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The original documents are located in Box D28, folder "Metropolitan Club of Birmingham,
AL, November 15, 1969" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech
File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Distribution 20 Capies Mr. Ford
Moffice Copy
AN ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
BEFORE THE METROPOLITAN CLUB OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
SATURDAY EVENING, NOBEMBER 15, 1969
AT BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. SATURDAY, NOV. 15
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "God offers to every mind its choice between
truth and repose. Take which you please you can never have both."
Tonight I am going to present to you some truths - truths which I hope
will stir you up a bit.
Let me begin by saying that in Washington we have mapped new attacks on
problems that have plagued the American people for years.
As a consequence, we are now standing as a Nation and a people on the
threshold of an age of reform.
If the winds of change blow as vigorously as I hope, our Nation will travel
in new directions as we enter the decade of the Seventies.
Reform. To reform something - by dictionary definition is to change it
into a new and improved form or condition; to improve by change of form and by
removal of faults or abuses.
That, my friends, is exactly what the Nixon Administration has set out to
do. Reform is the watchword of the Nixon Administration. But the story of the
new Administration as a Reform Administration is one which is not being told.
Very early this year, shortly after Richard Nixon assumed the office of
President, I began describing him in my speeches as a reformer and crusader.
What I envisioned was that the Nixon Administration would of necessity
become seized with a reforming spirit and crusading zeal.
I foresaw the advent of an age of reform in America because of President
Nixon's legacy the situation "as it was" when he took office.
Richard Nixon assumed the leadership of a country massively entangled in a
jungle war halfway around the world, a country which had suffered escalating
inflation for nearly four years, a country in which the crime rate had climbed
nearly 10 times as fast as the population, a country in which the problems of the
cities threatened to turn urban crisis into violent revolution, a country in which
major cities were being put to the torch, a country in which the Have-Nots continued
to be the Have-Nots and the welfare system was like a constantly festering sore,
(more)
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
Digitized from Box D28 of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
-2-
a country in which local, state and Federal taxes had driven taxpayers to the rim
of revolt although government spending had not solved the horrendous problems
rushing in from all sides.
The new Administration took stock and charted a new course. This new
course, as yet unimplemented by the Congress, is a comprehensive strategy for an
attack on the most critical problems facing this country.
The major goals of this comprehensive strategy strike directly at the roots
of the underlying crises in our Nation.
The strategy is aimed at five objectives: Ending the war; Making the streets
safe again for the American people; Curbing inflation; Reforming and ultimately
ending the draft; and Giving the government back to the people.
If the Nixon Administration succeeds in achieving these objectives, I believe
historians will rank Richard Nixon among the greatest of our Presidents. And if
this Congress responds with action, its mark on history will be one of the finest.
The reforms that President Nixon has proposed are manifold. He has sent
more than 40 messages to the Congress. Those messages are related to the objectives
I have just outlined and to others as well.
The top priority is, of course, to end the war in Vietnam.
President Nixon is moving vigorously to end the American role in Vietnam
and, hopefully, to end the war. He is winding down the war and is doing everything
he reasonably can to achieve a breakthrough at the peace table.
With the peace negotiations stuck on dead center because of enemy
intransigence, "Vietnamization" has become the key to disengaging the United
States from the Vietnam War. Gradually but surely we are turning the war over
to the South Vietnamese, where it belongs.
We certainly cannot stay in South Vietnam forever. If the Saigon government
is to stand, it must ultimately learn to stand alone.
For the first time since the United States became involved in the Vietnam
War, we are taking troops out of Vietnam instead of adding to our numbers there.
This is a major reversal of policy aimed at an honorable end to the Vietnam
conflict.
I think a majority of the American people want a sound settlement of the
Vietnam War. I want a settlement that will discourage further Communist aggression,
whether it is in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific, or in Europe.
To invite a Communist takeover of South Vietnam through a precipitous
withdrawal of U.S. troops might reopen the Korean War in 1970 and create additional
(more)
-3-
problems for us and our allies in Europe.
