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Lincoln Day Dinner, Binghampton, NY, March 6, 1967
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The original documents are located in Box D22, folder "Lincoln Day Dinner, Binghampton,
NY, March 6, 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
MINORITY LEADER
United States
House of Representatives
NOTE: DELIVERED OVER THE TELEPHONE
AND NOT IN PERSON BECAUSE OF ADVERSE
FLYING CONDITIONS.
FORD i LIBRARY GERALD
Digitized from Box D22 of The Ford Congressional Papers:
Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M., MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1967
AN ADDRESS BY MINORITY LEADER GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
AT LINCOLN DAY DINNER, BINGHAMTON, N. Y.
In Washington, ladies and gentlemen, there is a hint of spring in the air.
The time is not far distant when the forsythia will parade its golden blooms before
the fortunate eye, and the azalea blossoms will delight the senses.
As in the other cities throughout the country, spring in the Nation's Capital
also is cleanup time. The word goes out from all the public works departments in
the Washington Metropolitan Area to gather together all the refuse, all that is
unsightly and repugnant, and to place it at the curb for pickup.
Americans by the millions engage in this annual cleanup campaign. They are
by nature a clean people--dedicated to cleanliness in body and in spirit.
A people inherits the qualities of its forebears. Events may tend to blur or
erase some of those national characteristics, but there is one shining quality which
I believe will gleam ever brightly in the American people. That quality is their
devotion to truth, a demand for honesty in public affairs.
Tonight we are gathered here to mark the 157th anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest of all American Presidents, a great Republican.
It matters not that the actual anniversary date is weeks past. Lincoln is
timeless, for his words and actions were those of a wise man, a just man, a resolute
man, an honest man.
He served our Nation in time of war, a time that tried men's souls. Humble,
determined in the face of monumental crisis, he refused to agree to the sundering of
the Union of States,
Lincoln, perhaps more than any other American President, personified the
Puritan Ethic in America. It is not only the school child but every American who
thinks of him as "Honest Abe."
Yet, looking through my list of quotations I could find only one Lincoln
comment on honesty.
With homely humor and the great wisdom that marked so many of his public
utterances, Lincoln said: "No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar."
The American people are a moral people. They admire honesty. They are deeply
disturbed by deception. They resent being misled. They are angered when what appears
to be truth dissolves in a flurry of contradictions and evasions.
It is difficult to be a parent in America today. How do you explain to your
children the contradictory statements made regularly by the highest officials in the
Johnson Administration? Quite justifiably they ask, "What is the truth?"
What do you say to your children when they talk to you about the Adam
Clayton FORD LIBRARY
Powell and Tom Dodd cases? What do you tell them when they point to a recent Gallup
-2-
Poll indicating that a majority of the American people believe that misuse of public
funds is common practice by members of Congress?
I began my remarks to you this evening with an ode to spring and trash removal
because I wanted to impress on you just one fact: It's time we cleaned up the mess
in Washington.
It's time we cleaned up both the Executive Branch and the Congress. It's time
we had an honest credible Administration in Washington.
I could state right here that if Lincoln were living today, he would turn over
in his grave. But if I did I'd have to add quickly, in the words of Senator Claghorn,
"That's a joke, son."
There is a Crisis of Confidence in America today. The American people are
deeply troubled. They are disturbed because the men who today are guiding the Nation
too frequently fall short of the American ideal of truth in government, unflinching
honesty in public affairs.
This chasm between seeming and reality sometimes takes on the dimensions of
deliberate deception and coverup. It can best be described as "The Credibility Gap!"
President Johnson is trying desperately to erase the Credibility Gap. He is
keenly aware of the gulf that has opened up between his Administration and millions
of Americans.
What is happening? The Credibility Gap is widening and the Crisis of Confi-
dence is growing despite the contrived candor of Lyndon Johnson. LBJ is working on
a new image. Do you see any change in substance? The Administration still prescribes
a pill for every ill.
In his State of the Union Message the President confessed he had made some
"mistakes" and that some of his programs were not working very well.
