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This file contains material relating to Richard Nixon.

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4526383
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Salute to the President Dinner, Framingham, MA, November 9, 1971
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4526383
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Salute to the President Dinner, Framingham, MA, November 9, 1971
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This file contains material relating to Richard Nixon.
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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Administration goals and achievements
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1971-11-30
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1971
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1971
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The original documents are located in Box D32, folder "Salute to the President Dinner, Framingham, MA, November 9, 1971" 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 The Council donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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 Galleries 4:30pm mail a.m. 11/10/71 11/9/71 M Office Copy REMARKS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH. REPUBLICAN LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AT A MASSACHUSETTS "SALUTE TO THE PRESIDENT" DINNER FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1971 FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY There is much I want to say here tonight. I have much to say because the man we are honoring tonight is for me not simply the President of the United States, the President of all the people, but a close personal friend of mine. When I considered in what light I should speak of Dick Nixon tonight, my mind went back more than three years to that evening in August of 1968 when Dick stood before hundreds of cheering supporters in convention hell in Miami Beach and faced the vast audience of Americans sitting in front of their television sets at home and humbly accepted the Republican Party's nomination for President of the United States. I remember how touched I was when Dick spoke about the American Dream-- about his own dreams when as a boy in a little California town he listened to the nighttime wail of the train whistle and yearned to travel to faraway places. I remembered too how I pondered Dick Nixon's words as he spoke of what he would do as President of the United States-- he promised "a new policy for peace abroad; a new policy for peace and progress and justice at home." Americans are cynical about politics. They are prone to think of the political campaign trail as a trail of promises made to be broken. Dick Nixon's 1968 acceptance speech was impressive, but if it is true that political campaigns are littered with promises soon to be broken then his speech of three years ago was truly remarkable. It was remarkable because Dick Nixon has kept every promise he made to the American people in that speech. "I do not promise the millenium in the morning," he said. "I don't promise that we can eradicate poverty, and end discrimination, and eliminate all danger of war in the space of four, or even eight years. But, I do promise action-- new policy for peace abroad; a new policy for peace and progress and justice at home." (more) Digitized from Box D32 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library --2- Now, as the Happy Warrior Al Smith was so fond of saying, "Let's look at the record. " Has Dick Nixon delivered on his promise of action aimed at peace abroad and peace, progress and justice at home? The answer is a resounding "yes." Despite the fact that Richard Nixon was the first President since Zachary Taylor to enter office with Congress firmly in control of the opposition party, the wheels of progress have been turning steadily during his years in the White House and the record is there to prove it. It was the Nixon Administration that reversed the course of the war in Vietnam and is ending U.S. involvement in that war in a way that gives a non- Communist South Vietnam a chance to survive. It is the Nixon Administration that is engaged in serious talks with the Soviet Union on the limitation of strategic arms. It was the Nixon Administration that reached agreement in principle with the Soviet Union on access to Berlin. It was the Nixon Administration that brought about ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was the Nixon Administration that renounced biological weapons and the first use of chemical warfare. It was the Nixon Administration that achieved a treaty prohibiting the emplacement of nuclear weapons in the world's seabeds. It is President Nixon who has transformed the world scene from one of confrontation between the major powers to one of negotiation-- who is even now planning summit meetings in Peking and Moscow. It is President Nixon who has developed a new strategy for peace in the world centered around the doctrine of helping those nations willing to help themselves. Ah, but these are all actions aimed at promoting peace abroad. What about peace, progress and justice at home? It was the Nixon Administration that reordered our national priorities by devoting a greater part of the Federal budget to human needs than to defense. It was the Nixon Administration that achieved the most significant improve- ments in unemployment insurance in our entire history. It was the Nixon Administration that brought about a massive increase in