The President's recent declaration of alternatives in Vietnam has been
interpreted by some observers as a hard-line statement. They could not be more
mistaken. To negotiate does not mean to capitulate. You do not become a horse
trader by giving away the horse.
Despite the stubbornness of the Communists in Vietnam, I am fully convinced
President Nixon will succeed in inaugurating an era of negotiation in place of
an era of confrontation.
We have now entered upon strategic arms limitation talks with the Russians,
and President Nixon has laid the foundation of a new foreign policy. That new
foreign policy is innovative, flexible and adaptable. Basically, it is attuned
to the nationalistic and regional interests of Free World and Communist countries.
President Nixon no longer sees the Communist world as a monolithic enemy
alliance but as a group of nations whose common ideology is transcended by powerful
nationalistic aspirations. In line with that view, the President is adapting
United States policy to those nationalistic interests.
This new concept of U.S. foreign policy also is reflected in the new Nixon
Doctrine for Asia -- the "do-it-yourself policy" which Mr. Nixon has laid down
for the nations of Southeast Asia. This is a policy which declares to Americans
and to all the world that there will be no more Vietnams.
Under President Nixon, we have seized the initiative in foreign affairs
even in the face of Communist aggression. We have proclaimed and promoted
doctrines of international law and justice which have given the United States a
new and lofty standing in the court of world opinion.
Domestically, the President has succeeded in getting people to lower their
voices
.
and their arms, too.
In quest of domestic tranquillity, the Nixon Administration has launched a
strong crackdown against organized crime. The President also has sent Congress
legislation which would deal heavier blows against organized cirme and would
improve the Nation's court system.
There has been special emphasis on law enforcement in each of the
Administration's anticrime measures. The President wants criminals off the
streets, and he knows there is no surer way to get them off the streets than to
help build up law enforcement in this country.
The Nixon Administration has made the fight against crime one of its
central concerns. While other departmental budgets have been cut in a hold-down
(more)
-4-
on Federal spending, the Justice Department budget has been increased. The level
of law enforcement activity and narcotics control has been stepped up.
The Nixon Administration recognizes, as do all of you, that the first
civil right of every American -- black or white -- is the right to protection from
crime and violence.
I wish our Negro leaders throughout America would recognize that. I wish
they would accept the responsibility for informing their people that it is
primarily the poor blacks who are the victims of violent crime in our country.
I wish all of our Negro leaders would emulate Sterling Tucker, vice-chairman of
the Washington, D.C., City Council, who recently spoke out in support of vigorous
law enforcement and condemned those who tacitly condone violations of the law.
It is said there can be no progress without order. I subscribe to that.
I would add that there cannot long be order without progress. I believe
the Nixon Administration is promoting the kind of order and the kind or progress
which will operate together to move this country forward.
We need a responsible common-sense approach to our urban problems. We are
getting it from President Nixon.
The primary Nixon answer to the urban crisis is jobs and job training. The
accent is on the solid American ethic of working for a living. The President's
approach is based on the idea that a man never stands so tall as when he stands
on his own two feet.
This is why President Nixon has proposed the first major reform of this
country's welfare system since it first was established. This is why the President
urges Workfare instead of Welfare. This is the way of dignity and decency. This
is the American way. A hand up instead of a handout. That's the only way to
bridge the gap between the Haves and Have-Nots in America.
I think President Nixon has managed to bring order to this country. He has
managed to do SO because he has brought order to the Presidency. We now find
that the days of government by crisis have given way to crisis prevention. The
scatter-gun approach is yielding to an assembling of new priorities.
Welfare reform is just one of the great array of reforms proposed by
President Nixon -- reforms which I believe the American people have long wanted.