Did this mean he had learned from the 1966 elections? Did this mean he had
"gotten the message' that the people want performance and not empty promises,
progress at a pace they can afford and not extravagant experimentation, a streamlining
of the federal government and not further bloating of an overlapping bureaucracy?
No, Lyndon Johnson has not changed. He still believes that the way to succeed
in politics is to follow the precept laid down by New Dealer Harry Hopkins, "Tax and
tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.'
Harry Hopkins might have added these words to his Democratic Party victory
formula--certainly Lyndon Johnson has: "Promise, promise, promise. What's the
difference if you can't deliver?"
Take a close look at the Presidential messages received by Congress this year.
Has there been any genuine change in the Presidency? Lyndon Johnson again has taxed
the credibility of the people with grandiose schemes. Again we find Lyndon wandering
in Wonderland.
-3-
The favorite gag-line in Washington now is "Would you believe?" The contro-
versy over Central Intelligence Agency financing of student organizations shows just
how honest the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is with the American people.
In Palo Alto, Calif., on February 21, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey said that
CIA financing of student groups represented "one of the saddest times, in reference
to public policy, our government has had." Humphrey added he was "not at all happy
about what the CIA has been doing." HEW Secretary John W. Gardner said on the same
date that it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have involved itself covertly with
educational organizations.
Two days later--on February 23--President Johnson upheld the CIA's conduct in
secretly providing millions of dollars to private U.S. organizations that operate
abroad. The President did this by endorsing a preliminary report by a three-man
committee praising the action.
On February 27, in a speech before the AFL-CIO convention in Miami, Vice-
President Humphrey reversed himself and vigorously defended the CIA.
The President had refused to say whether he had personal knowledge of the CIA
ties to student groups. But Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, speaking from experience as
Attorney General, told newsmen both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson knew about the CIA
connection with the students.
These direct contradictions contribute to the ever-widening Credibility Gap.
They destroy the confidence of the people in their government.
The famous showman, P. T. Barnum, used to take great pleasure in deceiving
the customers. His favorite expression was: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Lincoln used to call himself a "sucker" because he felt he was one of the
people.
Said Lincoln: "God must have loved the plain people; he made so many of them."
Lincoln was of them and with them, and that's why they were for him.
In a speech to the farmers at Clinton, Illinois, in 1858 Lincoln said: "You
can fool all the people part of the time and part of the people all the time, but you
can't fool all of the people all the time."
This brings us to our question for tonight: "Why does the Johnson Administra-
tion keep on trying?"
In the last election the American people said they were tired of being fooled.
And they said a lot more. They said they were tired of a political party which
pretends it can solve all of the Nation's problems just by throwing billions of
dollars at them the taxpayers' dollars. They said they were tired of a political
party which is splitting into fragments, a party which has lost the capacity to lead
in war as well as in peace, a party which is split not only South and North but East
and West.
-4-
Lincoln said: "A House divided against itself cannot stand."
If the North Vietnamese leaders and the Viet Cong believe America is divided,
it is because of attacks on the President's Vietnam policy by members of his own party.
It is because Sen. Robert Kennedy leads them to believe that if they will only
persist in their present tactics, public opinion will force the President to call off
the bombing of the North while they go on pouring me3sengers of death and the
materials of war into the South.
It is because Democratic critics like Sen. Fulbright and Sen. Morse continue
to build a case against the President's Vietnam policies, continue to follow a policy
line which gives aid and comfort to the enemy--whatever their intentions may be.
At one point in his career as a congressman, Abe Lincoln spoke of the split
in the Democratic Party, particularly in New York State. He loved to tell stories to
illustrate a point. Winding up his floor speech, he said:
"I have heard some things from New York; and if they are true, one might as
well say of your (Democrat) party there, as a drunken fellow once said when he heard
the reading of an indictment (in court) for hog stealing. The (court) clerk read on
till he got to and through the words, 'did steal, take and carry away ten boars, ten
sows, ten shoats, and ten pigs,' at which he exclaimed, 'Well, by golly, that is the
most equally divided gang of hogs I ever did hear of.' If there is any other gang
of hogs more equally divided than the Democrats of New York are about this time, I
have not heard of it."
