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Speeches - Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967 [09/29/1967-12/31/1967]
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Speeches - Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967 [09/29/1967-12/31/1967]
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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,
1966-74: Press Unit
Folder Title: Speeches - Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967
[09/29/1967-12/31/1967]
Box: P17
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
N\
9
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
9.27.67
RELEASE: 8:00 p.m. EDT
Friday, September 29, 1967
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
TO SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA - SEPTEMBER 29, 1967
You know it is a pleasure to be here in South Carolina, where
there is a Republican senator and a chance to get another and a
governor. It makes Californians feel right at home.
But beyond that I get a warm feeling just remembering that most
of you, like I am, are relatively new converts to Republicanism. We
all started out as Democrats but somehow the Democratic party went
away and left us.
It left us when it switched to so many philosophies and policies
that we could not accept, the philosophy that big government is the
best government, the philosophy that Lyndon, or whoever the Democratic
president may be, knows best.
It left us when it decided a few men in Washington know better
than we do what is good for us and know better than we do how to spend
our money.
I have been protesting the growth of government for a number
of years, expressing concern lest government grow so complex as to
become unmanageable and beyond control of the people.
Daniel Webster pointed out that government always justifies its
usurpation of power on the plea of good intentions and that intention
is to better serve the people's welfare. But, he warned, in every
generation, there are those who want to rule well--but they mean to
rule. They promise to be good masters--but they mean to be masters.
Government does tend to grow because there is always so much that
can be done for the people. It is so easy for a dedicated public ser-
vant to see how much could be accomplished if only he had a little
more authority and, of course, a little more money to back that author-
ity.
Does this quote sound familiar?
"There are today a very large number of individual grant-in-aid
programs, each with its own set of special requirements, separate
authorizations and appropriations, cost-sharing ratios, allocation
- MORE -
a I I
formulas, adninistrative arrangements, and financial procedures. This
proliferation increases red tape and causes delay. It places extra
burdens on state and local officials. It hinders their comprehensive
planning. It diffuses the channels through which federal assistance to
state and local government can flow. II
Those are the words of Lyndon Baines Johnson to the United State
Congress on March 17 as he told of the failure of the present grant-
in-aid system.
And then he concluded by proposing three new grant-in-aid programs.
State ard local government are buried now under a mass of 400
federal aid appropriations, 170 separate federal aid programs, adminis-
tered by 21 federal departments and agencies, 150 Washington bureaus
and 400 regional offices.
It is no wonder the Department of Housing and Urban Development
is spending $30,000 on "A Study of the Means by which Local Govern-
ments Obtain Information on Federal Aid".
We have to spend money to find out how to give it away.
Of course some governments have not waited for federal aid in the
area of finding out how to get federal aid. California, for example,
has whole offices of people in Washington trying to get some of that
federal money. There are offices there representing the state finance
office, the legislature, the university, the state colleges and at
least three cities and one water district.
And despite all this, you know, Californians still send more
money to Washington than they get back.
We began in 1960 with a New Frontier and we progressed to a
Great Society and during the process the civilian bureaucracy of the
federal government has grown two-and-one-half times as fast as the
increase in population. The payroll increased 7½ times and total
government spending has increased 81/2 times.
Somewhere a voice says, "But that is due to the Vietnam war. "
And it is true that defense spending since 1960 is up 68 percent--but
non-defense spending is up 97 percent.
The deficits for these several years total $50 billion and the
credibility gap is almost as big.
A year ago the President assured us he would stay within the
budget and even cut it back by some $3 billion. After the election we
learned that spending would be $14 billion over the budget. Then came
- 3 -
the : irst prediction of the coming year's budget deficit: $81/2 billion.
Now they admit to $11 billion but, just in case, they've asked for
authority to accommodate a deficit of $29 billion.
I am part of government now (a funny thing happened to me on the
way to Death Valley) but I am just as fearful as I ever was about
government's capacity for growth and government's appetite for power.
I have observed first-hand government's resistance to change and
the savage anger of some when any effort is made to reduce the size
of its structure.
But I have learned also it can be reduced.
Fortunately, all of us in our administration in California were
totally inexperienced; we had not learned all the things that cannot
be done. For one thing, we set out to keep our campaign promises--
and once the people got over their shock, they sort of took to the
idea.
We put a freeze on out-of-state travel for state employees and
reduced it 78 percent. That means we reduced it by $1 million a year.
Some times it was fun doing it. I remember four men came in one
day and asked special permission to go to a seminar study group back
East we sent one and told him to come back and tell the other people.
For the first time in California the automobiles in our state
motorpools exceeded the demand on the part of state employees, and
this is reflected by a 10 percent reduction in the gasoline the state
has to buy.
We put a freeze on hiring replacements for state employees who
retired or resigned. Without a single firing or layoff, we have
reduced the number of employees by 7,659. And that is $50 million
a year.
Shortly after the Watts riots a private citizen in our state--
an industrialist--gathered his fellow industrialists and said we must
recognize that it is our responsibility to do what we can and the
thing we can do is provide jobs.
And they set to work and in a 16 month period they put 17,800 of
the hard core unemployed in the curfew area in Los Angeles into pro-
ductive jobs in private enterprise.
Immediately after the election I went to that citizen and I
asked him if he would do the same thing for the entire state and I am
happy to say that today he has put private industry to work in colla-
- 4 -
boration with our state employment service, to train and put to work
the unemployed in our poverty pockets--Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Oakland and other cities. More than 4,000 industries are actively en-
gaged in this work right now at no cost to the taxpayers.
Then we inv:.ted 200 hand-picked business and professional men in
the state of Cal:fornia into one room and we told them that up to now
everything had been asked of them but blood--now we were asking for
that. We wanted their blood. And we wanted them.
To a man they volunteered. And as I stand here tonight, there
are more than 200 of the most successful men in California who have
given up their hories and their own occupations for the next 4 to 6
months to opera', in task force teams throughout California based on
their particular specialty. They are just now finishing the job of
going into every agency and department of state government to find
out how it car, be made more efficient and more economical and how it
can practice rodern business tactics.
One of those task forces is working on standardizing the floor
space allotted to employees in government doing similar work. It is
inconceivable that a structure as big as the California Government
with 166. COO employees had never before done this fundamental thing
that is done by any business concern when it lays out its needed space--
who allocate and decide what is the standard--what is the required
floor space for the desk employee. Well, they have done that.
Recently, they nade the first recommendation to us and that
recommendation caused us on the same day to cancel out the construction
that was to start in the next month or two of a $4 million, ten-story
public building in Sacramento. It won't be needed. It won't be built.
Not all our savings are in the million dollar class.
My predecessor had his picture printed on the state maps. This
governor's picture will not be on those maps. As a matter of fact,
there will not be any maps. And that will save $192,000.
comprise
Experienced hotel men,
one of our task forces, checking our
prisons as to food buying, menus and housekeeping practices.
Another citizens' task force is doing an in-depth study of our
tax structure.
No government could possibly hire or afford the manpower now
working voluntarily in our state. And all we had to do was tell them
they were needed.
- 5 -
I do not believe this is peculiar to California. I believe that
all over America, there are citizens who believe government is their
business. All they want is to be asked and to be told how they can
be of help. Every problem that besets us, from drop-outs to disease,
from job training to student loans, is being solved someplace in this
country right now by someone who did not wait for government.
Perhaps what we need is a system of inter-communication to learn
and teach each other the solutions that have been found here and there
to head off problems before they become a government project.
Now this does not mean there is no part for government to play.
Government has a legitimate role, a most important role in taking the
lead in mobilizing the full and voluntary resources of the people.
In California, we call this partnership between the people and
government the Creative Society.
Some who are inclined to resent any dilutions of government's
influence continue to charge that people like ourselves are turning
back the clock.
