one of the branches had a special importante
when it comes to representative government. James Monroe, our 5th President,
put it this way: "...the legislative, from the nature of its powers
laws proceeding from it, and the manner of its appointment, its members
being elected immediataly by the people, is by far the most important. The
whole system of the national government may be said to rest essentially
on the powers granted to this branch. They mark the limit within which,
with few exceptions, all the branches must move in the discharge of their
respective functions."
But what do we hear today? Let me quote the exact recent words
of a United States Senator, Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania. He wrote:
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-7-
"I have no hesitation in stating my deep conviction that the legislatures
of America, local, state, and national, are presently the greatest menace
to the successful operation of the democratic process." I respect and
would defend the right to make the statement, but I vigorously disagree
with the viewpoint.
How does the Senator propose to remove this menace? His first
recommendation is that "the executive should be strengthened at the
expense of the legislative." In short, says a member of the Congress of
the United States, don't trust the reppesentatives of the people, of
the fifty states, with power. NO. Put that power in the hands of
the executive! Don't spread power out among all the people, majority
and minority alike, says Senater Clark. Put that power at the disposal
of the mathematical majority, concentrate it in the single hands of a
single branch of government. Does the Senator know that "Power corrupts
and absolute power currupts absolutely."
When President Johnson first appeared before the Congress as
President, he very properly stressed his awareness that the Executive
and Legislative branches of the government are separate and that each
must respect the other's prerogatives.
The President himself said, "Our American unity does not depend
on unanimity." This is a cardinal principle that has and must be continued
to guide our people. Yet there are many today in high places who demand
that the legislative branch forget its past objections to highly contro-
versial legislation and promptly move to pass - lock, stock and barrel
without change - the programs sponsored by the Executive Branch of
the government.
GERALD, FORD LIBRABA
-8-
I respectfully say dissent and debate are the touchstones of the
American experience. National unity does not mean national conformity.
A difference of opinion does not mean disrespect. A responsible Congress,
one which deliberates in order to produce prudent judgments rather than
just flurries of statistics, can never be a rubber stamp: not for the
Executive Branch, not for any particular economic interest, and not even
for the sudden surges of well-intentioned public emotion which sometimes
are poured upon it. The dangerous notion that the work and worth of
Congress can be kept like a bowler's scorecard, misses the great point
of the legislative process and of the American political genius which
had its birghplace in Independence Hall.
Actually, rejecting programs and proposals or amending them may
be as productive as any roll-over, play dead action in the Congress. But,
to view it that way, you must view the rold of Congress as being mainly
involved in serving the general interests of the republic, not just
the selfish appetites of some particular segment of it, as serving and
preserving the freedom of the American people, and not just in taking
over more and more of their responsibilities.
The present Congress is criticized because ellegedly it has not
done enough.
Well, let's see what it couldhhave done if it just wanted to build
up a record along the lines of the scorecard view of history. In the
Senate and the House this past session alone we have been faced with
more than 11,000 public and private bills. We have enacted about 300.
FORD : LIBRARY 07V830
-9-
But we have also filed more than 1,500 reports from our various
committees--the reports of hearings and deliberations which are so
vitally necessary to really understand a bill before we vote on it. It
is significant to note that during the first six months of this past session
of Congress the President made 207 requests for monies and TO requests
for Presidential powers.
Suppose we had just rubber-stamped everything that came before us?
Would we have been serving your best interests? Would we have been
serving the nation's present and future welfare?
We would not! We would, instead, have plunged this nation into
B. red tape nightmare of regimentation and controls, mortgated our future,
and renounced our responsibility.
Then, much of the work of Congress--your Congress, never forget,
is in areas other than actual legislation.
Congress is your watchdog over the entire federal bureaucracy, over
the entire five-and-a-half million civilian and military personnel
employed in the Executive Branch of the government. Except for the
President ,this vast bureaucracy cannot be made directly accountable to
the voters. But they can be made accountable by and through the Congress.
And they should be, unless you believe that the largest business in the
land, the Executive Branch of the government, should be permitted to
operate beyond control, beyond restraint, and beyond responsibility to
the people it is supposed to serve.
Through its committees, Congress is chief investigator in respect
to every sector of public affairs. And, again, its role is solely on
behalf of the electorate, not on behalf of a political party or faction,
QERALD FORD LIBRARY
-10->
for its committees are diversified in membership, sectional outlook,
and political philosophy. These committees are far more diversified
than ever is possible within the more rigid structure of the Executive
Branch.
Congress, also, is our chief public fórum for the criticism and
evaluation of every aspect of public life. Watched closely by the press,
not shielded by the protective armor of Executive Branch secrecy and
privilege, its deliberations are always under a penetrating spotlight
and because of that never-ending scouting serve as a truly public platform
of debate.
Without Congress, or with a Congress that was only a rubber stamp,
there is no question that the national government would be more efficient
in a cold, mathematical sense. Many efforts to streamline the Congress
today are aimed in that direction and based on that false premise. It
is well to remember that the legislative body of the Soviet Union. if
you can call it such, is most efficient; there is no delay, no dissent,
no debate - but neither is there the life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness which we treasure.
Any close observer has noted in the last 3 or 4 decades a concerted
effort to weaken or discard our traditional system of checks and balances.
The common argument, as put forward by Professor Byrnes, is that "our
government vas set up to be a divided government with internal checks
at a time when we did not need a strong national government." This of
course assumes that we have reached the stage in our national development
where we do need a strong national government. The next assumption is
GERALD FORD VIBRARY
-11-
that a strong national government means a strong executive government
and that anything which impedes the will of the executive is old fashioned
and detrimental. From these assumptions have arisen the efforts to
reduce substantially the effective power of Congress or any other
legislative body elected by the people.
Those who are so critical of the Congress completely overlook,
and certainly not unknowingly, that the House of Representatives probably
has the closest kinship with the electorate (you people) of any
segment of the federal government. Every one of the 435 members of the
House must put his record on the line and obtain the approval of his
constituents every two years. I do not mean to imply that the Congress
should not be criticized or that members of any legislative body always
reflect fully the views of their constituents. On the other hand, it
is the House of Representatives, and those of us who are elected periodically,
who do go directly to the people for a mandate. We are on the firing
line and expect to receive our share of the sniping. It is not the
criticism that troubles me but the aura of distrust generated by it;
the feeling that Congress is a roadblock, halting progress, and failing
to fulfill its role and, therefore, should relinquish some of its
authority to the executive.
What are some of the specific criticisms levied at the Congress.
You see them enumerated in the -ewspapers and hear them on radio and
television fairly often.
Those who point the accusing finger at the legislative branch
often say the Congress is a negative body, obstructing justice. I
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-12-
contend that in certain instances any legislative body after proper
deliberation makes the best decision for the people when it rejects
unwise and poorly thought out programs. It will be an evil day indeed
when it is wrong to say "NO."
From the viewpoint of those who crave power, who want to determine
your destiny by their will and whim, the Constitution is negative. This
historic document is nugative in many instances--often a "go slow" or
"stop" sign. Frequently it says "hold on a minute" to those that govern.
Its foundation is laid on the basic belief that a government not controlled
by the people will control the people. Affirmatively, this means there
is a basic faith in the electorate and in elected representatives.
The accusing finger waved at the Congress frequently alleges there
are evels in the seniority system for committee chairmen. Directly or
otherwise they condemn Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, who as chairman
of the House Committee on Armed Services has contributed significantly
to the military security of America. These critics also condemn a
system which has produced Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, a statesman
whose efforts to achieve economy in government and fiscal responsibility
has saved our nation billions of dollars.
What is offered in place of the seniority system? Each alternative
suggested in one way or another would raise the ugly menace of behind-
the-scenes politics or closed-door deals in the selection of committee
chairmen. To abandon the seniority system for committee chairmen would
place another weapon in the hands of the executive for it could use its
influence to pick a chairman who would later on bow to White House domi-
nation, All substantial evidence leads one to the conclusion that a
FORD i 4.078899 LIBRARY
-13-
system which has given us the Vinsons, and Byrds, and other renowned
and respected chairmen is the best.
Those who point the accusing finger at the elected representatives
complain about the appropriation process, alleging it hamstrings the
operations of the multitude of federal agencies, bureaus, and departments.
of course those who seek to place maximum authority in the executive
really seek authority to spend those hard-earned tax dollars without
restriction or limitation.
Yes, the appropriation process in the Congress does take time
but in the next session of the Congress do you want your Senators and
Representatives to rubber stamp a $100 billion federal budget? Do you
want the Congress this year to appropriate to the Department of Agriculture
for its many operations and programs over $6 billion in a lump sum to
be used as the Secretary of Agriculture determines at his discretion?
Isn't it better for America that the Congress does scrutinize the
President's budget with care and deliberation? The answer is crystal
clear--in the past 10 budgets submitted by the several Presidents Congress
has cut over $34 billion from the executive department spending demands.
As we look back at this past decade no one would honestly contend that
the bureaucrats in Washington needed that extra $34 billion plus to run
our government. Most Americans would agree that the collective judgment
of your elected representatives, the watchdogs of the public purse, did
our nation a service in trimming the spending schemes of those who never
put their record to the test of the ballot box. President Johnson's $99
billion budget only attainable because Congress last session cut $6.5
billion.
FORD & LIBRARY DERALD
-14-
With the current attempts to downgrade the Congress and strengthen
the power of the Executive bureaucracy, there is a companion force at
work to weaken the states and local units of government by expanding
federal authority.
Unfortunately few Americans today realize the numerical strength
of decision makers in the federal government. Today Uncle Sam employs
approximately 2,500,000 civilians and the army of bureaucrats is
supplemented by 2,700,000 men on active duty with the Armed Forces. The
annual payroll for over 5 million federal employees is approximately
$32 billion. The White House recently announced a proposed reduction
of 25,000 federal employees. May I remind you this is a drop in the
bucket, if it is carréed;out. The fundamental point, however, is that
working for the federal government in the Executive Branch of the national
government there are about 5 1/2 million employees who are never really
"called to account" by the voters. The President representing the
Executive branch, it is true, puts his record on the line once every four
years and the voters in a broad sense pass judgment on an Administration
whether it be Republican or Democratic. On the other hand a vast,
entrenched and potentially arbitrary bureaucracy backed up by the power
of $100 billion a year in federal funds never really puts its record to
the test of the ballot box.
We in Michigan have recently seen a dmamatic and discouraging
example of the abuse of federal executive authority and the helplessness
of a state government in meeting unverranted bureaucratic power from
the Nation's Capital.