Lincoln was a politician, and a good one. The famed Lincoln biographer,
Carl Sandburg, says of him: "He was a party man; the other wheel horses knew him.
He kept in close touch with the machinery of the party organization, often holding
conferences and exchanging information and advice with other party leaders in the
country and state."
Lincoln was the best kind of politician, a politician who trusted and loved
the people.
It is not because a President trusts and loves the people that he plays
Big Daddy to them.
A true believer in democracy, a true friend of the people, Lincoln said: "As
I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of
democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no
democracy."
Yes, Lincoln was a politician. But unlike Lyndon Johnson, he was never a
"master politician."
Lincoln talked plain, and he spoke the truth. I cannot conceive of a Lincoln
telling the people "You never had it so good" when consumer prices are soaring, the
workingman's real spendable earnings are slipping and the farmers' parity ratio is
-5-
falling fast and hard.
For all the polls sticking out of his pockets, Lyndon Johnson still cannot
read the heart and mind of America. He finds it impossible to meet the people's
thirst for truth.
We are paying tribute tonight to a great President and a great Republican.
It is particularly appropriate that we do so at this time.
Now, as in 1860 when Lincoln was nominated and elected, this Union of States
is in crisis. And now, just as in the crisis year of 1860, the Republican Party
offers the American people a way out of the wilderness of disunity, discord, disorder
and moral decay we are lost in as a Nation.
I firmly believe a Republican will be elected President of the United States
in 1968. I believe we have a good chance to gain control of the United States House
of Representatives and to make gains in the Senate.
We won in 1966 because we are the party of individualism, opportunity and
truth. We will win in 1968 because we are the party of the people.
Lincoln said, and we subscribe to his words:
"I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with
himself and the fruits of his labor, 80 far as it in no wise interferes with any
other men's rights."
At another time he stated, and this too is basic Republican philosophy: "That
men who are industrious and sober and honest in the pursuit of their own interests
should after a while accumulate property and after that should be allowed to enjoy
it in peace is right."
Let us take up the gauntlet, take the field against the mistaken policies of
Lyndon Johnson and his party.
And let these words of Abraham Lincoln be our rallying cry: "If we do right,
God will be with us, and if God is with us, we cannot fail." Thank you.
###
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M., MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1967
AN ADDRESS BY MINORITY LEADER GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
AT LINCOLN DAY DINNER, BINGHAMTON, N. Y.
In Washington, ladies and gentlemen, there is a hint of spring in the air.
The time is not far distant when the forsythia will parade its golden blooms before
the fortunate eye, and the azalea blossoms will delight the senses.
As in the other cities throughout the country, spring in the Nation's Capital
also is cleanup time. The word goes out from all the public works departments in
the Washington Metropolitan Area to gather together all the refuse, all that is
unsightly and repugnant, and to place it at the curb for pickup.
Americans by the millions engage in this annual cleanup campaign. They are
by nature a clean people--dedicated to cleanliness in body and in spirit.
A people inherits the qualities of its forebears. Events may tend to blur or
erase some of those national characteristics, but there is one shining quality which
I believe will gleam ever brightly in the American people. That quality is their
devotion to truth, a demand for honesty in public affairs.
Tonight we are gathered here to mark the 157th anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest of all American Presidents, a great Republican.
It matters not that the actual anniversary date is weeks past. Lincoln is
timeless, for his words and actions were those of a wise man, a just man, a resolute
man, an honest man.
He served our Nation in time of war, a time that tried men's souls. Humble,
determined in the face of monumental crisis, he refused to agree to the sundering of
the Union of States.
Lincoln, perhaps more than any other American President, personified the
Puritan Ethic in America. It is not only the school child but every American who
thinks of him as "Honest Abe."
Yet, looking through my list of quotations I could find only one Lincoln
comment on honesty.
With homely humor and the great wisdom that marked so many of his public
utterances, Lincoln said: "No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar."
The American people are a moral people. They admire honesty. They are deeply
disturbed by deception. They resent being misled. They are angered when what appears
to be truth dissolves in a flurry of contradictions and evasions.
