Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
4526001
label
Airlie House Luncheon for House Republicans, January 4, 1967
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4526001
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Airlie House Luncheon for House Republicans, January 4, 1967
citationUrl
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Speeches
subjects
Republican National Committee (U.S.)
U.S. House of Representatives. 3/4/1789-
iiifBase
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4526001
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1967-01-31
month
1
year
1967
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1967-01-01
month
1
year
1967
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
url
mediaId
24e575c61a98211d
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D21, folder "Airlie House Luncheon for House
Republicans, January 4, 1967" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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 D21 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
(Proposed Remarks)
[1967?
in
REMARKS BY MR. FORD AT AIRLIE HOUSE LUNCHESS, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1966.
1967
folder ]
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Wedcome to Airlie House and welcome to the first general sessions at
which we will be plotting how to take over the House of Representatives two years
from now.
This is an occasion for some deep thinking and some serious talking,
but also for a little celebrating. I'm sure you have some zip left over from
New Year's Eve--sip that will give our Democratic friends a lot of trouble in the
90th Congress.
Speaking of sip, I know of at least one new Republican House Member
who has an abundance of it. He was so full of sip on Election Night that he routed
me out of bed at 2:30 in the morning to talk about the committee assignment he
wanted.
He was understandably elated over his election--and we all certainly
have a lot to be thankful for. In fact, there's a report that Santa Claus got
back to the North Pole early this year because the Republicans had already been
taken care of. Seriously, I don't think anybody gave us a thing.
The old gent with the whiskers and the red suit really gets around--and
so do our spacecraft. You take Mariner 4, for instance. It has been orbiting
the sun for two years now and has traveled about a billion miles. That's a
pretty good clip, but really nothing compared to the records our Democratic friends
achieve. It will take Mariner 4 about 653 years to travel a total distance of
326 billion miles. Already the Democrats have rolled up a federal debt of $326
billion--and in just 35 years.
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
(MORE)
-2-
The Democrats have put the national debt into orbit but the news
columnists today are writing about the high-flying Republicans. Well, we are
flying high, but the people know we've got our feet on the ground.
You know, we've really arrived as a result of the 1966 elections.
We've even got Bob Hope and the other standup comics telling jokes about us. And
when the comedians desert the other party, you can be sure they're in trouble.
Of course, times have changed a great deal. The Mouse once barred a
Mormon from taking his seat in Congress--and now we've got a Mormon who's planning
on moving into the White House.
It's with a tremendous amount of pleasure that I look at the faces of
all you new Republican members of the House. You can understand how really pleased
I am when you consider what a scrawny bunch the Republicans were in the 89th
Congress. Only 139 of us! Mapoleon had it easier at Waterloo!
Well, now we're 187 strong, and I feel much more of a leader and much
less of a minotity. I'm sure that's also true of allithe other members of the
House Republican leadership. Among other things, we're here to get acquainted.
So let me introduce the other members of the leadership team: The House Republican
whip, Mr. Arends of Illinois; the chairman of the House Republican Conference,
Mr. Laird of Wisconsin; the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee,
Mr. Rhodes of Arizona; the chairman of the Congressional Campaign Committee,
Mr. Wilson of California; the chairman of the Research and Planning Committee,
Mr. Goodell of New York; and the ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee,
Mr. Smith of California.
GERALD FORD FIBRARY
-3-
Now that you've met the members of the leadership, we're ready to begin
the serious business of this two-day orientation--a discussion of economic, foreign
and military policy, and that highly important topic, The Problems of Getting
Reelected. On that last topic, I hope we do a better job than the Democrats did
at their orientation sessions for freshmen two years ago, That's it. Let's get
to work.
# # #
GERALD LIBRARY