Well, the Creative Society is not a retreat into the past. It
is taking the dream that gave birth to this nation, and updating it,
and making it practical for the 20th century. It is a good dream.
It is a dream that is worthy of your generation.
Where are those others? Call their philosophy the New Deal, the
New Order, or the Great Society. It is they who would take us back to
the 19th century to the rule of the many by the few even if the few
are a so-called intellectual elite in the nation's capitol.
# # #
(Please note: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there
may be additions to, or changes in, the above. However, Governor
Reagan will stand by the above quotes.)
-
X
at
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Sacramento, Californi,
RELEASE:
Sq urday, September 30th
Contact:
Paul Beck
6:30 P.M. (c.d.t.)
445-4571
9.27.67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
are
Republican State Central Committee, Milwaukee
9-30-67
Early in this decade, half-way around the world, a disciple of
Ghandi's passive resistance--Pandit Nehru--lived in a world of colla-
boration--playing off east against west and believing he had the
situation well in hand. In 1962 came a rude awakening when the Red
Chinese poured across his border. Nehru promptly went into seclusion.
Reuters of London--which has known every contact in Asia for decades--
was two days in finding him. It asked for an evaluation of the sit-
uation. He gave Reuters just eight words: "Ne have been out of touch
with reality.'
Have we been out of touch with reality?
Is this the message of last Nov. 3th? Did a restless people--a
vibrant people--express their discontent with the tired old cliches
of the 30's? Did they tell us they were too self-reliant to sell
their dreams of the future for the dull security of the ant heap?
My fellow Republicans--I urge you to read the message of last
Nov. 8th very carefully. Ours was no narrow partisan victory last
year. And ours will be no narrow partisan victory next year.
A wind of change is blowing across our land. Democrats and inde-
pendents alike are joining hands with us to protest at the polls what
has been going on in their governments.
Last year:
They voted against going deeper and deeper into debt when we are
supposed to be more prosperous than man has ever been.
They voted against a war on poverty which poverty is losing.
They voted against the idea that we can, as a state or nation,
afford anything and everything simply because we think of it.
And because most people believe in reward for productive labor,
they voted against giving that reward to those who are able to but
unwilling to work.
- 1 -
They voted again the idea that government ( 'st grow ever larger,
more costly, more powerful.
They voted against continuing an easy atmosphere of peace and
prosperity while some young Americans are dying in defense of
freedom.
We have reached a turning point in time.
It is our destiny--the destiny of our party--to raise a banner
for the people of all parties to follow but choose the colors well,
for the people are not in a mood to follow the sickly pastels of
expediency- cynical shades of those who buy the people's votes
with the people's money.
Thousands upon thousands of Americans today are groping for
answers to their doubts--seeking a cause in which they can invest
their idealism and energy. And because there can be no vacuus
the area of human relations, some of them are finding the wrong cause
Politics as usual would indicate that we should be taking posi-
tions not unattractive from any viewpoint. But statesmenship demands
that we face reality with faith in the people's wisdom.
Half a million fighting men in Vietnam are dependent on a life-
line of ships threading through the Russian-built mines and torpedoes
in the harbor of Caigon. Somehow these bring on no talk of escalation.
Yet, Russian-built munitions to kill those fighting men enter the
unmined harbor at Haiphong to the north and are told that if we do
what the enemy does and mine that harbor the war will grow bigger and
more terrible.
In the meantime our leaders offer a trade deal to help increase
Russia's industrial capacity. The press reports that our government
has in mind the purchase of giant generators from Russia for our own
Grand Coulee Iam while we worry about the unemployed.
It would be the height of folly for us to attack the patriotism
and the sincerity of those who believe that the enemy's hostility and
announced intention to destroy our way of life will turn to friendship
if, regardless of provocation, we add to his strength.
But, we can challenge their naivety and their lack of touch with
reality.
- 2 -
Within a one we period we have seen a war/ 1 the Mid-East begin,
and end, and it did not bring on "orld War III.
A small nation, faced with the denial of its sovereignty--indeed,
of its very existence--reminded us that the price of freedom is high
but never so costly as the loss of freedom.
Once again, when the sound of battle came, men in high place in
our government were caught by surprise. Having backed away from
those decisions they should have made earlier, they are faced with
drastic and extreme alternatives.
Those have followed our banner--the Republican banner-want to
know and should know our stand on those issues and problems that plague
our nation.
Because freedom is indivisible, we must make it clear we oppose
all those who deny freedom to anyone in our land because of race,
religion or national origin.
We must guarantee every citizen his right to share in an abundant
society proportionate to his ability. But we will not tolerate those
who use either "civil rights" or the "right of dissent" as an excuse
to take to the streets for riot and mob violence--under the euphymism
of civil disobedience.
Let our banner also say we will accept responsibility for elimi-
nating the poverty of the genuinely poor, but that we shall deny the
arrogant misuse of poverty funds for political nest-building.
Tell them we will oppose the use of taxation and deficit-spending
as a means of control in the market place.
Here, in the richest nation in the world where more crime is
committed than in any other nation, we are told that the answer to this
problem is to reduce our poverty. Well, this is a worthy goal in
itself, but it isn't the answer.
During the dark days of the depression, when poverty was rampant,
the crime rate was at an all time low.
Government's function is to protect the society from the criminals,
and not the other way around.
The criminal is responsible for his misdeeds, not society. His
punishment must be swift and certain. Trials are held to determine
-3-
guilt or innocence.
ey are not exercises in
t
use
of
legal
tech-
nicalities.
In short, our banner must be a symbol of our belief that government
exists for the convenience of the people--that our national purpose is
to provide ::he ultimate in individual freedom, consistent with law and
order.
And if this is the banner you would raise, then you have come to
the moment cf truth.
All that we believe with regard to individual freedom and the
limitation. of the pover of government rests with us.
We have within our power the ability to broaden the base of our
party.
A year ago how hopeless was the picture? One party ruled this
nation. One man ruling that party. The two party system dead. And
out of our despair we came together in unity. A unity we have never
known before in our party and on November 8th--and I believe history
will record that date--we restored the two party system.
If you believe in the causes we have discussed here tonight, then--
when you go forth from this place--go determined that no member of the
opposition party will ever be able to quote your words about a fellow
Republican to bring about that Republican's defeat.
Resolve now, that no remembered bitterness as a result of organ-
izational strife, nor remembered grudge, will keep you from supporting
the cause that brings us together.
Do this: go out of here determined that there is nothing more
important than the challenge confronting you, the challenge that in
reality confronts our entire nation--and I tell you then in a very
short time you will hear the voice of this party and this people.
The tone will be unmistakeable.
It will cry of victory.
Thank you.
(Note
Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above. However, Governor Reagan will
stand by the above quotes.)
4
01/01
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE - FRIDAY AM's
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
10-12-67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF REPUBLICAN WOMEN BANQUET
SAN FRANCISCO OCTOBER 12, 1967
There were some who reacted with shocked horror when we pro-
ceeded to do the things we promised we would in the campaign, even
though they seemingly approved them at that time.
We learned the savage anger with which some in government can
fight back and actually sabotage efforts to reduce the size and
power of government.
And as they got their propaganda mill grinding, I'm sure you
must have been confused, and found you lacked answers, particularly
when our opponents challenged you for an answer.
Let me tell you, sometimes I'm confused when I read what I'm
supposedly doing. For the most part the press has been very fair
and objective. But a few publications let ideology get in the way
of their objectivity. I can read what they say I'm doing and get
SO mad at myself I go out and sign a recall petition.
There's only one way to avoid controversy and that is to do
nothing.
There was and is, for example, tuition. Now I have no
quarrel with those who choose to disagree with me either on
philosophical grounds or the practical virtues or lack of same.
I do suggest there has been considerable distortion of what we
advocated and a great deal of silence about the details of the
program offered.