Draft reform which will make the selective service system as fair as possible
until we can establish a truly all-volunteer Army; postal reform which will create
a government-owned self-supporting postal corporation in place of the present
impossible system; poverty program reform which keeps the Office of Economic
(more)
-5-
Opportunity as an innovative agency but spins off successful experimental programs
to old-line Government departments; manpower training reform which consolidates
Federal manpower training programs; tax reform which takes millions of poor citizens
off the taxrolls, reduces taxes for millions of other low-income Americans, gives
a long-deserved break to middle-income individuals, and prevents the most wealthy
from escaping taxation altogether; a New Federalism which provides an increasing
slice of Federal income tax revenue for the cities and states and gives them new
vigor as solvers of the problems to which they are closest; a decentralization of
government authority which places greater reliance on local officials and greater
power in the hands of the people.
Decentralization of government authority -- flow of power back to the cities
and states, back to the people. This is a central theme of the Nixon Administration.
Power concentrated in Washington is not always effective power. It is
sometimes self-defeating. The Federal bureaucracy is most complex, and it feeds
upon itself. As it grows larger, the Federal Government's ability to help solve
local problems often grows less.
I would like to quote to you from remarks made last May 29 at the 75th
annual convention of the Pennsylvania Bankers Association in Atlantic City, N.J.
"Thirty odd years ago the federal establishment was small, as some of you
will remember, and income taxes were around 2 or 3 per cent. Most people didn't
pay any at all. And then Franklin Roosevelt was elected, and then for the first
time the control of our government fell into the hands of modern liberals and
their view was that the power of the federal government should be used to
treat and to cure this country's social ills. Well, they did treat a few and
they improved a few, but they didn't cure any. They started Social Security,
guarantees of bank deposits and a few other things that were useful and helpful,
but they also brought to Washington what might be called the illusion of
bureaucratic omnipotence, the illusion that if a government collects enough money,
creats enough agencies and enough bureaus, and worms its way far enough into the
private aspects of American life it will make us all prosperous, healthy and happy.
"Well, Max Weber, the sociologist, proved a long time ago that a big
bureaucracy, once it is established, ceases to work at the job it was given to do
and begins working only for itself, trying ahead of all else to increase its
budget, its staff, its size and its power."
I imagine every man in this room thinks those words were spoken by a
deep-dyed conservative. Not SO. The author of those words is David Brinkley,
(more)
-6-
the radio and television commentator who on more than one occasion has described
himself as a liberal -- and did so at the Pennsylvania Bankers convention.
Brinkley went on to say he had visited about 40 states in the last few
months and had found Americans wanting a change, "a basic change." He added that
"there is every sign of a deep distrust of the present size and style of the
Washington establishment and of the kind of leadership we have had from it for
about 20 years."
Richard Nixon is dedicated to producing the kind of change of which David
Brinkley spoke.
That is why he is talking about reversing the flow of power from Washington
to the states and cities. That is why he has reduced Federal employment by 48,000.
That is why he is talking about sharing Federal income tax revenue with the
cities and states. He wants to implement the basic change the people so desperately
desire.
Not long ago President Nixon, in a nice way, asked the Congress to help
him bring about the basic changes the American people are asking for. He conceded
that some of the slowness in the legislative process could be attributed to the
newness of his own administration.
Then he made the reform theme clear. He said: "The legislative program of
this Administration differs fundamentally from previous administrations. We do
not seek more and more of the same. We were not elected to pile new resources and
manpower on top of old programs. We were elected to initiate an era of change.'
In effect, the President said to the Congress: I am not going to argue about
why so little has been done to date. But this is what I have proposed. Now what
are you going to do about it?
That, I think, is a fair question. And it is a fair question not only to ask
of the Congress but of the American people. What are we going to do about it?
Let us not look only to the National Administration for correction of our
past mistakes. We all have a stake in our Nation. Let us all assume some of the
responsibility for setting the affairs of our country in order.
There is too much of an attitude today that "all is fine so long as I get
mine." We msut rid ourselves of that approach. We must all become selfless if
America is to survive as a Nation and a people. We must individually and
collectively seek the greatest good for the greatest number.
The responsibility for guiding the future of America rests not only with the
Congress, not only with governmental leaders, not only with the President. That
(more)
-7-
responsibility devolves upon us all. Each of our lives impinges upon the lives
of others. To the extent that we all live the good life, the unselfish life,
the lives of all others are enriched.