our manpower programs to provide work experience and training for young people of all races. (more) -3- It was the Nixon Administration that quadrupled minority hiring for government jobs in higher grades and expanded aid to minority enterprises by more than half and has since proposed an even greater expansion in such aid. It was the Nixon Administration that tripled food assistance programs for the needy from $1.1 million to $3.5 million a year. It was the Nixon Administration which proposed $1.5 billion in funding for school districts with a high concentration of low income families and the doubling of aid to black colleges. It was the Nixon Administration which reformed our draft laws to make them more equitable and began moving toward an all-volunteer Army. It was the Nixon Administration that acted to protect the environment by creating a new Council on Environmental Quality and a new Environmental Protection Agency. It was the Nixon Administration that won passage of legislation to improve on-the-job safety for America's working men and women. It was the Nixon Administration that put together an organized assault against organized crime and turned the syndicate into an empire in deep trouble. It was the Nixon Administration that trebled Federal aid to local communi- ties for law enforcement and court improvements. It was the Nixon Administration that launched the most progressive and far-reaching Federal attack on drug abuse ever undertaken in the United States. It was the Nixon Administration that adopted a bold New Economic Policy to fight Democrat inflation and the unemployment brought on by mistaken Democrat policies of the Sixties and a winding down of the war a Democrat President led us into. Now we look to the future. We look for more progress--progress toward peace at home and abroad, and progress toward prosperity in peacetime. It was the Democrats who took us into the Vietnam War. Now they pose as the party of peace. It is easy to have peace if you are willing to make peace on the enemy's terms. It was a great Roman, Cicero, who said: "What then should be the objective of those who are at the helm of government, which they should never lose sight of, toward which they ought to set their course? It is peace with dignity." That is the kind of peace Richard Nixon is steering us toward in Vietnam. Peace with dignity. Peace with honor. (more) There is much more that Richard Nixon is determined to accomplish. He promised in his 1968 acceptance speech to launch a war against organized crime, against the loan sharks, the numbers racketeers and the dope peddlers--and he has done SO. He said "time is running out for the merchants of crime and corruption in American society"--and he has set out to prove this true. He also said: "Some of our courts in their decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country." By a stroke of fate, Richard Nixon has been afforded an opportunity to change the direction in which the Supreme Court was travelling during those years when more attention was being paid to the rights of criminal defendants than the rights of society. I thank God he has been given that opportunity, and I pray that certain willful men in the Senate of the United States do not succeed in thwarting the President's intentions. Richard Nixon is keeping all of his promises. He wants to do much more. What he needs to write his whole program into law is a Republican Congress. We have done much in the 33 months that a Republican has occupied the White House. We could have done much more if we had had more help from our Democratic friends. There is a whole host of Nixon Administration reforms awaiting congres- sional action: A workfare program in place of the welfare scandal; a consolidation of manpower training programs, to be turned over to the states and local communities as they become equipped to handle them; Federal revenue sharing, giving the States and cities a percentage slice of Federal income tax receipts so they can zero in on their own problems free from Federal red tape; consolida- tion of Federal grant programs; a re-examination of Federal aid to schools to achieve quality education; revamping of our labor laws to improve handling of national emergency labor disputes in transportation; and tough new laws to rid ourselves of water pollution. Every one of these reforms will be an issue in the 1972 campaign unless the Democrats join Dick Nixon in his crusade to improve the quality of life in America. I pause here to say that amazingly few Americans realize the tremendous progress this country has made under the leadership of Richard M. Nixon. (more) Republicans should be bragging about the Nixon Administration's accomplishments. You heard me tick them off. It's a list as long as your arm. Here's the basic issue. The Democratic Party is blocking progress. It has become the party of the status quo, the party of the same tired old solutions to the same old problems. The Republican Party has become the party of change. Change has swept through the Republican Party, ripping away the cobwebs of reaction and the resistance to reform. The Republican Party has become the party of daring and imagination-- the party of welfare reform, the party of revenue sharing, the party of Federal Government overhaul, the party of a New Health Care Program for all the American people, the party of Environmental Cleanup, the party with a New Economic Policy that will put us on the path to new high growth in the economy and peacetime prosperity with stable prices. It is vital that we elect Republicans to the Congress in November 1972 SO that