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
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At the request of Governor Romney the state legislature passed
a law covering aid to dependent children of the unemployed. The bill
had been carefully drawn by experts in the field who consulted with
officials in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to make
certain that the bill satisfied all departmental regulations. These
officials approved the bill. Moreover, the Congress had said specifically
in the basic legislation that the definition of unemployed parents was
to be "determined by the states." Nevertheless, after the Michigan bill
became law, Secretary Celebrezze refused to release federal funds to
Michigan, alleging that Michigan's definition of an "unemployed person"
was discriminatory. While it was perfectly clear from the federal law
and congressional debate, that the definition was to be left to the
states, Michigan to date has not received one cent of federal funds for
this program of aid to dependent children solely because of the arbitrary
action of a federal agency.
The lesson for all Americans could not be more clear. The more
extensive the federal aid, the more likely and more serious the federal
dictation. We should never forget--a government big enough to give us
everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything
we have. And fundamentally, Michigan's experience dramatizes an erosion
of the basic strength of our federal system, which is the opportunity
for conformity of purpose and action on national issues with a) a diversity
of policy and methods on state and local affairs.
If we are to preserve the best in our way of life, the balance
of power between the legislative and executive branches of government
must be strengthened.
BERALD FORD LIBRARY
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Of course, the question arises at this point, why should the
imbalance be redressed? What evils will flow from presidential
supremacy? What dangers are attached tothis concentration of authority
and power?
There is no easy answer to these questions and there has been
much speculation about the likely consequences of these trends. If we
believe the maxim, deeply held by our founding fathers, that the
concentration of all power in the hands of one or the few is the very
definition of tyranny, the future is not promising.
First, there is the increasing danger of arbitrary government.
Eventually, if the trend toward concentration of power continues, there
will be no centers of power in our institutional fabrie cabable of
withstanding the presidential will. When this occurs, those who may
disagree with a President, for whatever reason, will not have to be
consulted nor will compromise with their position be necessary.
Those who persist in their resistance to the Executive, largely
because the Executive can claim to present the "general will," will
doubtless face the charge of being obstructionists or representatives
of vested interests. I ask this question: Was the Farm Bureau an ob-
structionist or did it in reality represent the general will when it
opposed the Secretary of Agriculture on the wheat referendum?
Secondly, decision-making in our society will without question be
more secretive. As matters stand now the President is at least forced
by Congress to give reasons for his decisions and to present rational
arguments for his proposed programs. Such debate and the ensuing de-
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
-17-
liberation might well disappear when there is no one with the power
or authority to call a President to account. There are examples of this
in the foreign policy area, particularly in connection with our World War II
agreements with the Soviet Union.
Finally, local self-government, an ideal highly cherished by most
of the nation's founders, stands absolutely no chance of survival.
Differences in policies, values, and beliefs between communities will be
transferred to the national arena of public debate, and we can hardly
expect a national majority to show the restraint necessary to allow local
diversity on important matters of public policy.
Centralism will be checked only when national leaders refuse to
encourage the "easy way" of federal assistance, and state and local
leaders assume the responsibility and privilege of local action and control.
The answer is not A call to easy living but an opportunity for strength
through struggle.
The big issue 100 years age was whether the excess sovereignty of
the states was going to destroy the Union and the Constitution. One big
issue today is whether the excess concentration of Federal power and
sovereignty is going to destroy state, local and individual freedom and
responsibility.
Another, the issue of executive absolutism, whether achieved by
artifice, device, "purchase," or by our own complacency, is a great threat
to our country today. Much has been said recently about the rantings and
ravings and dangers that confront us from the "fanatical left" and the
"fanatical right." I am not so concerned about the "fenatical left" and
FORD is LIBRARY GERALD
-18-
"fanatical right." as "complacent center" and the "power-
hungry top."
You and your local officials throughout the country have the answer.
When in concert, local and state leaders proclaim loudly and clearly "we
will do the job," the first step will be taken. But one more thing is
essential. You and I, all of us who are concerned, must continue to show
our citizens, the voters, the significance of this issue and that those
political candidates who promise the most from Washington are not the
most deserving of our support. Beware of the men who promises to bring
"free gifts" from the banks of the Potomac. Likewise let us beware of
those who promote distrust by the people of the elected representatives
of the people.
I close as Iopened--vith the Farm Bureau community group meeting
at the Elton Smith home near Caledonia. There was the source of America's
strength; there vas the answer to the troublesome American problems;
there were citizens at home working together for constructive purposes;
there were the people sending up the ladder their recommendations for
positive group action.
Policy-formulation from the bottom up rather than from the top down;
the willingmess of citizens to assume positions of leadership; careful
choice combined with faith in elected representatives; and a determination
to preserve the integrity of the states and local communities through
responsible and often difficult endeavor--this will keep America strong.
GERALD, FORD LIBRARY
ADDRESS: GERALD R. FORD, M. C.
National Convention: American Farm Bureau
Chicago, Illinois
December 10, 1963
May I as a fellow Bureau member at the outset, thank you for
affording me the opportunity of meeting with you, the representatives
of American agriculture and of a great farm organization. Let me congra-
tulate the Farm Bureau Federation on reaching an all-time high in
membership. In my judgment your organization has the best record of
integrity and principles on legislative recommendations. (1) You were
right on the tax bill; no cut in taxes without a reduction in spending.
(2) The American Farm Bureau has honestly and effectively favored
balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility. (3) On farm legislation--
you have been right. You have been right because Farm Bureau recom-
mendations come from the grass roots. This is the first time that I have
been privileged to attend a national convention of the American Farm
Bureau but I have been present at innumerable Farm Bureau community group
meetings and county conventions. Less than a month ago, in fact, I spent
an evening with a group at a farm home near Caledonia, Michigan. Arrange-
ments had been made by Mrs. Glenn Clark who had written me to say:
"The South Kent Farm Bureau will be looking forward to
your speaking to us on November 13th.
Our meeting will be
held at the home of Elton Smith."
That evening I drove up to a typical rural home of my long-
standing friend, Elton Smith, a first-class dirt farmer who operates a
-2-
successful dairy farm. The meeting had just gotten underway with
approximately 40 folks present sitting in the living room, dining room,
and family.room, many on folding chairs brought from the church not too
far away.
It is always a pleasure to listen to the various committee reports
and hear the constructive suggestions that are made by and to the Farm
Bureau members. The chairman of the womens' committee reported on a
recent meeting of the county group she attended. The moderator handled
a discussion of the topic for the evening. Here in the give-and-take
among friends, I saw true democracy at work.
It was like old times to be with these home folks with whom I had
met on probably 13 or 14 previous occasions. It always impresses me
how pleased and appreciative local Farm Bureau members are to haar
about what is going on in Washington and to have an analysis of some of
the problems facing us in the Congress. Before the evening closed,
of course, we had our refreshments and you can imagine what delicious
pumpkin, apple, and mince pies we had along with coffee, ice cream, nuts,
and candy. I ate too much, as I am sure everybody did.
Since that meeting near Caledonia we have witnessed, as perhaps
never before in our history, unprecedented tragic events. The assassi-
nation of the President has removed from our midst a man of great charm,
great dignity, and great courage.
I first met Jack Kennedy in January 1949 when I came to Congress
and was assigned an office across the corridor from his on the third
floor of the Old House Office Building. Frequently during the ensuing
-3-
four years we walked and talked together as we went to and from the
House Chamber. Although on many fundamental issues we held different
viewpoints, I always respected his ability and valued his friendship.
From 1953 to 1960 while Mr. Kennedy served in the Senate I saw him
less frequently. Following his election to the Presidency in 1960 I had
several close and intimate contacts with him. In the summer of 1961
during the consideration of the controversial foreign aid authorization
bill, Mr. Kennedy asked me to come to his office in the White House
for a conference on the legislation. This half-hour session with the
President on an important legislative problem will remain one of the
highlights of my experience in the Nation's Capital. For 30 minutes
just the two of us talked about his proposal to finance the
development loan part of the mutual security program by the "back-
door-spending" method. He was friendly and extremely well informed
on the technical details of our differences. Although we didn't see
eye to eye on the controversy, I will remember his fairness and kind
consideration of my views. The memory of that discussion in the
President's office was vivid as we stood in the East Room of the
White House on that solemn Saturday afternoon following his tragic
passing.
In full realization that I vigorously disagreed with President
Kennedy on many basic issues of public policy, I did appreciate his
friendship and I do commend to all people as a fitting tribute to his
memory these words of his eloquent inaugural address: "And so, my fellow
Americans, ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can
-4-
do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what
America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of
man."
This is hardly the time, nor would you want me to indulge in a
partisan political attack on the old or new Administration. Nor am I
going to discuss the "farm problem" with which you are much more familiar
than I. But before you are farmers, you are Americans and you are citizens
of the United States. Furthermore you are highly respected leaders in
your communities. Therefore, I would like to think with you for a little
while this afternoon about a basic and very fundamental issue in American
life today: The appropriate roles of the legislative and executive
branches of government in determining public policy and the areas of res-
ponsibility of our state and federal governments.
Most of you probably know what the aeronautical engineer said
after someone gave him the blueprint for a bumblebee. "It'll never fly,"
he said. Well, for 188 years now a lot of people around the world, and
some right here at home, have been having the same reaction when it comes
to our form of representative government. It'll never work, they say.
Maybe in theory they have something. It's not a very efficient
form of government. It not only gives every Tom, Dick and Harry the
chance to express his political sentiments, it even encourages him to
become a part of the political system itself.
Funny thing, though. Bumblebees do fly. And as Winston Churchill
has observed, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for any
other that has ever been tried." It can be said without hesitation or
-5-
reservation our form of representative government has made our people
more free and more prosperous than any other people on earth.
Maybe it's about time to start thinking and thinking hard about
why it has worked and about what we can do to keep it working. Unless we
do, we could easily fall prey to the glib suggestions that what America
has just isn't good enough for these times, that we need streamlining
to achieve efficiency, that we need new ways of government to achieve
progress.
At the heart of all these suggestions is the assumption that govern-
ment can be judged the same way you judge a cornfield or a car factory--
by how much it produces every year.
To people who feel that way, the product of government is programs,
programs, and more programs. If it produces more, it's good. If it
produces less, it's bad. So these cynics say.
What is the function of government? First, to protect the lives
and liberties of the citizens, to maintain the sort of social order that
permits the widest expressions of individual talent, aspiration, and
action without harm to others and, second, to perform those services which
are both clearly needed by the people and incapable of performance by
any other means.
