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Remarks of the President at Calder Plaza [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7336781
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Remarks of the President at Calder Plaza [Ford Speech or Statement]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
Press Releases
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1974-10-29
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1974
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Digitized from Box 4 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 29, 1974
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Grand Rapids, Michigan)
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
AT
CALDER PLAZA
5:35 P.M. EST
Thank you very, very much, Governor Milliken,
Mayor Parks, Jack Root, every one of you for being here.
Nobody can accuse any of you of being fair weather
friends. Thank you very much.
But let me say somewhat inadequately, there is
no way in which I can personally express my gratitude,
my appreciation, my indebtedness to all of you who are
here in this difficult weather to say hello, to warmly
welcome me. I am just overwhelmed and words are
inadequate to express everything that I feel deep down
in my heart. Thank you very, very much.
There was a wonderful crowd at the airport, and
we stopped at one of the crowds on the way in. I just
cannot believe so many are here in these circumstances,
and as I shook hands, either at the airport or on the
way in or with those that I have had the privilege of
saying hello to here tonight, I saw friends that I went
to Madison School with, friends that I went to South
High with, friends that I worked with in many, many
scientific projects--Democrats, Independents, Republicans
young and old--there is nothing I can say except thank
you, every one of you, for being here.
And may I thank Althea Bennett here for the box
of cookies which she has given me. As was indicated,
I used to stop in at Petersen's Drug Store for an early
breakfast, and she was there to help prepare it, and I
used to enjoy those cookies very much then, and I am
sure I will now.
But I must tell Althea, I have a big appetite.
It is a long trip back to Washington. They may all be
gone before Betty sees a single one. (Laughter)
MORE
(OVER)
Page 2
Now, let me talk about why I am here. I
came back to Grand Rapids because on 13 different
occasions in the past over a period of 26 years, I
campaigned in the Fifth Congressional District--which
originally was Ottawa and Kent counties and is now
Kent and Ionia and four other counties -- because I
love the communities and whether it was Ottawa, Kent,
Ionia, Clinton, Montcalm, et cetera. I love the
communities and the people.
And as many of you know, I have taken Jerry
Ford's Main Street office to Byron Center, Standale,
Caledonia, Alto, Rockford, Kent City, Sand Lake, Ionia,
Belding, Wells, Portland and every place else, and it
was a great privilege for me to talk with you in the
trailer.
It was a great privilege to go to your service
club, to your farm bureau community meeting, to go to your
churches, to your city hall, to meet you on the street,
to go to the Lowell Showboat, rodeo, the Red Flannel
celebration -- well, you name, wherever you had five
people, I went there because I like you and I am back
here today because I just could not stay away from
this area one more time. I thank you again for the
opportunities of the past.
As I have seen so many of you here today and
as I said a moment ago, Grand Rapids, Kent County, Ionia,
Ottawa County and the others, you are a good cross-
section of America. You represent all segments of our
society.
We have some wonderful farms, we have some
excellent businesses, we have some tremendously productive
working people in this community. I am prejudiced, but
I think we have the best here, and all of you who are
here represent the best in America.
As I have said to our good friend, Mayor Lyman
Parks, Grand Rapids is big enough to have many of the
problems of some of the major metropolitan areas. We
have enough diversification in agriculture, so that I
learned from firsthand experience the problems of the
dairymen, the cattlemen, the apple grower, and other
people that produce so all of us can eat.
MORE
n
Page 3
But the main thing that I loved about this
area was we had some big city problems, but we were
small enough SO that you got to know people. You have
got to love them. You have got to enjoy working for
whatever the problem was. I do not know how many times
I walked down Cedar Springs behind about five bands
in that Cedar Springs Red Flannel Parade, or how many
times I have had the privilege of visiting one community
or another.
It is the warmth, it is the friendliness, it
is the look in the eye of people that makes you welcome.
And the most important thing is that people in this area
seem to want to work out the problems that they have,
whether they are labor and management on the one hand, or
consumer and producer on the other.
I cannot help but make a comment, Lyman, about
that Calder that you gave me. I was in Chicago a couple
of days agc, and some of my friends over there were
kidding me about Grand Rapids being a small town. And
some of the commentators and writers were kidding me about
perhaps the lack of culture in Grand Rapids.