Richard Nixon will have the team he needs to turn America in the right direction. The hour of truth is upon us, and the time is now. Truth is our greatest weapon in the campaign to come. Our success at the polls will be measured by our success in impressing the truth upon the American people. So tell the Republican story. Tell the Richard Nixon story. Let the American people know what Dick Nixon has done to bring them peace abroad and peace, progress and justice at home. That is the truth you must make clear. So let us do the job. Together we can. We are on the march--we and Richard Nixon. Let us prove that our party is a winning one. Let us move forward together. # # # REMARKS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH. REPUBLICAN LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AT A MASSACHUSETTS "SALUTE TO THE PRESIDENT" DINNER FRAMINGHAM, MASSACHUSETTS 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1971 FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. TUESDAY There is much I want to say here tonight. I have much to say because the man we are honoring tonight is for me not simply the President of the United States, the President of all the people, but a close personal friend of mine. When I considered in what light I should speak of Dick Nixon tonight, my mind went back more than three years to that evening in August of 1968 when Dick stood before hundreds of cheering supporters in convention hall in Miami Beach and faced the vast audience of Americans sitting in front of their television sets at home and humbly accepted the Republican Party's nomination for President of the United States. I remember how touched I was when Dick spoke about the American Dream-- about his own dreams when as a boy in a little California town he listened to the nighttime wail of the train whistle and yearned to travel to faraway places. I remembered too how I pondered Dick Nixon's words as he spoke of what he would do as President of the United States--when he promised "a new policy for peace abroad; a new policy for peace and progress and justice at home." Americans are cynical about politics. They are prone to think of the political campaign trail as a trail of promises made to be broken. Dick Nixon's 1968 acceptance speech was impressive, but if it is true that political campaigns are littered with promises soon to be broken then his speech of three years ago was truly remarkable. It was remarkable because Dick Nixon has kept every promise he made to the American people in that speech. "I do not promise the millenium in the morning," he said. "I don't promise that we can eradicate poverty, and end discrimination, and eliminate all danger of war in the space of four, or even eight years. But, I do promise action-a new policy for peace abroad; a new policy for peace and progress and justice at home." (more) -2- Now, as the Happy Warrior Al Smith was so fond of saying, "Let's look at the record." Has Dick Nixon delivered on his promise of action aimed at peace abroad and peace, progress and justice at home? The answer is a resounding "yes." Despite the fact that Richard Nixon was the first President since Zachary Taylor to enter office with Congress firmly in control of the opposition party, the wheels of progress have been turning steadily during his years in the White House and the record is there to prove it. It was the Nixon Administration that reversed the course of the war in Vietnam and is ending U.S. involvement in that war in a way that gives a non- Communist South Vietnam a chance to survive. It is the Nixon Administration that is engaged in serious talks with the Soviet Union on the limitation of strategic arms. It was the Nixon Administration that reached agreement in principle with the Soviet Union on access to Berlin. It was the Nixon Administration that brought about ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was the Nixon Administration that renounced biological weapons and the first use of chemical warfare. It was the Nixon Administration that achieved a treaty prohibiting the emplacement of nuclear weapons in the world's seabeds. It is President Nixon who has transformed the world scene from one of confrontation between the major powers to one of negotiation-- is even now planning summit meetings in Peking and Moscow. It is President Nixon who has developed a new strategy for peace in the world centered around the doctrine of helping those nations willing to help themselves. Ah, but these are all actions aimed at promoting peace abroad. What about peace, progress and justice at home? It was the Nixon Administration that reordered our national priorities by devoting a greater part of the Federal budget to human needs than to defense. It was the Nixon Administration that achieved the most significant improve- ments in unemployment insurance in our entire history. It was the Nixon Administration that brought about a massive increase in our manpower programs to provide work experience and training for young people of all races. (more) -3- It was the Nixon Administration that quadrupled minority hiring for government jobs in higher grades and expanded aid to minority enterprises by more than half and has since proposed an even greater expansion in such aid. It was the Nixon Administration that tripled food assistance programs for the needy from $1.1 million to $3.5 million a year. It was the Nixon Administration which proposed $1.5 billion in funding for school districts with a high concentration of low income families and the doubling of aid to black colleges. It was the Nixon Administration which reformed