We all believe in the American Dream. Let us live so that all may share
in it.
###
Distribertion : 20 Copies Mr. Ford
Q Office Copy
AN ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
BEFORE THE METROPOLITAN CLUB OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
SATURDAY EVENING, NOBEMBER 15, 1969
AT BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. SATURDAY, NOV. 15
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "God offers to every mind its choice between
truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both."
Tonight I am going to present to you some truths truths which I hope
will stir you up a bit.
Let me begin by saying that in Washington we have mapped new attacks on
problems that have plagued the American people for years.
As a consequence, we are now standing as a Nation and a people on the
threshold of an age of reform.
If the winds of change blow as vigorously as I hope, our Nation will travel
in new directions as we enter the decade of the Seventies.
Reform. To reform something -- by dictionary definition - -- is to change it
into a new and improved form or condition; to improve by change of form and by
removal of faults or abuses.
That, my friends, is exactly what the Nixon Administration has set out to
do. Reform is the watchword of the Nixon Administration. But the story of the
new Administration as a Reform Administration is one which is not being told.
Very early this year, shortly after Richard Nixon assumed the office of
President, I began describing him in my speeches as a reformer and crusader.
What I envisioned was that the Nixon Administration would of necessity
become seized with a reforming spirit and crusading zeal.
I foresaw the advent of an age of reform in America because of President
Nixon's legacy the situation "as it was" when he took office.
Richard Nixon assumed the leadership of a country massively entangled in a
jungle war halfway around the world, a country which had suffered escalating
inflation for nearly four years, a country in which the crime rate had climbed
nearly 10 times as fast as the population, a country in which the problems of the
cities threatened to turn urban crisis into violent revolution, a country in which
major cities were being put to the torch, a country in which the Have-Nots continued
to be the Have-Nots and the welfare system was like a constantly festering sore,
(more)
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-2-
a country in which local, state and Federal taxes had driven taxpayers to the rim
of revolt although government spending had not solved the horrendous problems
rushing in from all sides.
The new Administration took stock and charted a new course. This new
course, as yet unimplemented by the Congress, is a comprehensive strategy for an
attack on the most critical problems facing this country.
The major goals of this comprehensive strategy strike directly at the roots
of the underlying crises in our Nation.
The strategy is aimed at five objectives: Ending the war; Making the streets
safe again for the American people; Curbing inflation; Reforming and ultimately
ending the draft; and Giving the government back to the people.
If the Nixon Administration succeeds in achieving these objectives, I believe
historians will rank Richard Nixon among the greatest of our Presidents. And if
this Congress responds with action, its mark on history will be one of the finest.
The reforms that President Nixon has proposed are manifold. He has sent
more than 40 messages to the Congress. Those messages are related to the objectives
I have just outlined and to others as well.
The top priority is, of course, to end the war in Vietnam.
President Nixon is moving vigorously to end the American role in Vietnam
and, hopefully, to end the war. He is winding down the war and is doing everything
he reasonably can to achieve a breakthrough at the peace table.
With the peace negotiations stuck on dead center because of enemy
intransigence, "Vietnamization" has become the key to disengaging the United
States from the Vietnam War. Gradually but surely we are turning the war over
to the South Vietnamese, where it belongs.
We certainly cannot stay in South Vietnam forever. If the Saigon government
is to stand, it must ultimately learn to stand alone.
For the first time since the United States became involved in the Vietnam
War, we are taking troops out of Vietnam instead of adding to our numbers there.
This is a major reversal of policy aimed at an honorable end to the Vietnam
conflict.
I think a majority of the American people want a sound settlement of the
Vietnam War. I want a settlement that will discourage further Communist aggression,
whether it is in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific, or in Europe.
To invite a Communist takeover of South Vietnam through a precipitous
withdrawal of U.S. troops might reopen the Korean War in 1970 and create additional
(more)
-3-
problems for us and our allies in Europe.