And frankly, I'm fed up with hearing a debate on the relative
merits of free education versus the other kind. The debate
properly is: since eduction is very costly, who should pay and
what's a fair share for those getting the benefit.
- 1 -
And since no one in the academic community has seen fit to
mention the plan we proposed and the reasons back of it I would
like to do so briefly here and now.
Our great university system offers a premium education to
those who rate in the top 12½ percent scholastically of their high
school class. Since little effort is made to make this education
available to those from lower income groups, those attending the
university come from families of comparable means to those attend-
ing our private and independent schools such as Stanford and USC.
Problem No. 1 then is providing an education for children of
the lower income families. Problem No. 2 is the high dropout rate
in our university. Problem No. 3 is the dissatisfaction of students
with so many professors engaged in research rather than teaching.
Problem No. 4 is that in our rapid expansion to match our growth
there are never enough state funds so that new courses have to be
delayed.
We suggested a tuition only one-sixth of that charged at
Southern California and actually less than one-tenth of the cost
of educating a student. If accepted it would provide a combi-
nation of grants and loans to needy students. With the grant
getting larger and the loan smaller each year to encourage the
student to go on and get his diploma. The loans of course to be
paid back after graduation.
In addition, this tuition would also provide for 250 new
teaching chairs with $25,000 salaries for professors who would
teach. And it would leave several million dollars for capital
building projects each year to help keep pace with our growth.
Now apparently all these suggestions prove I am against youth,
education and intellectualism.
Let me add something I'm for and all Republicans should be.
Legislation now hung up in congressional committees which would
grant full tax credits to parents paying tuition to educate their
sons and daughters.
I I 2
I'm sure that many of you are disturbed by charges that this
administration is practicing economy at the expense of the mentally
ill. Several days ago in L.A. I read a melodramatic account of
deteriorating care for the mental patients and even how one might
have been saved from suicide if more care had been available.
The writer very carefully refrained from making it clear
the suicide occured the year before I took office. Now very simply
what we've done is to continue the policy that put California out
in front of the nation in mental health care. From 1960 to July,
1966 the number of patients in our mental hospitals declined by
more than 10,000. The number of employees increased by more than
1,000.
While maintaining the ratio of patient and employee of July,
1966, in the hospital. We are seeking at the same time to upgrade
the program of local care for patients which has already proven
successful and which has reduced the patient population in the
hospital.
A few days ago the National Association of State Mental Health
groups revealed our increased support for these local programs is
the largest in history and where a year ago there was $13.38 per diem
spending for each mental patient, this is now $15 per patient.
# # #
NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes there may be additions
to, or changes in the above. However, Governor Reagan will stand by
the above quotes.
101
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
10.13.67
FOR RELEASE SUNDAY AM's
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Louisville, Kentucky
October 14, 1967
I can just hear the opposition getting ready to level the charge
of carpetbagger., and if I were here to give you advice on who should
represent you in government, perhaps their charge would be justified.
But you've already made that decision.
Actually, I'm here to commend you on the wisdom of that decision
and to suggest additional reasons why the people of this land and in
every state of this land, regardless of party affiliation, should
compare the philosophy of the Republican Party with that of the pres-
ent national leadership. And why, after such a critical appraisal,
they should elect to follow our party's lead.
Of course, you have visitors and they will tell you who you
should vote for, just as they've been trying to tell each one of us
how to run our lives for lo these many years.
We had quite a tourist trade in California last year during
our election. The Vice President, practically all of the Cabinet,
some well known in-laws, and a couple of Senators.
One of them, a young Senator from Massachusetts, came to warn
the people of California against voting for someone totally inexper-
ienced in public life. Now, if memory serves me correctly, that young
Senator had never held office before he became a Senator. As a matter
of fact, he'd never held a job.
From the "New Frontier" of 1960 we have progressed to a "Great
Society.' And during the process the civilian bureaucracy of the
federal government has grown two and a half times as fast as the in-
crease in population.
The payroll has increased seven and a half times, and total
government spending has gone up eight and a half times.
Population in this period increased by ten percent. But spending
for health and welfare was multiplied twenty-one times as much as that
increase in population-210 percent.
Thirty-two million Americans now receive regular checks from
the federal government, either directly or from states under aid pro-
grams financed largely with federal funds.
With the nation's work force at something more than seventy
million people, it's easy to see that less than two of us are respon-
sible for each one of those checks. Government welfare programs num-
ber 239 in 1964, 399 in 1966, and now total more than 450. And there
is no end in sight.
A government program is the nearest thing to eternal life we
will ever see on this earth. Government spending will more than
double in this decade and undoubtedly double again in the 1970's.
At the same time, there are unfunded commitments for retirement
benefits, pensions, subsidies and other items, totalling more than
a thousand billion dollars.
Each program is adopted on a thin edge of the web with the
unspoken knowledge that it's cost will go up.
Since 1960 we added fifty billion dollars to our deficit and
have drained away our gold to where we fear for the solvency of our
currency. Indeed, the coins we jingle in our pocket no longer have
the ring of silver.
I remember when I was a small boy; a streetcar ran past our
house, and when we could get our hands on a penny we rushed out and
put it on the streetcar track, waiting for the next car to come by
and flatten it into a nice, round, shiny piece of copper. Now the
federal government is doing it and selling them for a quarter.
Last March 17th, the Congress of the United States heard these
words. "There are today a very large number of individual grant-in-
aid programs, each with its own set of special requirements, separate
authorizations and appropriations, cost sharing ratios, allocation
formulas, administrative arrangements and financial procedures.
"This proliferation increases red tape and causes delay. It
places extra burdens on.' state and local officials. It hinders
their comprehensive planning. It diffuses the channels through which
federal assistance to state and local governments can flow."
Thus spoke Lyndon Baines Johnson as he told of the failure of
the present federal grant-in-aid system, and then he concluded by
proposing three new grant-in-aid programs.
State and local government are buried now under a mass of more
than four hundred federal aid appropriations. One hundred seventy
separate federal aid programs administered by twenty-one federal
departments and agencies, one hundred fifty Washington bureaus, and
on "a study of the means by which local governments obtain information
on federal aid. il We have to spend money to find out how to give it
away.
When the "Welfare State" was first conceived, in the dark days
of the depression, most of us accepted it, not only because we all
felt and still feel our responsibility to lend a helping hand to those
suffering misfortune; but we believed we were adopting temporary reme-
dies and that we would return to our customary independent ways when
the emergency had passed.
But now we see the temporary remedies have become a permanent
way of life. Welfare recipients, sometimes the third generation of
a single family, live on public subsistance. But even as the plans
fail to achieve their objective, always the planners have new answers,
and always the new answers have an old familiar ring. They are just
more of the same thing that didn't work in the first place.
We have been told the problems are too complex for simple answers,
until gradually we have accepted government by mystery. The idea that
only a chosen elite in the nation's Capitol can make the decisions
and find the answers.
Government is a mystery and it is certainly doing nothing to
make it simpler. There seems to have evolved a special kind of govern-
ment language, incomprehensible to simple citizens like ourselves.
For example, what does a city councilman or a county commissioner,
or even a governor do when he receives a report from the Department
of Housing and Urban Development, that reads, "Action oriented orches-
tration of innovation inputs, generated by escalation of meaningful
indigenous decision making dialogue, focusing on multi-linked problem
complexes, can maximize the vital thrust toward a nonalienated and
viable, urban infrastructure. If
I have been protesting the growth of government for a number
of years, expressing concern lest government grow so complex as to
become unmanageable and beyond the control of the people.
Daniel Webster said, Government always justifies its usurpation
of power, on the plea of good intentions and that intention is to bet-
ter serve the people's welfare." But of course, we all know there
is a well-known road that is paved with good intentions, but no one
wants to go where it leads. Then Daniel Webster warned that in every
generation there are those who want to rule well, but they mean to
rule. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Government tends to grow because there is always so much that
can be done for the people. It is easy for the dedicated public serv-
ant to see how much could be accomplished, if only we had a little
more authority and, of course, a little more money to back that author-
ity.