our draft laws to make them more equitable and began moving toward an all-volunteer Army. It was the Nixon Administration that acted to protect the environment by creating a new Council on Environmental Quality and a new Environmental Protection Agency. It was the Nixon Administration that won passage of legislation to improve on-the-job safety for America's working men and women. It was the Nixon Administration that put together an organized assault against organized crime and turned the syndicate into an empire in deep trouble. It was the Nixon Administration that trebled Federal aid to local communi- ties for law enforcement and court improvements. It was the Nixon Administration that launched the most progressive and far-reaching Federal attack on drug abuse ever undertaken in the United States. It was the Nixon Administration that adopted a bold New Economic Policy to fight Democrat inflation and the unemployment brought on by mistaken Democrat policies of the Sixties and a winding down of the war a Democrat President led us into. Now we look to the future. We look for more progress--progress toward peace at home and abroad, and progress toward prosperity in peacetime. It was the Democrats who took us into the Vietnam War. Now they pose as the party of peace. It is easy to have peace if you are willing to make peace on the enemy's terms. It was a great Roman, Cicero, who said: "What then should be the objective of those who are at the helm of government, which they should never lose sight of, toward which they ought to set their course? It is peace with dignity." That is the kind of peace Richard Nixon is steering us toward in Vietnam. Peace with dignity. Peace with honor. (more) There is much more that Richard Nixon is determined to accomplish. He promised in his 1968 acceptance speech to launch a war against organized crime, against the loan sharks, the numbers racketeers and the dope peddlers and he has done SO. He said "time is running out for the merchants of crime and corruption in American society"--and he has set out to prove this true. He also said: "Some of our courts in their decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country." By a stroke of fate, Richard Nixon has been afforded an opportunity to change the direction in which the Supreme Court was travelling during those years when more attention was being paid to the rights of criminal defendants than the rights of society. I thank God he has been given that opportunity, and I pray that certain willful men in the Senate of the United States do not succeed in thwarting the President's intentions. Richard Nixon is keeping all of his promises. He wants to do much more. What he needs to write his whole program into law is a Republican Congress. We have done much in the 33 months that a Republican has occupied the White House. We could have done much more if we had had more help from our Democratic friends. There is a whole host of Nixon Administration reforms awaiting congres- sional action: A workfare program in place of the welfare scandal; a consolidation of manpower training programs, to be turned over to the states and local communities as they become equipped to handle them; Federal revenue sharing, giving the States and cities a percentage slice of Federal income tax receipts so they can zero in on their own problems free from Federal red tape; consolida- tion of Federal grant programs; a re-examination of Federal aid to schools to achieve quality education; revamping of our labor laws to improve handling of national emergency labor disputes in transportation; and tough new laws to rid ourselves of water pollution. Every one of these reforms will be an issue in the 1972 campaign unless the Democrats join Dick Nixon in his crusade to improve the quality of life in America. I pause here to say that amazingly few Americans realize the tremendous progress this country has made under the leadership of Richard M. Nixon. (more) -5-- Republicans should be bragging about the Nixon Administration's accomplishments. You heard me tick them off. It's a list as long as your arm. Here's the basic issue. The Democratic Party is blocking progress. It has become the party of the status quo, the party of the same tired old solutions to the same old problems. The Republican Party has become the party of change. Change has swept through the Republican Party, ripping away the cobwebs of reaction and the resistance to reform. The Republican Party has become the party of daring and imagination-- the party of welfare reform, the party of revenue sharing, the party of Federal Government overhaul, the party of a New Health Care Program for all the American people, the party of Environmental Cleanup, the party with a New Economic Policy that will put us on the path to new high growth in the economy and peacetime prosperity with stable prices. It is vital that we elect Republicans to the Congress in November 1972 so that Richard Nixon will have the team he needs to turn America in the right direction. The hour of truth is upon us, and the time is now. Truth is our greatest weapon in the campaign to come. Our success at the polls will be measured by our success in impressing the truth upon the American people. So tell the Republican story. Tell the Richard Nixon story. Let the American people know what Dick Nixon has done to bring them peace abroad and peace, progress and justice at home. That is the truth you must make clear. So let us do the job. Together we can. We are on the march--we and Richard Nixon. Let us prove that our party is a winning one. Let us move forward together. # # #