I remember, for instance, what Woodrow Wilson had to say on the
subject. Here was one of the great liberals of our history--but at a
time when "liberal" had a quite different meaning than it has today--
and here is his memorable statement of the relationship between liberty
and government:
-6-
"The history of liberty is a history of the limitation
of government power, not the increase of it. When we resist.
concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death,
because concentration of power is what always precedes the
destruction of human liberties."
In our form of government-that which has permitted 13 poor,
struggling colonies to grow into a nation of 50 statesy-the most
powerful, most prosperous--we have built in a resistance to the con-
3
centration of power by the clear separation of government into three
equal and coordinate branches: the judicial, the legislative, and the
executive branches. Each is assigned a specific role and responsibility.
Not one is assigned a superiority.
Even though equal, however, it was clear that even our Founding
Fathers recognized that one of the branches had a special importance
when it comes to representative government. James Monroe, our 5th President,
put it this way: "...the legislative, from the nature of its powers, all
laws proceeding from it, and the manner of its appointment, its members
being elected immediately by the people, is by far the most important. The
whole system of the national government may be said to rest essentially
on the powers granted to this branch. They mark the limit within which,
with few exceptions, all the branches must move in the discharge of their
respective functions."
But what do we hear today? Let me quote the exact recent words
of a United States Senator, Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania. He wrote:
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
-7-
"I have no hesitation in stating my deep conviction that the legislatures
of America, local, state, and national, are presently the greatest menace
to the successful operation of the democratic process." I respect and
would defend the right to make the statement, but I vigorously disagree
with the viewpoint.
How does the Senator propose to remove this menace? His first
recommendation is that "the executive should be strengthened at the
expense of the legislative." In short, says a member of the Congress of
the United States, don't trust the representatives of the people, of
the fifty states, with power.
NO. Put that power in the hands of
the executive! Don't spread power out among all the people, majority
and minority alike, says Senator Clark. Put that power at the disposal
of the mathematical majority, concentrate it in the single hands of a
noh
single branch of government. Does the Senator know that "Power corrupts
and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
When President Johnson first appeared before the Congress as
President, he very properly stressed his awareness that the Executive
and Legislative branches of the government are separate and that each
must respect the other's prerogatives.
The President himself said, "Our American unity does not depend
on unanimity." This is a cardinal principle that has and must be continued
to guide our people. Yet there are many today in high places who demand
that the legislative branch forget its past objections to highly contro-
versial legislation and promptly move to pass --- lock, stock and barrel
without change -- the programs sponsored by the Executive Branch of
the government.
FORD is LIBRARY
-8-
I respectfully say dissent and debate are the touchstones of the
American experience. National unity does not mean national conformity.
A difference of opinion does not mean disrespect. A responsible Congress,
one which deliberates in order to produce prudent judgments rather than
just flurries of statistics, can never be a rubber stamp: not for the
Executive Branch, not for any particular economic interest, and not even
for the sudden surges of well-intentioned public emotion which sometimes
are poured upon it. The dangerous notion that the work and worth of
Congress can be kept like a bowler's scorecard, misses the great point
of the legislative process and of the American political genius which
had its birghplace in Independence Hall.
Actually, rejecting programs and proposals or amending them may
be as productive as any roll-over, play dead action in the Congress. But,
to view it that way, you must view the role of Congress as being mainly
involved in serving the general interests of the republic, not just
the selfish appetites of some particular segment of it, as serving and
preserving the freedom of the American people, and not just in taking
over more and more of their responsibilities.
The present Congress is criticized because allegedly it has not
done enough.
Well, let's see what it could have done if it just wanted to build
up a record along the lines of the scorecard view of history. In the
Senate and the House this past session alone we have been faced with
more than 11,000 public and private bills. We have enacted about 300.
-9-
But we have also filed more than 1,500 reports from our various
committees the reports of hearings and deliberations which are so
vitally necessary to really understand a bill before we vote on it. It
is significant to note that during the first six months of this past session
of Congress the President made 207 requests for monies and 70 requests
for Presidential powers.
Suppose we had just rubber-stamped everything that came before us?
Would we have been serving your best interests? Would we have been
serving the nation's present and future welfare?
We would not! We would, instead, have plunged this nation into
a red tape nightmare of regimentation and controls, mortgated our future,
and renounced our responsibility.
Then, much of the work of Congress-your Congress, never forget,
is in areas other than actual legislation.
Congress is your watchdog over the entire federal bureaucracy, over
the entire five-and-a-half million civilian and military personnel
employed in the Executive Branch of the government. Except for the
President, this vast bureaucracy cannot be made directly accountable to
the voters. But they can be made accountable by and through the Congress.
And they should be, unless you believe that the largest business in the
land, the Executive Branch of the government, should be permitted to
operate beyond control, beyond restraint, and beyond responsibility to
the people it is supposed to serve.
Through its committees, Congress is chief investigator in respect
to every sector of public affairs. And, again, its role is solely on
behalf of the electorate, not on behalf of a political party or faction,
-10-
for its committees are diversified in membership, sectional outlook,
and political philosophy. These committees are far more diversified
than ever is possible within the more rigid structure of the Executive
Branch.
Congress, also, is our chief public forum for the criticism and
evaluation of every aspect of public life. Watched closely by the press,
not shielded by the protective armor of Executive Branch secrecy and
privilege, its deliberations are always under a penetrating spotlight
and because of that never-ending scouting serve as a truly public platform
of debate.
Without Congress, or with a Congress that was only a rubber stamp,
there is no question that the national government would be more efficient
in a cold, mathematical sense. Many efforts to streamline the Congress
today are aimed in that direction and based on that false premise. It
is well to remember that the legislative body of the Soviet Union, if
you can call it such, is most efficient; there is no delay, no dissent,
no debate - but neither is there the life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness which we treasure.
Any close observer has noted in the last 3 or 4 decades a concerted
effort to weaken or discard our traditional system of checks and balances.
The common argument, as put forward by Professor Byrnes, is that "our
government was set up to be a divided government with internal checks
at a time when we did not need a strong national government." This of
course assumes that we have reached the stage in our national development
where we do need a strong national government. The next assumption is
-11-
that a strong national government means a strong executive government
and that anything which impedes the will of the executive is old fashioned
and detrimental. From these assumptions have arisen the efforts to
reduce substantially the effective power of Congress or any other
legislative body elected by the people.
Those who are so critical of the Congress completely overlook,
and certainly not unknowingly, that the House of Representatives probably
has the closest kinship with the electorate (you people) of any
segment of the federal government. Every one of the 435 members of the
House must put his record on the line and obtain the approval of his
constituents every two years. I do not mean to imply that the Congress
should not be criticized or that members of any legislative body always
reflect fully the views of their constituents. On the other hand, it
is the House of Representatives, and those of us who are elected periodically,
who do go directly to the people for a mandate. We are on the firing
line and expect to receive our share of the sniping. It is not the
criticism that troubles me but the aura of distrust generated by it;
the feeling that Congress is a roadblock, halting progress, and failing
to fulfill its role and, therefore, should relinquish some of its
authority to the executive.
What are some of the specific criticisms levied at the Congress.
You see them enumerated in the newspapers and hear them on radio and
television fairly often.
Those who point the accusing finger at the legislative branch
often say the Congress is a negative body, obstructing forgress justice. I
-12-
contend that in certain instances any legislative body after proper
deliberation makes the best decision for the people when it rejects
unwise and poorly thought out programs. It will be an evil day indeed
when it is wrong to say "NO."
From the viewpoint of those who crave power, who want to determine
your destiny by their will and whim, the Constitution is negative. This
historic document is negative in many instances--often a "go slow" or
"stop" sign. Frequently it says "hold on a minute" to those that govern.
Its foundation is laid on the basic belief that a government not controlled
by the people will control the people. Affirmatively, this means there
is a basic faith in the electorate and in elected representatives.
The accusing finger waved at the Congress frequently alleges there
are evils in the seniority system for committee chairmen. Directly or
otherwise they condemn Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, who as chairman
of the House Committee on Armed Services has contributed significantly
to the military security of America. These critics also condemn a
system which has produced Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, a statesman
whose efforts to achieve economy in government and fiscal responsibility
has saved our nation billions of dollars.
What is offered in place of the seniority system? Each alternative
suggested in one way or another would raise the ugly menace of behind-
the-scenes politics or closed-door deals in the selection of committee
chairmen. To abandon the seniority system for committee chairmen would
place another weapon in the hands of the executive for it could use its
influence to pick a chairman who would later on bow to White House domi-
nation. All substantial evidence leads one to the conclusion that a
-13-
system which has given us the Vinsons, and Byrds, and other renowned
and respected chairmen is the best.
Those who point the accusing finger at the elected representatives
complain about the appropriation process, alleging it hamstrings the
operations of the multitude of federal agencies, bureaus, and departments.
Of course those who seek BO place maximum authority in the executive
really seek authority to spend those hard-earned tax dollars without
restriction or limitation.
Yes, the appropriation process in the Congress does take time
but in the next session of the Congress do you want your Senators and
Representatives to rubber stamp a $100 billion federal budget? Do you
want the Congress this year to appropriate to the Department of Agriculture
for its many operations and programs over $6 billion in a lump sum to
be used as the Secretary of Agriculture determines at his discretion?
Isn't it better for America that the Congress does scrutinize the
President's budget with care and deliberation? The answer is crystal
clear--in the past 10 budgets submitted by the several Presidents Congress
has cut over $34 billion from the executive department spending demands.
As we look back at this past decade no one would honestly contend that
the bureaucrats in Washington needed that extra $34 billion plus to run
our government.
Most Americans would agree that the collective judgment
of your elected representatives, the watchdogs of the public purse, did
our nation a service in trimming the spending schemes of those who never
put their record to the test of the ballot box. President Johnson's $99
billion budget only attainable because Congress last session cut $6.5
billion.
-14-
With the current attempts to downgrade the Congress and strengthen
the power of the Executive bureaucracy, there is a companion force at
work to weaken the states and local units of government by expanding
federal authority.
Unfortunately few Americans today realize the numerical strength
of decision makers in the federal government. Today Uncle Sam employs
approximately 2,500,000 civilians and the army of bureaucrats is
supplemented by 2,700,000 men on active duty with the Armed Forces. The
annual payroll for over 5 million federal employees is approximately
$32 billion.