The President's recent declaration of alternatives in Vietnam has been
interpreted by some observers as a hard-line statement. They could not be more
mistaken. To negotiate does not mean to capitulate. You do not become a horse
trader by giving away the horse.
Despite the stubbornness of the Communists in Vietnam, I am fully convinced
President Nixon will succeed in inaugurating an era of negotiation in place of
an era of confrontation.
We have now entered upon strategic arms limitation talks with the Russians,
and President Nixon has laid the foundation of a new foreign policy. That new
foreign policy is innovative, flexible and adaptable. Basically, it is attuned
to the nationalistic and regional interests of Free World and Communist countries.
President Nixon no longer sees the Communist world as a monolithic enemy
alliance but as a group of nations whose common ideology is transcended by powerful
nationalistic aspirations. In line with that view, the President is adapting
United States policy to those nationalistic interests.
This new concept of U.S. foreign policy also is reflected in the new Nixon
Doctrine for Asia -- the "do-it-yourself policy" which Mr. Nixon has laid down
for the nations of Southeast Asia. This is a policy which declares to Americans
and to all the world that there will be no more Vietnams.
Under President Nixon, we have seized the initiative in foreign affairs
even in the face of Communist aggression. We have proclaimed and promoted
doctrines of international law and justice which have given the United States a
new and lofty standing in the court of world opinion.
Domestically, the President has succeeded in getting people to lower their
voices
and their arms, too.
In quest of domestic tranquillity, the Nixon Administration has launched a
strong crackdown against organized crime. The President also has sent Congress
legislation which would deal heavier blows against organized cirme and would
improve the Nation's court system.
There has been special emphasis on law enforcement in each of the
Administration's anticrime measures. The President wants criminals off the
streets, and he knows there is no surer way to get them off the streets than to
help build up law enforcement in this country.
The Nixon Administration has made the fight against crime one of its
central concerns. While other departmental budgets have been cut in a hold-down
(more)
-4-
on Federal spending, the Justice Department budget has been increased. The level
of law enforcement activity and narcotics control has been stepped up.
The Nixon Administration recognizes, as do all of you, that the first
civil right of every American -- black or white -- is the right to protection from
crime and violence.
I wish our Negro leaders throughout America would recognize that. I wish
they would accept the responsibility for informing their people that it is
primarily the poor blacks who are the victims of violent crime in our country.
I wish all of our Negro leaders would emulate Sterling Tucker, vice-chairman of
the Washington, D.C., City Council, who recently spoke out in support of vigorous
law enforcement and condemned those who tacitly condone violations of the law.
It is said there can be no progress without order. I subscribe to that.
I would add that there cannot long be order without progress. I believe
the Nixon Administration is promoting the kind of order and the kind or progress
which will operate together to move this country forward.
We need a responsible common-sense approach to our urban problems. We are
getting it from President Nixon.
The primary Nixon answer to the urban crisis is jobs and job training. The
accent is on the solid American ethic of working for a living. The President's
approach is based on the idea that a man never stands SO tall as when he stands
on his own two feet.
This is why President Nixon has proposed the first major reform of this
country's welfare system since it first was established. This is why the President
urges Workfare instead of Welfare. This is the way of dignity and decency. This
is the American way. A hand up instead of a handout. That's the only way to
bridge the gap between the Haves and Have-Nots in America.
I think President Nixon has managed to bring order to this country. He has
managed to do SO because he has brought order to the Presidency. We now find
that the days of government by crisis have given way to crisis prevention. The
scatter-gun approach is yielding to an assembling of new priorities.
Welfare reform is just one of the great array of reforms proposed by
President Nixon -- reforms which I believe the American people have long wanted.
Draft reform which will make the selective service system as fair as possible
until we can establish a truly all-volunteer Army; postal reform which will create
a government-owned self-supporting postal corporation in place of the present
impossible system; poverty program reform which keeps the Office of Economic
(more)
-5-
Opportunity as an innovative agency but spins off successful experimental programs
to old-line Government departments; manpower training reform which consolidates
Federal manpower training programs; tax reform which takes millions of poor citizens
off the taxrolls, reduces taxes for millions of other low-income Americans, gives
a long-deserved break to middle-income individuals, and prevents the most wealthy
from escaping taxation altogether; a New Federalism which provides an increasing
slice of Federal income tax revenue for the cities and states and gives them new
vigor as solvers of the problems to which they are closest; a decentralization of
government authority which places greater reliance on local officials and greater
power in the hands of the people.