I know no Republican gathering could be held in this place
unless it contained a great many former Democrats and perhaps many
who are still affiliated with that party. I know you are present
because you, too, are deeply disturbed over the course our country
has been following these recent years. I know, too, the feeling of
guilt or betrayal that some of you feel particularly those who have
changed party registration. I know because I, too, felt that wrench
and was surprised to discover how deeply ingrained is the sense of
party loyalty.
I was a Democrat most of my life and only recently found I could
no longer follow the leadership of my party. If there has been betrayal,
it has not been we who have betrayed our party. The guilt is not ours.
When the leadership of that party repudiated the constitutional
concepts of individual freedom, local autonomy and states' rights;
when it embraced the 19th century philosophy of rule of the many by
the few; that one man in the White House was omnipotent, and that a
little intellectual elite in the nation's Capitol can engage in social
tinkering even to the extent of telling working men and women of this
nation how and with whom they must share the fruit of their labor,
then I say the leadership of that party betrayed us.
Today the leadership of the honorable party of Jefferson and
Jackson has abandoned the dream of individual freedom, has lost its
faith in the people's ability to determine their own destiny, believes
only in centralized government and an all-powerful state. We find it
is the Republican Party that is polarized around a belief in consti-
tutional limits on the power of government, belief in the right of
the individual to freedom of choice, a belief in a federal system of
sovereign states and not just administrative districts of a central
government.
Look at the platform of the Democratic Party of 1942 with its
promise of a 25% cut in federal spending, an end to deficit spending,
and reduction of the national debt. A return to the people and to
local and state governments the constitutional rights, which even then
was claimed had heen taken from the noonin
Read the message of last November 8th very carefully. Ours was
not a narrow partisan victory, a political triumph by a party seeking
power and prestige. A wind of change is blowing across our land.
Millions of Americans--Democrats, Independents and Republicans joining
hands voting against what has been going on, voting against going deeper
and deeper into debt as a nation, while inflation erodes their pensions
and savings and outstrips their ability to earn. They voted against
the idea that as a nation we can afford anything and everything simply
because we think of it.
The working men and women of this nation voted against taxing
themselves to provide medical care and a standard of living for others
that was often more than they could afford for their own families. They
voted against the idea that government must always grow larger, more
costly and more powerful, and they voted against continuing an easy
atmosphere of peace and prosperity while young Americans are dying in
defense of freedom.
We have reached a turning point in time. It is our destiny, the
destiny of our Party to raise a banner for the people of all parties
to follow.
Choose the colors well, for the people are not in a mood to fol-
low the sickly pastels of expediency, the cynical shades of those who
would buy the peoples' votes with the peoples' money.
Thousands^ upon thousands of Americans, those forgotten men and
women who work and support the communities and pay for all the social
experimenting are groping for answers to their doubts, seeking a cause
in which they can invest their idealism and their energy. They are
too self reliant to sell their dreams of the future for the dull secur-
ity of the antique.
They believe in this nation as a nation under God, and that our
national purpose is to provide the ultimate in individual freedom
consistent with law and order. That their freedom is theirs by
divine right and not by government whim. They love peace, but not
at any price. They believe that a cause worth dying for is a cause
worth winning.
I know that politics as usual would indicate that our party
should take positions not unattractive from any viewpoint, but
statesmanship demands that we face reality with a faith in the people's
wisdom. And there is a need for statesmanship today.
-5-
Democrats
can
+y redirect their party's
licy and philosophy
by repudiating the present party leadership, and that gives us Repub-
licans an awesome responsibility. All that we believe with regard
to individual freedom and limitation of the power of government rests
with us. We have within our power the ability to broaden the base of
our party.
One year ago how hopeless was the picture. One party ruled
this nation and one man ruled that party. The two-party system was
alive only in memory or theory. Out of despair we came together in
unity, a unity we've never known before in our party.
Let history record that on November 8th last we restored the
two-party system. Many of the problems we have touched on can only
be solved at the national level, but the realities of our political
system reveal the road back lies through the state house.
No political party can fulfill its obligations on the national
level unless it has control of the states and the state house.
your Congressman, ask those Republicans who represent you in Washington
what a help it would be if behind them were a Republican Administration
in their state.
You have before you an inspiring example of unity in the presenc
here, in the participation in tonight's dinner of Judge Cook. You
have your candidate in Louie Nunn. Take your example from them. Let
us have unity now, not out of despair, but out of determination. If
you believe in the causes we have discussed tonight, then when you
go forth from this place, go determined that no member of the opposi-
tion party will ever be able to quote your words about a fellow Repub-
lican to bring about that Republican's defeat.
Resolve now that no remembered bitterness as a result of organi-
zational strife, no remembered grudge will keep you from supporting a
cause that brings us together. Millions of Americans in a voting bloc
that crosses racial, religious and ethnic lines are watching, and
millions of young Americans, our sons and daughters, are waiting to
see if once again we let ourselves be divided by the shading of liberal
conservative or moderate, applied complete with hyphen before the
word Republican. They watch to see if we place more importance on
those shadings than on the challenge that confronts us, for with
youthful wisdom they know the price they will pay if we fail to meet
our challenge.
The stake we play for is the future in which they must live.
T6/01
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: P.M.'s, THURSDAY
Sacramento, California
OCTOBER 26
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
10.24.67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Alf Landon Lecture, Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas - October 26, 1967
I am speaking here today neither as an academician nor as a poli-
tician. I do not have the training to be the first nor the aspiration
to be the second. That leaves me the role of concerned citizen, and
among my concerns is higher education and its place in contemporary
America.
Listing the problems is easy-solutions are a little harder to
come by. For example, there is the problem of financing the increas-
ing cost of higher education. I have some first-hand experience with
that one, but I cannot lay claim to having the answer. Nor do I think
that university president has the answer who stated bluntly that the
academic community's only responsibility was to tell government its
needs, and government's obligation was not to question but to simply
come up with the money. This was higher education and contemporary
America meeting eyeball to eyeball.
Strange as it may seem, there is a limit to what government can
extract from the body of the citizenry - a limit fixed, not by pity
or unwillingness to wield the scalpel, but by the hard fact that un-
less that body of citizenry is able to function on a 9 - to - 5 basis,
the schoolhouse door will not open at all.
Government's share of the wealth has to stop short of interfering
with the production of wealth. Higher education explains it as having
to do with the law of diminishing returns.
Then, of course, having decided on and collected its share, govern
ment must allocate. So much for roads--so much for protection against
the law breaker--for help to those who must depend on the rest of us
for sustenance- for health--and, of course, for education, elementary
through college and university.
Never, according to those engaged in these various facets of
government, is there sufficient funding for all that needs to be done.
But when government is taking all the economy will bear, choices must
-1-
be made, and, if educ ion demands an increase in Funds greater than
the normal workload increase occasioned by growth and higher prices,
then it must be taken from some other program.
How this should not be interpreted as minimizing the importance of
education. No one denies the value of a higher education for all
those able to assimilate one. Indeed, a vast network of institutions
of higher learning, both public and private, is essential if we are t.
maintain our nation as the world's leader in science and technology.
Nor does anyone deny the growing needs in our nation for teachers, for
doctors, lawyers, economists and sociologists, and yes in these days,
not only for a literate public, but also for a well-educated and know-
ledgeable populace.
Alfred Whitehead said, "In the conditions of modern life, the rule
is absolute: The race which does not value trained intelligence is
doomed."
There is no question but that Americans all over this land have
assigned a high priority to education. It is also true that the cost
of education is increasing faster than the increase in public funds.