The White House recently announced a proposed reduction
of 25,000 federal employees. May I remind you this is a drop in the
bucket, if it is carried out. The fundamental point, however, is that
working for the federal government in the Executive Branch of the national
government there are about 5 1/2 million employees who are never really
"called to account" by the voters. The President representing the
Executive branch, it is true, puts his record on the line once every four
years and the voters in a broad sense pass judgment on an Administration
whether it be Republican or Democratic. On the other hand a vast,
entrenched and potentially arbitrary bureaucracy backed up by the power
of $100 billion a year in federal funds never really puts its record to
the test of the ballot box.
We in Michigan have recently seen a dramatic and discouraging
example of the abuse of federal executive authority and the helplessness
of a state government in meeting unwarranted bureaucratic power from
the Nation's Capital.
-15-
At the request of Governor Romney the state legislature passed
a law covering aid to dependent children of the unemployed. The bill
had been carefully drawn by experts in the field who consulted with
officials in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to make
certain that the bill satisfied all departmental regulations. These
officials approved the bill. Moreover, the Congress had said specifically
in the basic legislation that the definition of unemployed parents was
to be "determined by the states.' Nevertheless, after the Michigan bill
became law, Secretary Celebrezze refused to release federal funds to
Michigan, alleging that Michigan's definition of an "unemployed person"
was discriminatory. While it was perfectly clear from the federal law
and congressional debate, that the definition was to be left to the
states, Michigan to date has not received one cent of federal funds for
this program of aid to dependent children solely because of the arbitrary
action of a federal agency.
The lesson for all Americans could not be more clear. The more
extensive the federal aid, the more likely and more serious the federal
dictation. We should never forget--a government big enough to give us
everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything
we have. And fundamentally, Michigan's experience dramatizes an erosion
of the basic strength of our federal system, which is the opportunity
for conformity of purpose and action on national issues with a diversity
of policy and methods on state and local affairs.
If we are to preserve the best in our way of life, the balance
of power between the legislative and executive branches of government
must be strengthened.
-16-
Of course, the question arises at this point, why should the
imbalance be redressed? What evils will flow from presidential
supremacy? What dangers are attached tothis concentration of authority
and power?
There is no easy answer to these questions and there has been
much speculation about the likely consequences of these trends. If we
believe the maxim, deeply held by our founding fathers, that the
concentration of all power in the hands of one or the few is the very
definition of tyranny, the future is not promising.
First, there is the increasing danger of arbitrary government.
Eventually, if the trend toward concentration of power continues, there
will be no centers of power in our institutional fabric capable of
withstanding the presidential will. When this occurs, those who may
disagree with a President, for whatever reason, will not have to be
consulted nor will compromise with their position be necessary.
Those who persist in their resistance to the Executive, largely
because the Executive can claim to present the "general will," will
doubtless face the charge of being obstructionists or representatives
of vested interests. I ask this question: Was the Farm Bureau an ob-
structionist or did it in reality represent the general will when it
opposed the Secretary of Agriculture on the wheat referendum?
Secondly, decision-making in our society will without question be
more secretive. As matters stand now the President is at least forced
by Congress to give reasons for his decisions and to present rational
arguments for his proposed programs. Such debate and the ensuing de-
-17-
liberation might well disappear when there is no one with the power
or authority to call a President to account. There are examples of this
in the foreign policy area, particularly in connection with our World War II
agreements with the Soviet Union.
Finally, local self-government, an ideal highly cherished by most
of the nation's founders, stands absolutely no chance of survival.
Differences in policies, values, and beliefs between communities will be
transferred to the national arena of public debate, and we can hardly
expect a national majority to show the restraint necessary to allow local
diversity on important matters of public policy.
Centralism will be checked only when national leaders refuse to
encourage the "easy way" of federal assistance, and state and local
leaders assume the responsibility and privilege of local action and control.
The answer is not a call to easy living but an opportunity for strength
through struggle.
The big issue 100 years ago was whether the excess sovereignty of
the states was going to destroy the Union and the Constitution. One big
issue today is whether the excess concentration of Federal power and
sovereignty is going to destroy state, local and individual freedom and
responsibility.
Another, the issue of executive absolutism, whether achieved by
artifice, device, "purchase," or by our own complacency, is a great threat
to our country today. Much has been said recently about the rantings and
ravings and dangers that confront us from the "fanatical left" and the
"fanatical right." I am not so concerned about the "fanatical left" and
-18-
"fanatical right. " as Iram about the "complacent center" and the "power-
hungry top."
You and your local officials throughout the country have the answer.
When in concert, local and state leaders proclaim loudly and clearly "we
will do the job," the first step will be taken. But one more thing is
essential. You and I, all of us who are concerned, must continue to show
our citizens, the voters, the significance of this issue and that those
political candidates who promise the most from Washington are not the
most deserving of our support. Beware of the man who promises to bring
"free gifts" from the banks of the Potomac. Likewise let us beware of
those who promote distrust by t he people of the elected representatives
of the people.
I close as Iopened- with the Farm Bureau community group meeting
at the Elton Smith home near Caledonia. There was the source of America's
strength; there was the answer to the troublesome American problems;
there were citizens at home working together for constructive purposes;
there were the people sending up the ladder their recommendations for
positive group action.
Policy-formulation from the bottom up rather than from the top down;
the willingness of citizens to assume positions of leadership; careful
choice combined with faith in elected representatives; and a determination
to preserve the integrity of the states and local communities through
responsible and often difficult endeavor--this will keep America strong.
1
Most of you probably know what the aeronautical engineer said after
someone gave him the blueprint for a bumblebee. It'll never fly, he said. Well,
for 188 years now a lot of people around the world, and some right here at home,
have been having the same reaction when it comes to our form of representative
government. It'll never work, they say.
Maybe in theory they have something. It's not a very efficient form of
government. It not only gives every Tom, Dick, and Harry the chance to express
his political sentiments, it even encourages him to become a partief the political
system itself. Rud as Winston worst Churchill has about, democracy
S
its
It isn't even a very fair system in a strictly mathematical sense,
leaves
77
If fifty-one percent of the people decide on something it still permits the other
49 percent to protect themselves and their interests. In that sense it isn't even
a democracy!
And look at the way it tries to hamper the work of the politicians--
those all-wise fellows who, in a lot of countries, have the power to go right
ahead and run things as they feel best without having to put up with a lot of
guff from the sidelines.
Funny thing, though. Bumblebees do fly. And our form of representative
government has made our people more free and more prosperous than any other
people on earth. Maybe it's about time to stop listening to all the reasons this
form of government won't work--maybe it's time to start thinking and thinking
hard about why it has worked and about what we can do to keep it working. Unless
we do, we could easily fall prey to the glib suggestions that what America has
just isn't good enough for these times, that we need streamlining to achieve
efficiency, that we need new ways of government to achieve progress.
At the heart of all these suggestions is the assumption that government
can be judged the same way you judge a cornfield or a car factory--by how much it
produces every year.
BERALD FORD LIBRARY
5
- 2 -
To people who feel that way, the product of government is programs, programs,
and more programs. If it produces more, it's good. If it produces less, it's bad.
From my side of history, the product of government, the best and really
only desirable product, is human freedom. From my side of history, I'd say that the
1
lives
and
function of government is, first, to protect the liberties of the citizens, to
maintain the sort of social order that permits the widest expressions of individual
talent, aspiration, and action without harm to others and, second, to perform those
services which are both clearly needed by the people and incapable of performance
by any other means.
I remember, for instance, what Woodrow Wilson had to say on the subject.
Here was one of the great liberals of our history--but at a time when "liberal"
had a quite different meaning from what it has today--and here is his memorable
statement of the relationship between liberty and government:
"The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government
power, not the increase of it. When we resist concentration of
power, we are resisting the powers of death, because concentration
of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties."
In our form of government we have built in a resistance to the concentration of
power by the clear separation of government into three equal branches, the judicial,
speake) 4
the legislative, and the executive branches. Each is assigned a role. Not one is
assigned a superiority.
Even though equal, however, it was clear that even our Founding Fathers
recognized that one of the branches had a special importance when it comes to
representative government. James Monroe put it this way: the legislative,
from the nature of its powers, all laws proceeding from it, and the manner of
its appointment, its members being elected immediately by the people, is by far
the most important. The whole system of the national government may be said to
rest essentially on the powers granted to this branch. They mark the limit within
which, with few exceptions, all the branches must move in the discharge of their
BRAR
respective functions."
5
- 3 -
But what do we hear today? Let me quote the exact recent words of a
United States Senator, Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania. He wrote: "I have no
sturce
hesitation in stating my deep conviction that the legislatures of America, local,
state, and national, are presently the greatest menace to the successful operation
of the democratic process."
And how does Senator Clark propose to remove this menace? His first
recommendation is that "the executive should be strengthened at the expense of
the legislature." In short, says a member of the Congress of the United States,
don't trust the representatives of the people, of the fifty states, with power.
No. Put that power in the hands of the executive! Don't spread power out
among all the people, majority and minority alike, says Senator Clark. Put that
power at the disposal of the mathematical majority, concentrate it in the single
X
hands of a single branch of government.
When President Johnson first appeared before the Congress, as President,
just mp lays
he very properly stressed his awareness that the Executive and Legislative
branches of government are separate and that each must respect the other's
prerogatives.
Almost immediately after that, however, he sounded a disturbing HOW note. For the
that brook befful statement
sake of unity and progress he asked that the Legislative branch forget its past
to highly contraversial
objections and promptly move to pass, lock, stock, and
the without changes
programs. sporooned by the weature branch the government.
There could be no better example of the sort of governmental double standard
which today afflicts our Federal system and to which, time of tragedy or no, we
must pay serious attention or risk eroding the very Federal system which we all
profess to strengthen and to serve.
A responsible Congress, one which deliberates in order to produce prudent
judgments rather than just flurries of statistics, can never be a rubber stamp:
FORD
not for the Executive branch, not for any particular interest, and not even for
well intenterned
the sudden surges of public emotion which sometimes are poured upon it. The
LIBRARY
7
- 4 -
dangerous notion that the work and worth of Congress can be kept like a bowler's
scorecard, misses the great point of the legislative process and of the American
political genius which had its birthplace in Condition Hall
Actually, rejecting programs and proposals or amending them may be as
productive as any posi in the Congress. But, to view it that way,
supine rubber ive action stamping
you must view the role of Congress as being mainly involved in serving the general
interests of the republic, not just selfich the appetities of some particular segment of it,
as serving and preserving the freedom of the American people, and not just in
taking over more and more of their responsibilities.
the self appointed
Take the present Congress and I know that 0 lot of political pundits
have been saying that you can take it and that you know what to do with ILL The
present Congress is criticized because altergedly it has not done enough.