It is difficult to be a parent in America today. How do you explain to your
children the contradictory statements made regularly by the highest officials in the
Johnson Administration? Quite justifiably they ask, "What is the truth?"
LIBRAR
What do you say to your children when they talk to you about the Adam Clayton
Powell and Tom Dodd cases? What do you tell them when they point to a recent Gallup
-2-
Poll indicating that a majority of the American people believe that misuse of public
funds is common practice by members of Congress?
I began my remarks to you this evening with an ode to spring and trash removal
because I wanted to impress on you just one fact: It's time we cleaned up the mess
in Washington.
It's time we cleaned up both the Executive Branch and the Congress. It's time
we had an honest credible Administration in Washington.
I could state right here that if Lincoln were living today, he would turn over
in his grave. But if I did I'd have to add quickly, in the words of Senator Claghorn,
"That's a joke, son."
There is a Crisis of Confidence in America today. The American people are
deeply troubled. They are disturbed because the men who today are guiding the Nation
too frequently fall short of the American ideal of truth in government, unflinching
honesty in public affairs.
This chasm between seeming and reality sometimes takes on the dimensions of
deliberate deception and coverup. It can best be described as "The Credibility Gap"
President Johnson is trying desperately to erase the Credibility Gap. He is
keenly aware of the gulf that has opened up between his Administration and millions
of Americans.
What is happening? The Credibility Gap is widening and the Crisis of Confi-
dence is growing despite the contrived candor of Lyndon Johnson. LBJ is working on
a new image. Do you see any change in substance? The Administration still prescribes
a pill for every ill.
In his State of the Union Message the President confessed he had made some
"mistakes" and that some of his programs were not working very well.
Did this mean he had learned from the 1966 elections? Did this mean he had
"gotten the message" that the people want performance and not empty promises,
progress at a pace they can afford and not extravagant experimentation, a streamlining
of the federal government and not further bloating of an overlapping bureaucracy?
No, Lyndon Johnson has not changed. He still believes that the way to succeed
in politics is to follow the precept laid down by New Dealer Harry Hopkins, "Tax and
tax, spend and spend, elect and elect."
Harry Hopkins might have added these words to his Democratic Party victory
formula--certainly Lyndon Johnson has: "Promise, promise, promise. What's the
difference if you can't deliver?"
Take a close look at the Presidential messages received by Congress this year.
Has there been any genuine change in the Presidency? Lyndon Johnson again has taxed
the credibility of the people with grandiose schemes. Again we find Lyndon wandering
in Wonderland.
-3-
The favorite gag-line in Washington now is "Would you believe?" The contro-
versy over Central Intelligence Agency financing of student organizations shows just
how honest the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is with the American people.
In Palo Alto, Calif., on February 21, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey said that
CIA financing of student groups represented "one of the saddest times, in reference
to public policy, our government has had." Humphrey added he was "not at all happy
about what the CIA has been doing." HEW Secretary John W. Gardner said on the same
date that it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have involved itself covertly with
educational organizations.
Two days later--on February 23--President Johnson upheld the CIA's conduct in
secretly providing millions of dollars to private U.S. organizations that operate
abroad. The President did this by endorsing a preliminary report by a three-man
committee praising the action.
On February 27, in a speech before the AFL-CIO convention in Miami, Vice-
President Humphrey reversed himself and vigorously defended the CIA.
The President had refused to say whether he had personal knowledge of the CIA
ties to student groups. But Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, speaking from experience as
Attorney General, told newsmen both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson knew about the CIA
connection with the students.
These direct contradictions contribute to the ever-widening Credibility Gap.
They destroy the confidence of the people in their government.
The famous showman, P. T. Barnum, used to take great pleasure in deceiving
the customers. His favorite expression was: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Lincoln used to call himself a "sucker" because he felt he was one of the
people.
Said Lincoln: "God must have loved the plain people; he made so many of them."
Lincoln was of them and with them, and that's why they were for him.