A more sophisticated answer is needed than just "come up with more
money."
I suggested a partial answer in California based on the theory
that good tax policy involves assessing at least a part of the charge
for a service against those receiving the service. In a word, I pro-
posed tuition at our State University and Colleges. The result was
cataclysmic. I could not have branded myself as any more "anti-
intellectual" if I had said, "Me Tarzan, you Jane."
Actually, there was much more to my proposal than just a method
for collecting revenue.
The students enjoying the benefits of public higher education in
California come from the same income levels as those attending the
private or independent schools such as Stanford and U.S.C. Very few
from low income families can take advantage of the educational oppor-
tunities made available by the taxpayers of California.
With this in mind, half of the funds from the proposed tuition
would go for a combination of loans and grants-in-aid to needy students.
-2-
And since another problem in our University
an exceptionally
high dropout rate, we tried to cope with that. Our plan called for
75% loan and 25% grant the first year, 50-50 the second year,
75% grant and only 25% loan the third year, and 100% grant the fourth
year. The loans, of course, would be repaid after graduation.
Another problem at our University is the unhappiness of students
over lack of contact with professors engaged more in research than in
teaching. To help meet this problem, one-fourth of the tuition money
would provide for 250 new teaching chairs at the University and the
remaining fourth could be applied to capital construction of needed
facilities.
Since all of this could be accomplished with a tuition that
amounted to less than 10% of the cost of the education, we did not
think the proposal was punitive.
May I add that, if we adhere to the idea that everything adds to
the educational experience, I believe there is some merit in the student
accepting responsibility for a portion of the cost of his education--
as long as no qualified student is denied an education because of lack
of funds.
There are benefits and burdens that accrue both to the individual
and to society, and the burdens, including the burden of cost, must be
borne by both.
But if all the problems of finance could be solved tomorrow, there
would still be cause for concern about the place of higher education
in contemporary America.
What is our definition of academic freedom?
Those who teach, understandably enough, define it as the right to
teach as they see fit without interference from administrators and
certainly not from those who hold the public purse strings or who fill
the public purse.
But those who pay for the education, students and taxpayers, also
have a definition of academic freedom: their freedom to have some say
in what they get for their money.
Those holding public office try to interpret the will of the
people and pass it on to the university administration, conscious
always that they must not appear to be exerting political control over
education. Equally uncomfortable are the administrators who must in-
terpret the educators' viewpoint to the crass politicians and vice
versa--they can be likened to a prisoner in front of a cellophane wall
being shouted at by both sides.
-3-
And
the
truth
is--all
the
claims
ciled within a framew X of mutual understanding d compromise.
The dictionary defines education as "the impartation or acquisi-
tion of knowledge, skill, or the development of character as by study
or discipline.
The taxpayer is wrong who ignores the great increase in things we
know--knowledge acquired since he was in school--and who demands "no
new-fangled courses. What was good enough then is good enough now."
But so is the student wrong who would eliminate all required courses
and grades-- who would make education a kind of four-year smorgasbord
in which he would be the sole judge of how far and fast he ran in pur-
suit of knowledge.
And that educator is wrong who denies there are any absolutes--
who sees no black and white of right or wrong, but just shades of gray
in a world where discipline of any kind is an intolerable interference
with the right of the individual. He rebels at the oldfashioned idea
of "loco parentis" and claims he is there to impart knowledge, not to
substitute for absentee parents. But he can not escape a responsibility
for the students' development of character and maturity.
Strangely and illogically, this is very often the same educator
(
who interprets his academic freedom as the right to indoctrinate
students with his view of things. Woe to the student who challenges
his interpretation of history, or who questions the economic theory
given as proven formula in what is, at best, a very inexact science.
One thing we should all be agreed on is the university's obliga-
tion to teach, not indoctrinate.
Institutions of higher education are repositories of all the
accumulated knowledge of man, but they must not be vending machines.
Along with the dispensing of facts and figures must come the production
of wisdom.
In our colleges today are undoubtedly more than one Fresident of
the United States, a number of Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet members
and many Legislators.
And this brings me to the part higher education plays in contempor-
ary America.
These institutions were created, and are presently maintained, to
insure perpetuation of a social structure--a nation, if you will.
Now don't put a narrow interpretation on this as some will, and
translate "social structure" into "status quo" or "social order" or
"preserve the aristocracy; keep the little bananas from becoming top
banana If
Our country, unf tunately, has a lot of peor who would turn the
country back to the dark ages, or ahead to 1984. Some have a concept
of government more akin to Frederick the Great than Thomas Jefferson.
Our nation is founded on a concern for the individual and his right
to fulfillment, and this should be the preoccupation of our schools and
colleges.
The graduate should go forth, literally starting on a lifetime of
learning and growing and creativity that will in turn bring growth and
innovation to our society.
And the truth is--never in history has there been such a need for
men and women of wisdom and courage--wisdom to absorb the knowledge of
the past and plan its application to the present and future, and courage
to make the hard decisions.
At Stanford University in 1906 William James said, "The wealth of
a nation consists more than in anything else in the number of superior
men that it harbors. "
At the risk of great oversimplication may I suggest that the great
ideological split dividing us on the world scene and here within our
own borders has to do with the place of the individual.
Acceptance is given more and more to the concept of lifting men
by mass movements and collective action, in spite of the fact that
history is strangely barren of any record of advances made in this
manner. By contrast, the road from the swamp to the stars is studded
with the names of individuals who achieved fulfillment and lifted man-
kind another rung.
It is time we realized what we mean by "equality" and being "born
equal".
We are equal before God and the law, and our society guarantees
that no acquisition of property during our lifetime, nor achievement,
no matter how exemplary, should give us more protection than those of
less prestige, nor should it exempt us from any of the restrictions and
punishments imposed by law.
But let there be no misunderstanding about the right of man to
achieve above the capacity of his fellows. The world is richer because
of a Shakespeare and a Tennyson, a Beethoven and a Brahms. Certainly
major league baseball would not be improved by letting every citizen who
wanted to, have a turn at playing Willie Mays position.
We live (even many so-called poor) at a level above the wildest
dreams of the kings of one hundred years ago--because some individual
-5-
thought of a horseless carriage, an ice box and ter a refrigerator,
or machinery that lifted burdens from our backs.
(I would have thrown
in television if I were still appearing on Death Valley Days. )
Why did SO much of this develop so far and fast in America? Other
countries are blessed with natural resources and equable climate--yes,
and energetic and talented people.
But here, to a degree unequalled any place in the world, we unleashed
the individual genius of man, recognized his inherent dignity, and
rewarded him commensurate with his ability and achievement.
Your generation is being wooed by many who charge this way we
have known is inadequate to meet the challenges of our times. They
point to the unsolved problems of poverty and prejudice as proof of
the system's failure.
As students, you have a duty to research to find if the failure
is one of system--or is it the inadequacy of human nature?
You should also inquire if those who would replace the system
have anything to offer in exchange other than untried theory packaged
as Utopia. It sometimes seems strange that what is so often described
as the brave new world of the future must be upheld by the collectivist
philosophy of nineteenth century theorists like Rousseau, Fourier and
Marx.
You have lived your entire lives in a governmental framework tend-
ing ever more toward the welfare state and centralism. We still have
government of the people, by the people and for the people, but there
seems to be a lot more of "for" the people and less "of" and "by". This
is justified on the claim that society has grown so complex we can no
longer afford too much individual freedom.
To invoke "states' rights' is to be suspect of wanting to deny
"human rights" and similar charges of selfishness greet any attack on
the tendency of government to grow, but more particularly when atten-
tion is called to failures by government in the field of human welfare.
But you are students and therefore engaged in a search for truth.