X
Well, let's see what it could have done if it just wanted to build up a
record along the lines of the scorecard view of history. In the Senate and the
public alformate
House this session alone we have been faced with more than 11,000 bills. We have
We have enortal about 300
enae
only
But we have also filed more than 1,500 reports from our various committees
the reports of hearings and deliberations which are vitally so necessary to really understand
request to Residential powers,
a bill before we vote on it.
Rif months y this session is congress to Receivent male 207 request for monits and 70
this argustical to nite that during the find
Suppose we had just rubber-stamped everything that came before us? Would
we have been serving your best interests? Would we have been serving the nation's
present v interests? future welfare
We would not! We would, instead, have plunged this nation into a red tape
nightmare of regimentation and controls, mortgaged our future, and renounced our
responsibility.
Then, too, much of the work of Congress--your Congress, never forget--is in
areas other than actual legislation.
BERRED FORD LIBRARY
8
your watch 5 dog
The
Congress is the ever the entire Federal bureaucracy, over the
paym
entire five-and-a-half million civilian and military personnel of the executive
branch of government. Except for the President, this vast bureaucracy cannot be
made directly accountable to the voters. But they can be made accountable through
haffenies
the Congress. And they should be, unless you believe that the largest business
in the land, the Executive branch of government, should be permitted to operate
of
beyond control, beyond restraint, and beyond responsibility to the people it is
supposed to serve.
pressuied
Through its Committees, Congress is chief investigator in respect to every
sector of public affairs. And, again, its role is on behalf of the electorate,
$
not on behalf of party or faction for its committees are diversified in membership,
sectional outlook, and political philosophy. I might add that they are far more
diversified than ever is possible within the more rigid structure of the executive
liberty,
branch.
Congress, also, is our chief public forum for the criticism and evaluation
of every aspect of public life. Watched closely by the press, and not shielded by
the protective armor of executive branch secrecy and privilege, its deliberations
are always under penetrating a spotlight and because of that serve as a truly public platform
never ending senting
there,
I of debate.
Without Congress, or with a Congress that was only a rubber stamp, there
is no question that the national government would be more efficient. And many
efforts to streamline the Congress today are aimed in that direction and based
that
fahe premise th is well to remember the the legisliting body
of the Smith on Unim proposition And without is most a efficient; Congress, the there national is mo government delay, might no dissint, even be representative, no debate
in a very crude sense, of bare majorities and on simple yes-or-no issues. But
without Congress, the national government would not and could not represent the
balanced, reflective judgment of national consensus, the sort of consensus which,
FORD
when formed, even if slowly and painfully, always has given this nation the means
of doing its public business without inflicting grievous private wounds.
GERAL
LIBRARY
- 6 -
& 2 employee muled
Without Congress, we might be well ruled in this nation. But we would
not be self-governing, we would not be free, we would not know liberty as we have
known it and loved it.
The American political system, since the Civil War, has undergone another
the 535 dested representatives
great shift besides the one that has brought such pressure to bear on Congress an the
supplative branch fthe paint
We find that the states, once charged with the performance of important governmental
in recent
octoper 1
functions, have over the years assumed a distinctly secondary role to the national
government. Powers, once solely within the domain of state authority, have been
taken over gradually by the national government until today, in many respects,
the states are little more than subordinate drying aministrative units.
One of the major reasons for the erosion of the position of the states
in our federal system has been the Supreme Court's interpretation of the "due
process" and "equal protection" clauses of the fourteenth amendment. There is
scarcely any area of state policy that has not been subject to the scrutiny of the
Supreme Court. The net result has been enforcement of standards of uniformity
upon the states in many areas of public policy where previously diversity had
been the rule. Religious practices of communities such as recitation of prayers
in the public schools and procedures of the states in criminal trials have both been
major areas where the Court has acted to produce uniformity. In sum, the fourteenth
amendment has provided the Court with the means to enforce its will upon the fifty
states and recent history shows us clearly that it is not reluctant to do so.
The national government can use and has used its taxation and commerce
powers to achieve ends reserved to the state governments by the tenth amendment.
By placing a prohibitive tax upon articles or forbidding their shipment in interstate
commerce, the national government has on many occasions encroached upon the "police
powers" of the states. Furthermore, the Court's interpretation of the scope of the
commerce powers to include regulation of those activities which even indirectly
GEBRLD FORD LIBRAR,
affect interstate commerce has served to remove decision-making authority from the
states.
- 7 -
In all these matters, it should be noted, the Supreme Court is the final
arbiter and the Court, as an agency of the national government, has not shown
itself to be an "impartial" arbiter of competing state and national claims.
For the most part, it has shown a definite predisposition to favor the contentions
of the national government at the expense of the states.
In fact, because of the Court's liberal view toward the extent of national
taxation and commerce powers, it is difficult to conceive of any program that the
invade
National government could not enact no matter how much the program might evade
the province of the states' police powers.
While in theory our system is federal with a division of powers between
the state and national government prescribed in the Constitution, it is in fact,
because of the commerce and taxation powers, a unitary system with the national
government exercising complete discretion concerning what policy decisions are to
be left to the states and which are to be made and enforced by the national
government.
each 3 our
But these are by no means the only reasons for the decline of the states.
The national government with its power to impose progressive taxes on personal
month effecture
?
income has preempted the best means of obtaining revenue, leaving to the states
less desirable and productive sources of revenue. Increasingly since the turn of
the century the states and municipal governments have found that they are in the
midst of a financial crisis, unable to perform adequately those responsibilities
which are thrust upon them. This contention can be borne out merely by surveying
the increasing rate of indebtedness since 1946 of both the state and local governments.
Partially in response to this problem the national government has undertaken
in the last fifteen years more extensive grant-in-aid programs to the states.
Here we note that federal grants to the states have increased more than eight times
since the end of World War II. In this process it is clear that the states have
suffered. Monies which would otherwise be available to them are taken by the
GERALLE FORD LIBRARY
- 8 -
national government and then redistributed to them for specific programs which
the states may or may not need.
In addition, there are with almost every federal grant program fairly
stringent rules regulating the purposes to which the money can be put, what the
hiring and firing policies of the state must be for those connected with the
grant programs, along with fallly stringent supervision by federal officials.
Indeed, these programs have tended to reduce the role of the states to that of
administrative subordinates of the national government.
While this trend toward national supremacy vis-à-vis the states seems
The movement
to have about run its course, that toward executive supremacy is still, to some
extent, unfulfilled. It is difficult, however, to exaggerate the concerted
movement in this direction, particularly since 1933. Consider the following
developments:
looked by many to wear Two hats, chief evecutor &
The President is now, by any standard, the "chief legislator." He is
He Liafto
responsible for drafting a comprehensive legislative program which is then considered
at great length by Congress.
ineatitive on
Not only has congressional power to initiate legislation passed to the
President, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Congress to say "No" to the
major items on the President's legislative agenda; for a recalcitrant Congress is
no match for the presidency with sequents of The press so prescriped with the
ommpitence of evecutive
The President can and does take his "case" to the American people or he can
use any one of a number of "weapons" such as patronage, defense contracts,
personal favors, or party loyalty to overcome stubborn resistance to his programs.
There does not exist any one center of power in Congress which is strong enough
to resist successfully a determined Executive.
In this connection, we should note just how far Congress has fallen. The
"great debates" in Congress no longer concern themselves with the truly significant
questions of whether a given program ought to be initiated or discontinued WARD the
general purposes and ends of our foreign policy ought to be, or the maj
GERALD
LIBRARY
- 9 -
considerations which ought to guide us with respect to our military posture.
Seldom do such "strategic" questions find their way into the congressional debates.
Rather, Congress more and more frequently concerns itself with the question,
how much? (or doen the administration suppenh thi)
On foreign aid, for instance, the debates center upon how much certain
programs should be reduced or increased and not upon the crucial question of whether
certain aid programs ought to be discontinued entirely. The important questions,
it would seem, are handled by the Executive while Congress "adds" or "subtracts"
a little, always within the bounds of the program designed by the Executive branch.
The Constitution, to be sure, vests certain important powers with Congress.
Indeed, the Constitution vests Congress with the most substantial powers exercised
by the national government. But we would gain an entirely inaccurate picture of
the operations of our national government if we confined our attention to what
the Constitution prescribes.
For example, the Senate is supposed to share in the President's appointment
power. Yet there is not one case in history of the Senate ever having failed to
confirm a presidential appointment to an ambassadorship.
There are only nine cases of the Senate failing to approve a presidential
appointment to his Cabinet. Since 1930, there has been no Senate rejection of a
presidential nomination to the Supreme Court, which is most significant because,
increasingly over the past thirty years, the court is by all standards highly
disposed to share the same values as the President and evidences a strong
indination
predisposition to favor increased executive predominance in our institutional
fabric.
The record is scarcely any more impressive when it comes to the Senate's
participation in the treaty-making process. Since the end of World War I, only
three treaties have been rejected by the Senate, which should serve to give some
picture of the extent to which the President has a free and unrestrained hand in
foreign affairs. If we add to this the power of the President to make
executive LIBRARY
- 10 -
agreements--such agreements having the same legal force and effect as treaties
and not requiring the majority consent of either or both houses of Congress--we
can see why the President not only has unchallenged supremacy in the foreign
policy area but also why some observers feel checks and controls on the President's
powers in this area are necessary.
Surprisingly, Congress itself has, particularly since 1933, contributed
the growth of executive powers. Unable to formulate suitable standards for
many areas of regulation, Congress has seen fit to set forth general policy
goals and to delegate to the President or some executive agency the authority
to regulate in accordance with these goals.
Since 1933, such Congressional delegations of authority have registlebly become
commonplace. Such delegations have come very close to abdication of the legislative
function, particularly during wartime. Yet it is doubtful, on the basis of past
performance, whether the Supreme Court, in order to preserve the constitutional
balance, would ever invalidate any delegation of authority.
In general, the Court seems to have formulated standards which would
even permit Congressional abdication of its authority so long as Congress
specifies some general standard for executive performance, no matter how vague
and ill-defined this standard is.
The President as "commander-in-chief," in the context of our far-reaching
treaty commitments, can, and in fact has, committed American forces to large-scale
warfare without so much as consulting key Congressional leaders.
Indeed, Roosevelt's
only
policies in the late thirties and early forties show the extent to which the
?
President can actually lead the nation into war by pursuing policies in clear
violation of existing laws. Such examples are, to be sure, found in our earlier
history but today there are many who willingly accept and justify such practices
There has been a strong reaction against these trends toward centralization
FORD
of power. The strongest resistance has come from the states. There have been,
GERAL
LIBRARY
- 11 -
within the last ten years, several instances of state protest against federal
actions.