Well, I happen to think -- if my memory is
correct -- we had a Calder in Grand Rapids before
Chicago thought of it.
And then I have had some friends from various
parts of the country tell me that, well, Grand Rapids was
a little on the conservative side. Well, I cannot help
but ask them in good conscience what they mean. Do
they mean the people here have a healthy skepticism of
quick and easy solutions? If that is a definition of
conservatism, yes, we are skeptical. We are a little
conservative about some of the superficial answers
that some people try to sell us.
But if they mean that Grand Rapids and its
environs are skeptical about new ideas, the answer is no.
We are broad minded. We have a good outlook. And when
a new idea comes along that is constructive, that is
fair to everybody, we, in Grand Rapids, embrace it and
make it work. And that is what we have done all my life-
time.
Let me reminisce a moment, if I might. Some
of us in the audience here can remember when the old B. F.
Keith Theater was down here on Lyon Street, and some
of us can remember when the Regent Theater was right
over there, just where the Federal Building was, I guess,
and some of the other old broken-down business places
that needed to be removed -- and this wonderful
Vandenberg Center constructed.
MORE
Page 4
And in honor of one of Grand Rapids' outstanding
citizens, in my judgment, probably the outstanding
Senator that I have known in Washington, we built this
Vandenberg Center in honor and in tribute to Senator
Arthur H. Vandenberg.
And you know that Federal Building -- I used
to have an office right up there in the corner. I
used to look down here, and I could see at various
times of the day there would be periodic meetings
and wonderful luncheon gatherings. Occasionally we had
a demonstration or two, and sometimes in the moonlight,
I could look down and see a few friendly people holding
hands. And what is wrong with that?
But the point is that this great Vandenberg
Center with the Calder Stabile is, in my opinion, a tribute
to a great Senator, a tribute to a great people. It is
a product of a community that has the vision and the fore-
sight to do something for themselves in conjunction or
a partnership with the Federal Government.
And that is the way Arthur Vandenberg believed.
He was receptive to new ideas. He was a senior Senator
in Washington when Betty and I first went to the Nation's
capital. He and his wonderful wife, Hazel, could not have
been kinder, could not have been more receptive to two
newcomers to the Nation's capital.
He gave me, in all honesty, the inspiration
to take a look at the world as a whole. Arthur Vandenberg,
some of you may recall, was former -- with former President
Harry Truman -- was the architect of a bipartisan foreign
policy following World War II.
The two of them -- a great Democratic President,
Harry Truman, and a great Republican Senator, Senator
Arthur Vandenberg -- worked together, hand-in-glove,
following World War II when the worldwas in devastation,
when a good share of the world was on its back, and other
nations -- like our own -- had serious problems.
But from those ashes, Harry Truman and Arthur
Vandenberg put together a foreign policy that brought
allies together, presented a common front against potential
adversaries, helped under-developed nations grow, and
become a vital part of our world society.
MORE
Page 5
And that bipartisan foreign policy, which I
learned and fortunately learned from one of the masters,
I think is the future of the world.
And we in Washington today, representing all
of you -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- should
march shoulder to shoulder to make sure that our country,
our great United States of America, gives the leadership
in consolidating friends, and gives leadership in trying
to make new contacts, broader contacts, with potential
adversaries.
What we want to build is a world of peace so that
your children and my children and their children can
live in safety and security and a better world wherever
they might live -- Grand Rapids or elsewhere.
And I pledge to you, as President of the United
States -- believe me, folks, my friends at home -- I
never thought for one minute, when Betty and I left here
in December of 1949, that I would be coming home to
all of you as your President.
But as President, I will pledge to you, as I have
pledged to you in 13 previous elections, that I will do
my best, I will be fair, I will be open, I will work, and
I will continue the love and affection and the dedication
that I have, that all of you have, for your community,
for your friends, for your State, and for your Nation.
This is what you can give and what I can give, and on
behalf of Betty and myself, I pledge you nothing but all
I can do for all of you and many like you.
Thank you very, very much.
END
(5:50 P.M.
EST)