Has the idea of a federation of sovereign states been proven un-
workable because here and there selfish individuals used state govern-
ment to impose on the freedom of some? Isn't there something to be
said for a system wherein people can vote with their feet if govern-
ment becomes too oppressive? Let a state pile on taxes beyond a bear-
able limit and business and industry start moving out and the people
follow.
-6-
these states become au inistrative districts enfo. Ling uniform laws and
regulations.
If I may personalize here, let me tell you some of what we have
learned in California these past nine months.
California--that is where they give governors on-the-job-training.
Being totally inexperienced, I had not learned all the things you can-
not do, SO I set out to keep my campaign promises. And once the people
got over their shock they sort of took to the idea.
By every rule of reason, government "of" and "by" the people must
be superior to any other kind.
No government could possibly muster a group capable of making the
multitudinous decisions that must be made every day to keep a society
like ours moving.
If a state is to be great it must call upon the greatness of the
people. And the people must be prepared to give a portion of their
time to public affairs because government is their business.
The only alternative to the people running government is govern-
ment running the people.
We put together a blue ribbon citizens committee to recruit per-
sonnel for the administrative posts that had to be filled by appointment.
They did not just screen applicants for public jobs; they persuaded
top level people in business and the professions to take jobs which
represented tremendous personal sacrifice in salary in almost every
case.
Then we invited the most successful citizens of our state to lunch
and locked the doors. We outlined a plan for bringing their knowledge
to bear on government. They were asked to give up their own careers
for a period of from four to six months, to work full-time as members
of task forces going into every agency and department of government
to see how government could be made more efficient and economical by
the use of modern business practices.
And we asked them to put up the $250,000 it would take for ad-
ministrative overhead in this undertaking. They volunteered to a man
and they have just completed more than six months full-time away from
their own pursuits and even their families.
We are correlating their reports and putting their recommendations
into operation. They range from methods of buying supplies to data-
processing, from rotating department heads to consolidating files.
-7-
By applying the floor space standards of private industry to our
own office employees, we will reduce this year our need for office
space by two million square feet. We have already cancelled construc-
tion of a four million dollar building.
On their recommendations our phone bill will be reduced by twelve
million dollars a year. Our budget for out-of-state travel by state
employees has been cut 78% and we have reduced the number of employees
by 2½ without a layoff or firing. We simply stopped hiring replace-
ments for those who resigned or retired. Until this year the number of
state employees had gone up each of the last eight years anywhere from
4 to 5½
We have embarked on something we call the "Creative Society" It
is nothing more than a full-time effort to involve the independent sec-
tor in finding and solving problems before government comes rushing in
with bureaus that always seem to multiply like wire coat hangers in a
closet.
Already we have thousands of industries--2, 600 in Los Angeles,
1,500 in San Francisco and so on throughout the state--organized and
working in cooperation with our state employment service to match the
hard-core unemployed in our poverty-pockets with jobs they can do or
can be trained to do. The man in charge is working for no salary and
the cost of the program is borne by the industries.
Contrast this with the proposed poverty program I vetoed several
weeks ago. It, too, was aimed at the hard-core unemployed. It was going
to put seventeen of them to work clearing park land, but half the funds
went for seven administrators to oversee the seventeen unemployed.
We need you--but we need you not just with a head full of packaged
information marching in the ranks.
We need you asking why, if we are so prosperous, should the numbers
of those on welfare increase each year? Shouldn't welfare, if it is
successful, be reducing the need for itself? Will we consider it a
success when all of us are on public subsistence or should we judge
its success, on how many people it rescues from the dole?
We need answers to crime and why it has reached a critical point.
Just blaming it on poverty will not do, because in the poverty of the
great depression crime was at its lowest level and now in prosperity
it has reached its peak.
Higher education in contemporary America has a sacred obligation
to instill attitudes toward growth and learning that will in turn
-8-
shape society. You are here to find yourselves as individuals, to at
least have a chance t. realize your potential.
The world is full of people who believe men need masters. Our
society was founded on a different premise, but continuation of this
way of ours is not inevitable. It will persist only if we care enough.
We must care too much to settle for a non-competitive mediocrity. Only
the best that is in each of us will do.
If it has seemed that we have left your generation with no cause
to believe in, no banner to follow--you do have a cause. here in this
land.
For one tick of history's clock we gave the world a shining golden
hope. Mankind looked to us. Now the door is closing on that hope and
it could be your destiny to keep it open.
###
NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes there may be additions
to, or changes in the above. However, Governor Reagan will stand by
the above quotes.
-9-
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
MEMO TO THE PRESS
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
10-25-67
Correction to excerpts from speech by Governor Ronald Reagan, Alf
Landon Lecture, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas - October 26,
1967.
Page 8, Paragraph 2 -- "On their recommendations our phone bill
will be reduced by two million dollars a year. "
# # #
$
-
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNO
FOR REJ EASE: Tuesday,
Sacramento, Californi
October 31, 1967
Contact:
Paul Beck
10:00 a.m.
445-4571
10-30-67
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
AT CHILE-CALIFORNIA CONFERENCE
Sacramento, October 31, 1967
I am pleased and impressed with the tremendous response to the
invitations to this meeting. In this room are many of the leaders of
California's educational, professional and industrial community. Thank
you for coming to this Chile-California Conference.
Today marks the end of one program and the beginning of another.
As of today we are ending a relationship with the U. S. Agency for
International Development (AID), which began in 1964 and under which
California has been a contractor for a technical aid program, fully
funded by the U. S. government.
We will not dwell on the reasons why this is being terminated.
It is enough to say that we were disappointed that AID in Washing-
ton saw fit to delay and question and postpone decisions affecting our
participation in this program to the point that we felt we had no
choice but to terminate our relationship with them.
So we are here today to discuss what might appear to some of you
to be a ridiculous program. A Chile-California Program without funds.
An aid program without government money? You could ask with consider-
able justification, why try to keep it going? What is so special about
Chile?
Well, Chile is something special to California, and to Californians
for a lot of reasons. We have had a long relationship with this friend
of ours to the South.
During our earliest days, Chilean farmers grew many of the foods
which fed our 49'ers. In his book, "Recuerdos del Pasado", the Chilean
historian and adventurer, Vicente Perez Rosales, tells of his visits
to Sacramento in 1849.
Chileans provided the first assistance to the people of San Fran-
cisco after the great earthquake and fire of 1906.
Californians have reciprocated upon many occasions, especially
during recent years when devastating earthquakes have caused tragic
losses to our Chilean friends.
A broad exchange of students, businessmen, teachers, doctors and
tourists has continued to draw California and Chile closer together.
(
Our similarity of climates, our common Spanish heritage, which
leaves us with cities of the same names, our sharing of the favored
Pacific currents, give us much in common.
This is the reason a Chile-California Program was started. This
is why we, today, can easily answer the question, "Why Chile?". Our
friendship cannot be disregarded. We want to do everything we can to
expand it, to bring more and more people of all walks of life in each
country into a new, broader, more meaningful "people-to-people" relation
ship.
I mentioned that there will be no funds. In addition, we must
make it clear that the State of California cannot legally engage in
a formal foreign aid program. But at the same time we must reassure
our Chilean friends that U. S. assistance programs will continue with-
out substantial change because of the change in the Chile-California
Program. First of all, it is important to note that the State of
California never expended as much as 1% of the total U. S. AID funds
to Chile: in any of the three years we operated as a foreign aid agency.
Secondly, we must remind our Chilean friends that great non-government
U. S. programs also are continuing, including a five million dollars
a year grant to support a valuable program involving the University
of California and the University of Chile.
And, of course, U. S. businessmen and tourists continue to pour
vast sums of money into the Chilean economy.
But even though we've got a lot going with Chile, I would like to
see more.
The purpose of this conference is to focus attention on our Chile-
California relationship in the hopes that a major expansion in our
total exchange will result. An exchange which will benefit both the
State of California and Chile.