Decentralization of government authority -- flow of power back to the cities
and states, back to the people. This is a central theme of the Nixon Administration.
Power concentrated in Washington is not always effective power. It is
sometimes self-defeating. The Federal bureaucracy is most complex, and it feeds
upon itself. As it grows larger, the Federal Government's ability to help solve
local problems often grows less.
I would like to quote to you from remarks made last May 29 at the 75th
annual convention of the Pennsylvania Bankers Association in Atlantic City, N.J.
"Thirty odd years ago the federal establishment was small, as some of you
will remember, and income taxes were around 2 or 3 per cent. Most people didn't
pay any at all. And then Franklin Roosevelt was elected, and then for the first
time the control of our government fell into the hands of modern liberals and
their view was that the power of the federal government should be used to
treat and to cure this country's social ills. Well, they did treat a few and
they improved a few, but they didn't cure any. They started Social Security,
guarantees of bank deposits and a few other things that were useful and helpful,
but they also brought to Washington what might be called the illusion of
bureaucratic omnipotence, the illusion that if a government collects enough money,
creats enough agencies and enough bureaus, and worms its way far enough into the
private aspects of American life it will make us all prosperous, healthy and happy.
"Well, Max Weber, the sociologist, proved a long time ago that a big
bureaucracy, once it is established, ceases to work at the job it was given to do
and begins working only for itself, trying ahead of all else to increase its
budget, its staff, its size and its power."
I imagine every man in this room thinks those words were spoken by a
deep-dyed conservative. Not SO. The author of those words is David Brinkley,
(more)
-6-
the radio and television commentator who on more than one occasion has described
himself as a liberal -- and did so at the Pennsylvania Bankers convention.
Brinkley went on to say he had visited about 40 states in the last few
months and had found Americans wanting a change, "a basic change." He added that
"there is every sign of a deep distrust of the present size and style of the
Washington establishment and of the kind of leadership we have had from it for
about 20 years."
Richard Nixon is dedicated to producing the kind of change of which David
Brinkley spoke.
That is why he is talking about reversing the flow of power from Washington
to the states and cities. That is why he has reduced Federal employment by 48,000.
That is why he is talking about sharing Federal income tax revenue with the
cities and states. He wants to implement the basic change the people so desperately
desire.
Not long ago President Nixon, in a nice way, asked the Congress to help
him bring about the basic changes the American people are asking for. He conceded
that some of the slowness in the legislative process could be attributed to the
newness of his own administration.
Then he made the reform theme clear. He said: "The legislative program of
this Administration differs fundamentally from previous administrations. We do
not seek more and more of the same. We were not elected to pile new resources and
manpower on top of old programs. We were elected to initiate an era of change."
In effect, the President said to the Congress: I am not going to argue about
why so little has been done to date. But this is what I have proposed. Now what
are you going to do about it?
That, I think, is a fair question. And it is a fair question not only to ask
of the Congress but of the American people. What are we going to do about it?
Let us not look only to the National Administration for correction of our
past mistakes. We all have a stake in our Nation. Let us all assume some of the
responsibility for setting the affairs of our country in order.
There is too much of an attitude today that "all is fine so long as I get
mine." We msut rid ourselves of that approach. We must all become selfless if
America is to survive as a Nation and a people. We must individually and
collectively seek the greatest good for the greatest number.
The responsibility for guiding the future of America rests not only with the
Congress, not only with governmental leaders, not only with the President. That
(more)
-7-
responsibility devolves upon us all. Each of our lives impinges upon the lives
of others. To the extent that we all live the good life, the unselfish life,
the lives of all others are enriched.
We all believe in the American Dream. Let us live so that all may share
in it.
###