In 1958, an overwhelming majority of the Chief Justices of the State
Supreme Courts issued an unprecedented attack upon the Supreme Court of the United
States for its decisions in those cases involving state-national relations. The
justices noted and censured the Court for its consistency in upholding national
claims.
The famed Southern Manifesto signed by the Southern delegation in Congress
after the Court's school segregation decisions is also another landmark in the
growing protest against increased national power.
More recently, the Assembly of the Council of State Governments by a
majority vote recommended three constitutional amendments which would have the effect
ont
of reducing drastically the power of the Supreme Court in deciding cases involving
national-state relations. Most observers are surprised at the number of state
legislatures that have endorsed these amendments which would, in fact, change
long-established practices and procedures. Yet, there is no doubt that such
state reaction is the result of continued frustration with the decisions of the
Supreme Court which, it is felt, deal with matters best handled by the states.
At the national level, there has been some protest, though not as strong
or as unified, against both the Supreme Court and the President. Individual
Representatives and Senators have on isolated occasions disputed or questioned
certain aspects of presidential and judicial authority. But in the last ten years
there have been only two concerted efforts to curb executive or judicial powers:
the Bricker Amendment, which allegedly would have limited the President's authority
to make treaties and executive agreements, and the Jenner-Butler bill, which would
have removed from the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court certain types
of cases having to do with the "Communist" question.
Both of these efforts narrowly failed (one vote in both instances in the
Senate) against determined executive resistance which, again, indicates the strength
- 12 -
of dissatisfaction with the present institutional "balance."
There is a tendency to view the two trends toward centralization indepen-
dently from one another. Yet they are interrelated. On the whole the problem
comes to this: the states and Congress, for the most part, stand on one side of the
"battle line" and the President and the Supreme Court on the other.
When the Court acts as, for example, in the desegregation decisions,
the President feels obliged to use his powers to implement its decisions. On
the other hand, Congress, though possessed of the power to act on desegragation
and reapportionment--two matters dear to the hearts of the states--does not act.
In a word, the Supreme Court rushes into those areas where Congress fears to
tread and the Court is inevitably supported by the President.
Consequently, from the viewpoint of those who wish to redress the
balance, the strategy is obvious: Congress must reassert itself. That is, if
the "imbalance" evident at the national level could be redressed through positive
action by Congress that would reduce the policy-making authority of the President
and the Court, this would go a long way toward assuring that the states would
regain authority over those policy areas which are now within the purview of
the Supreme Court. Revitalization of Congress would not only reduce, if not
eliminate, the "imbalance" in executive-congressional relations but also tend to
weaken the power of any "alliance" between the Executive and the Court.
While the strategy is clear, its implementation is not. Presently in
both public and academic circles the state-congressional alliance is on the defensive
and, it would seem, on the brink of complete defeat. There is no scarcity of
suggested "reforms" of Congress, but virtually all such "reforms" have as their
objective the complete subjugation of Congress to the will of the President.
Masquerading as programs for a "more effective" Congress, these reforms frequently
gain the support of those who like to redress the present imbalance between our
institutions. Clearly, however, the bulk of such reforms would only serve $0 reduce
Congress to a "rubber stamp" for Executive-initiated legislation.
GERALD
ALIBRARY
12
- 14 -
elevated to the national arena of public debate, and we can hardly expect a national
majority to show the restraint necessary to allow diversity on important matters
of public policy to flourish. Here we can expect recalcitrance on the part of
the local minorities even to the point of violence. While we have seen this
more than once in the United States, such occurrences will become commonplace.
Because these trends in the American political system would not only
undermine those principles upon which our system was built but would create
potentially dangerous conditions for the survival of democratic institutions and
ways of life, they certainly deserve our attention and continued study.
More than that, they deserve our dedicated action. They deserve
our understanding and require the rejection of impatience. They require a
re-evaluation of our own responsibilities and a rejection of the temptation to
foist those responsibilities on others.
They require patient understanding of the fact that political dissent,
or even inaction, in our Congress is not a threat to our way of life but may
instead be the very means of preserving it.
It requires our rededication to truly representative government and
a rejection of regimentation in the name of efficiency, of coercion in the
name of progress.
It boils down to this. We will get from government what we are willing
to let government give us. If we are willing to let it give us orders, in
return for catering to greeds rather than real needs--then order us it will.
And, like prisoners, we will be fed, but not free. I say, instead, let it give
us liberty--liberty to live our lives and earn our way. Let government give us
that and we then can give to government our trust.
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
( Continuation from copy ir 12-4-63 letter)
People do not normally lose their liberties totally and in
an instant. Neither can the impending loss be perceived clearly.
This is especially true where power is obtained through promises of
benefits to particular groups of citizens. Nor is liberty lost
necessarily because of the evil intentions or instincts of those who
seeking power cause the loss. It is usually the case that those who
seek undue power have good intentions and truly believe that they are
acting in the best interests of those whom they seek to benefit and
to control. This was so in Germany, in Italy, in Russia, and perhaps
even in Cuba. But liberty lost because of the beneficient instincts
of any power-seeking authority is nonetheless lost and when the fragile
checks and balances of our constitutional system are unduly disturbed
loss of liberty is the certain result.
Secretary Udall recently undertook to use the powers of the
Executive Department to block the construction of an apartment building
in Virginia. (Note: See Ex. 1 attached). I am sure his motives are
good and his intentions sincere, but a serious question exists as to
whether his desire, and the desire of his neighbors, to enjoy a view
of the Potomac is a proper matter for the exercise of federal executive
power.
There are many other instances that come to mind where
executive power has been unduly extended or improperly used. Often
the legislative branch of the Government has contributed to the
extension. My purpose here is not to defend the Congress but to point out t
to you the dangers of excessive power in the executive branch.
10.
FORD 3 LIBRARY 937870
There is a grave need for all of us in our home communities to
insure by persuasion, and by our vote, that Congress will not permit
undue concentration of powers in the Executive. Our actions in this
regard at the local level are sometimes less than perfect. I am
afraid that frequently groups of our citizens are controlled in
their actions, particularly in the exercise of their electoral
rights, by actions of the executive in giving or withholding of
rewards, by promises of such giving or withholding and by threats of
punishment.
I think that the actions of the Executive Department at the
time of the steel price increases speak volumes on the subject of
excessive use of executive power. At that time the Executive had
ND
unter authority to fix wages or to fix prices for products. The use
of the Executive Powers through the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
the Treasury Department, the Defense Department, and other executive
departments of the Government, and the promises of reward and threats
of punishment, is to me an utterly inappropriate procedure for the
Executive and, if not tyranny itself, is close to tyranny.
There is another aspect of the use of excessive power that
is frightening to me. I refer to the fact that when the Executive
seeks and obtains power over the most minute activities of our citizens
through there arises promises inertia of rewards
an among our citizens to act or apeak for them-
selves. Furthermore, the conduct of the affairs affecting our
citizens' lives become so complex that no executive or executive
department or even the people themselves can bring about action
11.
LIBRARY
required to carry out functions that would otherwise be carried out
by the citizens on a local basis. Promises of an extended social
security program including Medicare result in citizens refraining
from protecting themselves through medical insurance or making other
provision for their dependents or their own old age. Promises of
federal aid in the building of colleges, hospitals, and other in-
stitutions which have normally been financed when needed by our
citizens at the local level, induce the citizens themselves to
refrain from taking the action that is required to create the
additional facilities. Promise that our citizens in every aspect
of their lives have the right to look to the Federal Government for
their well-being and their security in all matters which historically
have been the proper province of the citizens themselves or their local
governments, to act, only lead our people down the road to serfdom and
destroy their initiative to act for themselves. I commend you and the
great and fine group that you represent for being, I believe, the
most acutely aware of the dangers of which I speak and of having
forthrightly spoken out against the undue exercise of power which
I believe to be so threatening to our institutions and our people's
liberties.
Dependence upon federal largesse (whereby the citizen sells
his liberty for his own tax dollars) creates many problems. In Detroit
many years ago a large area was cleared in the federal redevelopment
program. Since then that land has laid idle and unused because the
problems in connection with its use are so complex and the interests
of different groups of people so varying, that no agreement can
GERALD be FORD LIBRARY
12.
reached as to its proper use.
In the past few days out in my home state of Michigan, a city
council of one of Michigan's cities instituted litigation against the
State of Michigan over an issue involving the United States Bureau
of Public Roads, an executive agency. (See Ex. 2 attached) The
question involves the width of the bridge landsfor a bridge over a
river in connection with freeway construction. How long it will
take to settle this issue no one knows, nor how costly it will be.
When the Federal Government undertakes to control not only the lives
of the individual citizens but the states and the sub-divisions of
the states, conditions arise which are costly, time-consuming, unpro-
ductive, and vastly expensive of the treasury of our country.
As another example of the dangers and problems that already
exist where there is exeessive executive control, I would like to
mention the fight which my own State of Michigan has made to establish
a program for benefits under the ADC-U program. (See Ex. 3, attached).
Under this program the Federal Government provides funds for aid to
dependent children of the unemployed. We in Congress thought that
the standards established in the legislation would be reasonably
interpreted by the Executive Department to permit the different states
to participate in the program and to meet the varying needs of the
different states by varying and different standards established by the
states. Now in my home state, lead by Michigan's great Governor, the
13.
LIBRARY
legislature adopted a program that it was believed was plainly within
the intentions of Congress in adopting the act. The Executive Department
of the Federal Government for reasons that I believe are solely and
purely political, has refused to permit my state to participate in
this program. Secretary Celebrezze has made a finding that the will
of the people of the State of Michigan, as expressed in the state's
legislative enactment, does not meet the standards of the federal Act.
Again I point out to you the danger of excessive power in the Executive
branch of the Federal Government. This particular problem is one we
intend to do something about, and soon. Amendments to the Adminis-
trative Procedure Act will permit some appeal from a determination
such as that which was made by the Secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare in connection with Michigan's ADC-U Program.
Many policies of our Government are established, not through
the direct grant of power or usurpation of power by the Executive
branch, but through the Executive's inducements to create a servile
Congress that will extend power to the Executive. The result has
been the creation of some situations that Gilbertand Sullivan on
day
their brightest not conceive.
A day or two ago Congress passed a subsidy bill in response
(?)
to urgings of Secretary Freeman providing subsidies for textile
manufacturers for whom I have great sympathy. And how did we get
about to having a need for a subsidy to the textile manufacturers?