I think there is a great opportunity here for us, as Californians,
to build a non-government program, a "people-to-people" effort which
will not only augment the program of our government but also add a
totally new dimension to it.
Where do we start? I think we all agree that agriculture is the
place to begin. Chile, like California, is blessed with a mild climate,
good soils, and ample water for irrigation. We are interested in
seeing if the things we've found work in California also will work in
-2-
Chile, if our ways an methods can be used to adv ntage by Chilean
farmers, if they and we can jointly find better ways of growing and
harvesting and distributing crops and livestock products.
We are proud of the students we have sent to Chile and pleased
with the fine Chilean students who have come to study here. As the
years go by the total results of exchanges such as these cannot but
improve our understanding and friendship for one another. We would
like to expand upon student exchanges with Chile.
I am particularly proud of the Sister-City relationships which
our California cities, such as Sausalito, Millbrae and Long Beach have
entered into with cities in Chile. I hope other California cities will
take advantage of the Sister-City idea and take a look at cities in
Chile.
If we are going to accomplish these things it is going to be done
outside of government, as I have said. That is not to say that those
of us in California government cannot participate. We all can, but
voluntarily, in addition to our regular duties. I am gratified at
the large number of California government employees who have volunteered
to do this.
But if we are going to really have a worthwhile effort it will
take all of you here today and many more. To help get this started
I am going to resort to an idea which has been working quite well during
recent months, the "task force".
One of the things I have found since I took this job was that if
you ask the leaders of the community to help, they respond.
So now I am going to ask that some of you become another "task
force" to take time to study how Californians can be of help to Chile,
to ask Chileans to help Californians- in short, to work out a plan
whereby the peoples of California and Chile from all walks of life can
participate in a new, volunteer program which will, I hope, make a
substantial contribution to an improved social, economic and political
knowledge of one another.
This task force will, we hope, give us a blueprint. In the mean-
time, we would appreciate your thoughts and your ideas to help in
formulating that blueprint.
We have the opportunity to prove that there are other and better
ways to lend a helping hand than just spending money. I hope we can
take advantage of it.
NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes there may be additions
to, or changes in the above. However, Governor Reagan will stand by
the above quotes.
# # #
-
in 1
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNO'
RELEASE: Wed sday, November 8
Sacramento, California
8 P.M.
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
11-8-67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
California Institute of Technology Banquet,
Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles
November 8, 1967
Some time ago, I was privileged to have a preview of Caltech's
plans for the future. I found these plans exciting exciting to me as
a citizen and a father, and as the governor of the most technological
state in the union, who properly should from time to time take stock of
this state's great resources--and the California Institute of Technology
is a unique resource, one of California's most valuable. It is easy to
see that what Caltech is setting out to accomplish in the period ahead
is important not just to our southern California community and not alone
even to the whole state of California. It will benefit the nation and
the world. Caltech long ago ceased to be merely a local asset. The
results of its research and education have accelerated the flow of new
science and technology and their utilization throughout the globe.
I was therefore especially delighted when I was invited to come
here this evening and have the opportunity of sharing with you some of
my thoughts my philosophy--on some topics that have been much on my
mind and that are recalled immediately when I think of Caltech.
Perhaps you have noticed that during the time I have held office there
have been a "few occasions" when I have found it necessary to put forth
a view or two concerning higher education in the state of California.
Perhaps you have also noticed, as I certainly have, that the occasions
have tended to revolve around crises, some budgetary, some administrative
some perhaps if you will forgive the word tonight "political" in
nature.
Tonight, without the pressure of a deadline to meet or emergency
issues to be resolved, I should like to discuss with you some thoughts
about the importance of higher education and of science and technology,
about the matching to technical change of appropriate, corollary social
development and maturity, about the using of advancing science and
technology to the fullest, achieving the promises that are ahead and
minimizing- if not eliminating--t negatives resulting from the high
rate of scientific and technological change. I should like to raise
the question of how our handling of expanding science and technology
affects the individual, his independence, his creativity, his freedom.
And I should like to comment on the role, as I see it, of the private
university and college, and its relation to the growing influence of
government on all aspects of our lives, including science and technology.
-1-
Let me say, firs that I can think of no b( er platform for
these comments than this evening, a Caltech evening, in which you are
launching your new Science for Mankind development program. Of course,
no informed person who knows the development of California as the state
with the most advanced technological industry, with the largest number
of technical-degree graduates, and no one who is familiar with the
growth of science and technology in the world is unfamiliar with
Caltech's past accomplishments and present stature.
No institution is perfect, but there are a few which perform so
well and with such style, and which contribute so greatly to their
communities, as to win universal respect and gratitude. Caltech is
conspicuously one of these. With information and insight far beyond
the reach of most of us, Caltech has pioneered the most valued
speculations about the origins and composition of the universe, about
the character of the elementary particles of matter, about the essence of
life.
It is true that much of Caltech's teaching and research is well
known to have to do with absolutely fundamental questions which, to
many, may seem to be of longer range than can be of interest to those
on the firing line of today's immediate problems--a governor's office
might be considered such a firing line. But it takes little imagination
to see the implications of Caltech's basic research in terms of ultimate
human progress and values. Can anyone doubt that the findings of
Caltech's astronomers on the nature of the universe will make an
impact on every man's personal philosophy, that the findings of its
physicists will increase our control of energy and matter, that the
findings of its earth scientists will help in the human management and
utilization of this planet, that the findings of its chemists and
biologists will affect our medicine, our health?
But if you are more interested in immediate, demonstrable results,
think of some of the things it is easy to find on the record that
Caltech's engineers have done for the here and now.
Their research in aeronautics has influenced the design and
performance of all commercial and military aircraft--a direct contribu-
tion to southern California's preeminence in the aviation industry.
Their hydraulics engineers established the technological basis
for pumping and channeling Colorado River water to our metropolitan
water district.
-2-
Their electrical engineers provided the technological foundation
for the system and equipment that enabled the Southern California Edison
Company to bring hydroelectric power from the Colorado River, across
the mountains, to this region.
Caltech's studies of underground temperatures and pressures
pointed the way toward improvements in drilling efficiency which, in
turn, vastly increased southern California's petroleum production.
Its earthquake engineering program is directly responsible for the
specifications that have at last made it safe to construct tall build-
ings in the 'quake-prone areas.
And its great Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as we all know, made
history, and will make more, in the exploration of space. It produced
America's first satellite, Explorer I. It produced the first instrument
to probe the space near Venus, the first close-up photographs of the
planet Mars. And it produced the first soft landing of instruments and
the first excavation on the moon.
Now, I could go on and detail a variety of other things that I
have known for years that Caltech has done--such as turning out, year
after year, a superbly trained legion of graduates; such as providing
scores of its faculty members for service in government and as consul-
tants in industry; such as adding more than a little to this nation's
lustre by the winning of Nobel Prizes--this honor has come to four of its
graduates and seven of its present and past faculty members.
These examples of Caltech's superb accomplishments of the past
speak for themselves, of course, as evidence of Caltech's stature.
But they tell us something else as well: science and technology
represent together a powerful force engaged in changing our world.
Now, this adds problems as well as benefits. So I should like to make
a comment that has been very strongly on my mind about the interaction
of advancing science and technology upon our society--more specifically,
about real dangers to freedom of the individual in the coming
technological society; dangers, that is, if we don't arrange for our
society to preserve these freedoms, if we are not intent on advancing
mankind as well as his technology. We need more science because it can
solve problems and be used to elevate man, but we need to match science
with skill in applying it for the good of society. A college is not
just a vending machine dispensing packaged knowledge; it must impart
wisdom. In this regard, I want now, particularly, to congratulate
Caltech on a major dimension of its future goals. I understand that
Caltech is planning a major program on the relation of science to society
Of course, being 'altech, you are, I am tol starting with a
fundamental attack on the distinction between living and inanimate matter,
and you expect to build up from that to eventually understanding people--
that will probably take you a few years, but you will get it done, or
at least some of it. I believe it is well known that Caltech has
already cracked the genetic code and is deep into the understanding of
the molecules that are indispensable to life processes. My staff, in
doing homework, further tells me it was the recognition by Caltech's
biologists of the underlying phenomena that has led to much of the
progress in tissue and organ transplants. So it is reasonable for us
laymen to take seriously what we now hear said by Caltech scientists--
that we are approaching a new era in the control and cure of disease,
in the increase of longevity, and even that we are soon to arrive at
a capability to influence the human species.