In a speech to the farmers at Clinton, Illinois, in 1858 Lincoln said: "You
can fool all the people part of the time and part of the people all the time, but you
can't fool all of the people all the time."
This brings us to our question for tonight: "Why does the Johnson Administra-
tion keep on trying?"
In the last election the American people said they were tired of being fooled.
And they said a lot more. They said they were tired of a political party which
pretends it can solve all of the Nation's problems just by throwing billions of
dollars at them the taxpayers' dollars. They said they were tired of a political
party which is splitting into fragments, a party which has lost the capacity to lead
in war as well as in peace, a party which is split not only South and North but East
and West.
-4-
Lincoln said: "A House divided against itself cannot stand."
If the North Vietnamese leaders and the Viet Cong believe America is divided,
it is because of attacks on the President's Vietnam policy by members of his own party.
It is because Sen. Robert Kennedy leads them to believe that if they will only
persist in their present tactics, public opinion will force the President to call off
the bombing of the North while they go on pouring messengers of death and the
materials of war into the South.
It is because Democratic critics like Sen. Fulbright and Sen. Morse continue
to build a case against the President's Vietnam policies, continue to follow a policy
line which gives aid and comfort to the enemy--whatever their intentions may be.
At one point in his career as a congressman, Abe Lincoln spoke of the split
in the Democratic Party, particularly in New York State. He loved to tell stories to
illustrate a point. Winding up his floor speech, he said:
"I have heard some things from New York; and if they are true, one might as
well say of your (Democrat) party there, as a drunken fellow once said when he heard
the reading of an indictment (in court) for hog stealing. The (court) clerk read on
till he got to and through the words, 'did steal, take and carry away ten boars, ten
sows, ten shoats, and ten pigs,' at which he exclaimed, 'Well, by golly, that is the
most equally divided gang of hogs I ever did hear of.' If there is any other gang
of hogs more equally divided than the Democrats of New York are about this time, I
have not heard of it."
Lincoln was a politician, and a good one. The famed Lincoln biographer,
Carl Sandburg, says of him: "He was a party man; the other wheel horses knew him.
He kept in close touch with the machinery of the party organization, often holding
conferences and exchanging information and advice with other party leaders in the
country and state."
Lincoln was the best kind of politician, a politician who trusted and loved
the people.
It is not because a President trusts and loves the people that he plays
Big Daddy to them.
A true believer in democracy, a true friend of the people, Lincoln said: "As
I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of
democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no
democracy."
Yes, Lincoln was a politician. But unlike Lyndon Johnson, he was never a
"master politician."
Lincoln talked plain, and he spoke the truth. I cannot conceive of a Lincoln
telling the people "You never had it so good" when consumer prices are soaring, the
workingman's real spendable earnings are slipping and the farmers' parity ratio is
-5-
falling fast and hard.
For all the polls sticking out of his pockets, Lyndon Johnson still cannot
read the heart and mind of America. He finds it impossible to meet the people's
thirst for truth.
We are paying tribute tonight to a great President and a great Republican.
It is particularly appropriate that we do so at this time.
Now, as in 1860 when Lincoln was nominated and elected, this Union of States
is in crisis. And now, just as in the crisis year of 1860, the Republican Party
offers the American people a way out of the wilderness of disunity, discord, disorder
and moral decay we are lost in as a Nation.
I firmly believe a Republican will be elected President of the United States
in 1968. I believe we have a good chance to gain control of the United States House
of Representatives and to make gains in the Senate.
We won in 1966 because we are the party of individualism, opportunity and
truth. We will win in 1968 because we are the party of the people.
Lincoln said, and we subscribe to his words:
"I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with
himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any
other men's rights."
At another time he stated, and this too is basic Republican philosophy: "That
men who are industrious and sober and honest in the pursuit of their own interests
should after a while accumulate property and after that should be allowed to enjoy
it in peace is right."
Let us take up the gauntlet, take the field against the mistaken policies of
Lyndon Johnson and his party.
And let these words of Abraham Lincoln be our rallying cry: "If we do right,
God will be with us, and if God is with us, we cannot fail." Thank you.
###