(See Ex. attached) Simply by this method: We provided a system
for price support subsidies to cotton growers, a price of 32-1/2 cents
per pound. The support price is such that our cotton growers cannot
compete with foreign cotton fiber salling in the world market at GERATE 24 cents
14,
per pound. So the Government then subsidized the exporters of cotton
by the amount of the difference between the artificial domestic and
the world price. But our own textile mills cannot compete with
foreign mills buying our U. S. cotton at the world price of 24 cents
per pound and who use the cotton in manufacture of finished goods
shipped back to this country. So now we must subsidize the textile
manufacturers with a third subsidy to permit them to compete with
the foreign manufacturers. The next logical step, of course, is to
subsidize the American consumer of the finished products manufactured
from U. S. cotton and which he must purchase at a price already
inflated by three separate subsidies which have been paid for by
himself and other American taxpayers. This is one example of why
I think the haphazard Freeman Farm Program, a hodgepodge of promises
of great rewards without risks to every producer of any farm product,
really 1s an utterly inexcusable and frightening program to be
seriously proposed to any group of American people. And I commend your
organization for the forthright stand that you have taken in opposing The
Freeman Follies. (See Ex. 5, attached). There are other examples
that I could cite, many of which are known to you and which are so
numerous as to not only exhaust the time allotted to me, but, I am
afraid, your patience as well.
There are any number of other examples of usurpation of power
by the Executive. We in Government have increasingly witnessed
actions by executive departments that are insubordinate to and in
complete disregard of the will of the people as expressed through the
Congress of the United States. Two examples have come to mind and
with which I am intimately familiar. ( See Ex. б attached). They are
LIBRARY
15.
the cancellation by Defense Department of the RS-70 Reconnaissance
Plane Program and the cancellation of the Nuclear Aircraft Carrier
Program. Both of these actions were taken in open defiance of the
Congress of the United States and the express legislation of the
Congress.
The Estes fraud finds its origins in the Executive Department
and in the confusion and corruption that come) from the presence of
undue power in a single authority unable to cope with the complexities
of the situation. (See EX. 7 FA)
We have also witnessed recently the unhappy use by Executive
Department personnel of electronics eavesdropping devices in order to
invetaliation
obtain "evidence" against a State Department employee for revealing
5
information to an official body of the United States Congress. Not
only were such devices used, but the employee himself was discharged.
(See Ex. 7-II B)
I will give you Just one more example of what is to me the
threatening portent of an Executive Department which has, or believes
itself to have, a right to intrude in any sphere of activity and to
use the tremendous powers at its disposal to impose its will upon
the people. (See Ex. 8) There exists in this country a committee
known as the "National Right to Work Committee", which espouses the
doctrine that right to work laws are proper and that they protect
"the freedom of the individual worker". Now, regardless of whether
the work of this committee is good or bad, or whether it is right or
wrong, it seems to me 10 has a right to exist and to espouse and
a group of citizens
16.
FORD i LIBRARY CERALD
promote the principles in which it believes as does your organization
or any other. But not so with the Executive Department of the United
States Government. The tremendous power of the Executive Department
through the Secretary of Labor (and I am sure the instances of the
political barons who head the AFL-CIO) has recently undertaken a
suit in Federal Court to interfere with and destroy the activity of
this non-governmental citizens' organization, the National Right to
Work Committee.
doory: get in southing about stachler's teach
will Can to you teach appropriate funds to
the people how Wouldn't to conduct that political he the the
Democrate domindest in in huclugin 4:
campaigus. the hands of And
why is it needed with "educa- PAC,
ADA and the UAUl's
tional department 4-
al
BERALD FORD LIBRARY
17.
Conclusion
Our forefathers, with fine ideals and divine guidance, conceived
an instrument under which we might be governed that has served us well.
The framers of the Constitution were guided greatly in their deliber-
ations, and were profoundly influenced, by the great French philosopher
Montesquieu, who sought to substitute political liberty for royal
absolutism in France and who advocated the separation of powers as a
device to make government safe for the governed. Montesquieu's
philosophy may be summed upon the following words which were familiar
to our forefathers and which are the very heartbeat of our Constitution:
"In every government there are three sorts of power:
the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent
on the law of nations; and the executive in regard tomatters
that depend on the civil law. By virtue of the first, the
prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws,
and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted.
By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives
embassies, establishes the public security, and provides
against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or
determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The
latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other simply
the executive power of the state
When the legislative
and executive powers are united in the same person, or in
the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty;
18.
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or
senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a
tyrannical manner. Again, there is no liberty, if the
judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and
executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life
and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary
control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were
it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave
with violence and oppression. There would be an end of
everything were the same man or the same body, whether
of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three
powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public
resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals."
I conceive balieve that the issue of executive absolutism, whether
"Purchase" "Purc hase"
achieved by ardifice or device or by our own complacency, is the great
issue which faces our country today. Much has been said recently
about the rantings and the ravings and dangers that confront us from
the fanatical left and fanatical right." I am not so concerned about
the fanatical left and fanatical right as I am about the complacent
and, Complac the Power hungry "top"
center^ If we are complacent when assaults are made upon the very
life-blood of our political institutions; if we are willing to succumb
to the temptation of being owned by authoritarian masters who would buy
us with our own tax dollars; if we are so blind as to succumb to the
19.
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
seductive inducements of something for nothing, then it will be becomes
time for us to truly fear the fanatical left and the fanatical right."
It is only when we as citizens, and we as leaders, exhibit the courage
to speak up against those who assert that wrong is right and right is
wrong that our free institutions will be secure.
I can think of so many pious platitudes that I have heard in
recent days about hate and violence in America from those who have
succumbed to the kind of tempting blandishments of which I warn you.
I am reminded that from my own state there is a citizen, George Edwards,
formerly state Supreme Court Court Justice, later Police Commissioner
and now nominee for the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit, who was a leader in the late 1930's in the labor move-
ment in Michigan which was punctuated by violence, disorder and un-
lawful acts and yet I heard him say recently, at the time of the
late President's assassination, "There is too much violence in America
today". In the group which led this violent movement and continued its
(and Continue it Yet
violence in later years were such people from my own State of Michigan
as Walter Reuther, Emil Mazey and Soapy Williams. These men too have
mouthed the platitudes of which I spoke and yet I recall that it was
they who continued a course of conduct characterized, if you please,
by theAactivities Crimincal of another Michigan citizen, a man by the name of
Guanaca. Guanaca was sent to Wisconsin at the time of the Kohler
strike and there committed violent and unprovoked assaults upon citizens
of the State of Wisconsin; returning to the State of Michigan, he
was given sanctuary by the Governor of the State of Michigan and at
FORD is LIBRARY GERALD
leaders - including coud dates for President Twho
1 have heard more "hate" preached hypatitical
and Gonernor - in cadillar banati call Square left than or from baratical the right.
the instigation of Walter Reuther and Emil Mazey. Despite the
requests of wisconsir's Sovernor and
repeated requests for extradition, Soapy Williams defied theAsimple igroret
the
constitutional mandate, that Guanaca be "surrendered up or for trial in
political pressures became too heavy that he did surrender Tuannca Alm for
the State of Wisconsin, for many years, and Williams It was only when the
trial, where Guanaca was ultimately found guilty of his crimes and
served out a term in the Wisconsin penitentiary.
We have heard much over the past years of the new deal", the
"fair deal," the 'square deal and the age of the "common man." I would
like to suggest that if we take to heart the ideals of Montesquieu,
if we accept in truth and not just in form,the principles that our
forefathers had when they wrote the Constitution, and if we resist
the temptation to be misled or to be bought, we may still have time
to seek the ideals that our forefathers set before us, namely a free
and we shall become a ration of." UNCOMMON MEN!!
nation of free menA Perhaps the ideals that we seek are not totally
obtainable but they can always be totals sought. If we resist the
oppressions of those who seek to master us, we may be masters of
ourselves. Oppression unopposed by each of us makes each of us an
oppressor and an oppressed. The truths embodied in our Constitution
will become distorted and destroyed unless we are willing to protect
them. We must protect them with vigilance, with understanding and
with active support. The uncommon age of the uncommon man, free from
oppression, can be attained but only to the extent that we are willing
to make the sacrifices necessary to protect the precious and precarious
framework of our government and preserve the rights of the governed, and
pos Montesquiev foresow create a Sovernment
that is "Safe for the loverned". Then FORD. truly
we will be "Urcommon Men."- -
GERALD LIBRARY
21.
Some items in this folder were not digitized because it contains copyrighted
materials. Please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library for access to
these materials.
EXL
DREW PEARSON
Atomic Rays Soon
To Preserve Food
BY DREW PEARSON
sold the home, Merrywood, for about $700,000
WASHINGTON - Radioactivity,
for a high rise apartment. When the neighbors
usually thought of as a killer, soon
opposed the sale, Jackie was BO irked at some
will be preserving food.
of them that she said she would not attend
the wedding of Ambassador Angler Biddle
City Seeks Injunction 2 to Ba
Change in Bridge Refuges
From Our City-County Bureau
reduced by the state in violation
90 percent of the financi
Legal action to bar the
of an agreement with Wayne
rejected full-width lanes
State Highway Department
County and Detroit to consult
accepted a state revision t
on all major changes in the
seven-foot lane on each in:
from starting a $25 million
bridge design.
shoulder and a 5.6-foot lane
high-level bridge over the
Bids for the substructure of
each outside shoulder. he w
Senate Test Assess
The first real test of President Johnson's
farm-bill wizardry is likely to come when the
cotton measure starts to roll in the Senate
Johnson's Farm Role: Background,
early next year. There the whole drama will
shift completely. To appreciate the new Pres-
ident's role, it's helpful to review the back-
Skills May Ease Way for Farm Bills
ground in some detail:
As with many crops, the Government pays
Continued From First Page
wanted to try marketing controls based on
cotton growers a price-support subsidy that
ffect cut the mills' cost for domestic cotton
bushels or pounds. But Congress generally
allows them a fatter return than they'd get in
a free market. At the support price of 32½
the same price the foreigners pay.
proved unwilling to go along.
cents a pound for a key grade, however, do-
A bill to meet the industry's demands is
When Congress did allow wheat growers
what's up for a House vote today. In effect,
to vote on stricter controls last May, the
mestic cotton can't compete with foreign-grown
he bill proposes a third subsidy to offset the
farmers overwhelmingly rejected the Admin-
fiber selling in the world market at about 24
cents a pound So the Government subsidizes
ffects of the first two subsidies. Advocates
istration approach. By doing so, they also
cotton exports, currently paying exporters the
ay the measure would cost the Government
voted to reduce their own price supports sharp-
814-cent difference between the domestic and
bout $250 million during the next three years.
ly. The immediate White House reaction was
world price. But recently U.S. textile mills
Opponents claim the additional expense would
to let the farmers live with the prospect of
lower prices and income.
and apparel manufacturers have suffered when
about $635 million.
Even before the change of Presidents, how-
foreign concerns bought U.S.-grown cotton at
Complicated? Indeed. That's why two in-
ever, this line was softening. Mr. Johnson is
24 cents, turned it into yarn, shirts and sheets
Tuential Democratic Senators, Talmadge of
expected to soften it even more as he strives,
and resold those goods in this country cheaper
Georgia and Humphrey of Minnesota, would
probably harder than Mr. Kennedy would
than domestic manufacturers can afford to sell.
like to tear down the whole system and sub-
have, for the votes of rural Midwesternera.
The inevitable result has been textile industry
stitute a simple, direct subsidy to the growers
It's conceivable the new President will try
demands for a third subsidy that would in
for some of their crop to offset lower prices
early next year to patch together a wheat bill
Please Turn to Page 17, Column 2
stemming from expected expanded production.
that would return to higher supports with little
wall St.
This approach has wide support in the Agri-
control. Almost certainly he will seek to avoid
culture Department. But a direct-payment plan
the stronger-controls thicket that trapped his
Ex.4.
raises the picture of some large grower with
Jaurnel 12-4-63
predecessor.
several hundred thousand acres being handed
Notwithstanding his alliance with the old-
a U.S. Treasury check for a few million dollars.
guard Congressional farm leaders, the new
Thus, it's feared that some liberal lawmaker
President must be cautious of their counsel.
might tack onto such a law a limit on the size
The trend in Congress is away from the rural
Ex
HAYDEN IN WASHINGTON
Executive Errors
By JAY G. HAYDEN
"If I had a big job to let
Of Our Washington Bureau
he's the first man I would
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19. -
go after; but I certainly would
Opening of political careers
not want to work under him."
by George Romney, governor
The same member disap-
of Michigan, and Robert S.
proved of the word "arrogant"
as fair description of the
McNamara, national secretary
of defense, remarkably coin-
manner of the secretary of
defense, but added:
cide.
"He sure don't like to be
Alike these two got their
badgered by people who
start in phenomenally trium-
haven't done their home work
phant business careers, Rom-
and don't know in the least
ney by lifting American
what they are talking about."
Motors to success as the first
U.S. exponent of the small
One of McNamara's earlier
car; McNamara as president
quarrels arose from his can-
of the Ford Motor Co. at age
cellation of the RS-70 recon-
45.
naissance plane, a particular
pet of Rep. Carl Vinson, chair-
By most standards applied
man of the House Defense
to executive, across-the-desk,
Committee.
performance in their political
qorle
Shoeol)
Washington Turns
EX
7
Testy, Fearing
Storm of Scandal
Continued From First Page
plane contract to General Dynamics Corp.
Also due to be questioned on the TFX
award-probably this week-is Deputy
Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric,
former partner in a New York law firm
that had represented General Dynamics.
The revelation that Rep. John W.
Byrnes, Wisconsin Republican, holds some
A bill he introduced in Jan-
10€ Monday, Dec. 2, '63
uary would outlaw compal-
DETROIT FREE PRESS
V
sory union membership ex-
cept in states which already
have, or subsequently pass,
The Issue:
laws permitting the union
shop.
The right to Work Commit-
Open Shop
tee, which says its sole finan-
cial support comes from its
15,000 members, declares its
Or Closed?
only function is educational and
that it will not endorse any
candidate in the president race.
However, several "Goldwater
WASHINGTON - (II) What
in 64" signs are prominently
is the philosophy behind "right-
displayed on its office walls.
to-work" laws now on the books
There are none for Rockefeller.
in 20 states and being actively
The AFL-CIO charges the
pushed in 30 others?
committee is "a front for big
business."
The question, likely to be a
hot issue in the 1964 presiden-
"We're not a big business op-
tial election, gets some sharply
eration," replies the committee,
differing answers:
which was formed in 1955 and
"The freedom of the indi-
is now headed by S. D. Cad-
wallader, who was kicked out
vidual worker," replies the Na-
of the Brotherhood of Railroad
tional Right to Work Commit-
Trainmen in 1952 for opposing
toe.
"Evil anti-unionism," retorts
what he called compulsory
unionism.
the AFL-CIO.
Reed Larson, the committee's
"The government at any lev-
executive vice president, says
el should stay out of it," says
its
budget
runs
$450
Ex. 5
BALDWIN PUBLIC LIBRARY
U.S. News & World Report
DEC - 1963
INTERVIEW
With PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN FARM BUREAU,
Charles B. Shuman
"REGULATED PEASANTRY"-FATE OF
FARMERS UNDER KENNEDY PLAN?
What's wrong with Kennedy's farm plan,
and the Administration's proposed solution.
as opponents see it? Why do they think it
In his answers to questions, Mr. Shuman
would lead to "peasantry" for the farmer?
brings out the major issues of a growing argu-
Charles B. Shuman, president of the Ameri-
ment, in Congress and among farm groups,
can Farm Bureau Federation, came to the
over basic farm policy.
conference room of "U. S. News & World Re-
On page 84-main points of Kennedy's plan,
port" for an interview on the farm problem
with Secretary Freeman's comments.
Q Mr. Shuman, what is your view of the Kennedy Admin-
A It's very similar to last year's Poage-McGovern bill,
istration's so-called "omnibus farm bill"?
which provided for national marketing quotas.
A If this proposed bill is passed, we're going to have a
What it does is give the Secretary of Agriculture authority
regulated, subsidized, controlled, comfortable peasantry.
to name a committee to propose a scheme of some kind
That's where the Cochrane-Freeman approach leads.
for each and every farm commodity in the United States.
Q Why do you call it the Cochrane-Freeman approach?
Each proposal would go to Congress, and, if they did not
A Because Prof. Willard Cochrane, who is Secretary
veto within 60 days, a referendum of so-called eligible
Freeman's economic adviser, wrote a book, "Farm Prices,
producers would be held. The Secretary determines which
Myth or Reality," in which he outlined the Administration
farmers will vote and, if two thirds of those voting approve
farm bill now before Congress.
the plan, it goes into effect. It reverses the traditional and
It's the public-utility approach to agriculture, with nation-
constitutional procedure of legislation by the Congress and
wide commodity cartels. It's the same pattern that the Justice
veto by the President. It's a national commodity-marketing-
Department is complaining about in the electrical industry.
quota scheme that could regiment the producers of all 250
On one hand, we have Attorney General Robert Kennedy
of the major U.S. farm products.
prosecuting the electrical companies, because they fixed
Q In what way would it apply control of production?
prices; on the other hand, Professor Cochrane and Secre-
A There would be strict controls, based on units of pro-
tary Freeman are saying, "Let's fix prices, commodity by
duction-acres, bushels, bales, barrels, cows, sows and hens. It
commodity."
would mean a vast army of federal employes just to do the
Q What does the Kennedy bill provide?
counting, weighing and watching.
CHARLES B. SHUMAN, 54, is an Illinois stock
and grain farmer who has headed the Ameri-
can Farm Bureau Federation since 1954. With
1.6 million families as members, the federa-
tion is the largest of all farm organizations. It
has been a force in shaping farm policies at
national and State levels. The federation also
runs many big enterprises including mar- FORD
keting, buying and insurance co-operatives.
80
Copyright 1961, U.S. News Publishing Corp.
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, June 12
1961
9 Million Gain
For Michigan
Governor Seeks Laws
To Qualify for Funds
Lansing Bureau Staff
LANSING - Gov. Romney, still reeling from
his defeat on tax reform, gave up his fight on the
ADC-U iggue Tuesday
Romney Gives Up
Fugi
ADC-U Struggle
Continued fron
and then Gunsel
way back to pri
"How long will
Continued from Page One
communities with varying fi-
will they let his
nancial help from the State.
new legislation meeting the
King sobbed.
Federal standards.
Shifting these families from
There was no 4
*
general welfare rolls to ADC-
Much is known 4
THE FIGHT between Rom-
U rolls, which are supported
Gunsell's past, a
ney and Anthony J. Celebrezze,
financially by the State and
years he posed E
secretary of health, education
Federal governments, would
King. But the fl
and welfare, centered on a pro-
mean n great saving to local
sell or King is a.
vision of the Michigan bill that
governments.
As Gunsell, 1
would limit payments to per-
ADC-U recipients would get
early. When he
sons who have been eligible for
an average of $138 a month,
in 1938, he was
HE IS GOING to retire
unemployment compens ation
compared to the $106 they now
car theft in Flin
Jan. 1 and that will end the
since Jan. 1, 1958.
get under general welfare as-
probation for th
Celebrezze argued that the
NEW CHAIRMAN of the
26-year stormy career of
sistance.
year later, he wa
Col. Robert Helny, Jr., in the
use of unemployment compen-
House Armed Services Com-
*
handed in a bi
Marine Corps. Helny, 47, has
sation as a qualification was
STATE ATTORNEY General
mittee will be Rep. L. Mendel
fessed to 18 oth
been R prolific writer of
"arbitrary, discriminatory and
Frank Kelley, who ruled earlier
Rivers (D., S.C.). He wen't
convicted of brea
articles and books, a couple
unreasonable" and that unless
take over until the end of
that the original State law vio-
tering in the nig
of which embroiled him
it was changed, the State
lated the U.S. Constitution and
next year when Rep. Carl
He got a 7½
In difficulties with official-
would not receive Federal
Vinson retires.
both the old and new State
sentence and ser
dom
money under the ADC-U pro-
before. he
SHOWERS
METRO FINAL
Cloudy, little change.
High 53-57, low 40-44.
HOURLY TEMPERATURES
The Detroit Free Press
Markets, Sports
Map and Details on Page D-7
BLUE
p.m. 55
p.m. 47
11 p.m. 45
p.m. 54
8 p.m. 46
12 mid. 43
STREAK
5p.m. 51
9 p.m. 46
1 a.m. 42
p.m.
50
10 p.m. 45
2 a.m. 41
Wednesday, November 20, 1963
On Guard for 132 Years
Vol. 133-No. 200
Ten Cents
Yields to U.S. Terms
ROMNEY DROPS ADC-U FIGHT