I believe you, I accept its being only a question of time until
these developments will come. The potential good for all mankind will
be enormous. But I cannot help reflecting that such developments can
be thwarted, neutralized, even turned to evil if we do not match them
with appropriate social advance. How ludicrous, but nevertheless
realistic, it is that here our civilization's scientists are learning
how to increase man's life span and finding ways to affect the genes
to improve man, and are doing both at a faster rate than the same civil-
ization is learning how to avoid the population explosion that threatens
the ruination of our civilization.
I note, also with great interest that Caltech is planning to
continue the search for answers on what matter and energy really consist
of, down to understanding even more fundamentally than is now possible
the makeup of the tiniest particles of matter--from which I am again
ready to believe we shall have under man's control in the coming
decades even greater amounts of energy than now that we can unleash.
We shall be able to move mountains, change the earth's terrain and the
weather above it, desalt the oceans if we choose. But I cannot help
commenting that this same society that makes such scientific advance
has not yet learned how to live with itself so as to preclude the use
of such energy for society's destruction.
-4-
I notice that in your plans there is the further scrutiny of
mysterious radiation from outer space. Perhaps you will find the
secret of those things--what is it you call them, "Quasars"?--which
are not stars but sometimes look like stars, and that produce so much
more energy than you have any way of explaining today. You may even
find in some of that radiation from outer space the answer to the
question as to whether or not there is intelligent life on some distant
planet of some remote star. But I cannot help saying that I am equally
interested upon occasion in the question: do we have intelligent life
on earth? Our present space program did not result because a mature
society properly, deliberately, imaginatively pitted the potential
benefits against our available resources to attain the best match.
Rather, it has resulted in major part from reactions rather than
plans--reactions to the unexpected prestige accomplishments of another
nation.
There is, in fact, room for questioning whether our space program
today has the right balance amongst space developments for national
security, which deserve the highest priority; scientific space explora-
tion which undoubtedly will in time bring us profitable new discoveries;
and space developments that speed economic growth in the short term,
such as communications satellites.
I am told that your plans also include major advances in the use of
electronics to extend man's intellect, to provide the technological
fundamentals for vast memory and for information processing at tremen-
dous rates and with pervasive capacity and availability. This will lead
to our ability to automate and enhance greatly the material operations
of our society. Here, I have to issue a warning that we had better
match such technological advance with social understanding and action
so as to have not a robot society run by computer, but one where we put
all of this advanced science and technology to work as new tools for man
SO he can attain a higher life of greater personal freedom, versatility,
skill, incentive, and creativity.
After all, if your scientists are going to teach us how we can
control the genes to alter the species and to make it possible for young
couples to choose that their child be 10 percent like Einstein, 10 per-
cent like father, 10 percent like mother, and 70 percent like Cary Grant,
if you will, then let us try to evolve a pattern of society that permits
these decisions to be made by the parents--not by some central computer
in the government that will figure out what kinds of kids are best for
all of U.S to have and then order up the right multidigit formula for the
genes so the mothers will give birth only to docile, standardized
"automatons" in a thoroughly regimented society.
Now, I have tal this occasion to express nese concerns about
the possible imbalance-- the mismatch--of scientific and social advance
because of what I see as the most exciting thing of all about Caltech's
future plans. You are planning, as I have noted, to apply the strength
of the scientific approach to the acceleration of the human side, the
social side of life. I am informed that Caltech is acutely aware of
the lack of harmony between scientific progress and social progress,
and is setting about to contribute to the creation of a better tie.
Characteristically--for Caltech, that is-you are starting with
fundamentals. Human behavior is a function of the human brain. Very
little is known about this miraculous instrument, but surely something
useful can be learned if it is studied at the level of molecular biology,
as you plan to do. And because the workings of the brain and the
workings of a complex computer offer some potential similarities and
interesting contrasts, I understand that Caltech has its biologists and
its engineers closely allied in this endeavor. Their goal is no less
than a practical understanding of the mechanics of thought, memory,
consciousness, and emotion--and thus an understanding of the behavior
of the human animal.
And alongside this effort, you are bringing in the social scien-
tists, the men and women who will also try to create a better balance
between scientific and social progress by studying the behavior of man
as it has been--and is--for whatever reasons internal to the brains and
nerves of the man. I cannot applaud too heartily Caltech's concentra-
tion on the importance of man as an individual as seen by these plans,
by your symposia, by the interests of your faculty members.
I have indicated that I think Caltech is one of the state's--
indeed, one of our society's great resources. I have told you that
I find Caltech's plans for the future very appealing to me as a citizen
and as a representative of government, because I feel that its research
and its higher education will bring us not only more scientific know-
ledge and technological tools that can be used to aid mankind, but also
because Caltech is entering the field of understanding the behavior of
man on a scientific basis. In so doing, you will now commence the
making of a contribution on that extremely important front that needs
breakthroughs--ensuring that, as human beings, individually and in
groups, we will make the best use of science and technology.
-6-
Now, Caltech, in many ways, is unique. But it shares with other
institutions of higher learning and research, whether state-sponsored
or privately-supported, the need for large funds. And here there are
problems, several different kinds of problems, facing all institutions
of higher learning. To begin with, higher education has to be looked
upon as an investment. Both basic research and higher education,
properly conceived and directed, benefit the whole society. Some of
the benefits take years for realization and even for evaluation. Many
citizens, many individuals of independent means, lack the patience and
the foresight to appreciate the investment aspect of higher education.
In any case, the competition for funds for other necessary aspects of
life makes it
difficult to ensure the ready availability of sponsorship to the degree
both desirable and, certainly in the long run, justifiable both for
higher education and research.
There is also the problem of getting objective thinking for
broadening the base for acquisition of funds--such as adding tuition
in the state's university and colleges (accompanied, I always add, by an
enhanced program of loans and scholarships for the lower income but
deserving students) --or allowing an income tax deduction for certain
college expenses. In fact, I think you may have observed that if one
suggests tuition as a means of increasing available funds for higher
education he may even be accused of being against higher education--
the very process he is trying to finance.
Now, very specifically, how do we ensure that this kind of asset,
Caltech, and the approach it uses of uninhibited, individualistic
effort to understand the fundamentals of nature on behalf of mankind,
will continue to receive sponsorship in this day and age? Such
sponsorship, the backing of Caltech and of higher education in general,
must come in the end from the community. But the community may be
looked upon as consisting of two categories. One, about which we have
heard a good deal in recent months at least, I certainly have--is
people organized as a government to serve the rest of the people.
Our government agencies on all levels--local, state, and federal--
are to varying degrees involved in scientific research. At the local
level, it is mostly a matter of operating schools that help children
learn something about science. At the state level, it involves the
establishing and financing of universities and colleges engaged in
research. At the federal level, it is an enormous and very deep
commitment.
-7-
The involvement f local agencies is not a roblem that need
engage us tonight. The involvement of state agencies is, to me, a
matter of great concern- as you may already be aware but again, not
tonight! The involvement of federal government agencies is very much
a part of my thinking--tonight.
I must make my position very clear. The federal government's
participation in scientific and engineering research is to an extent
inevitable and desirable. The pace; risk, and magnitude of some of
today's problems especially in the area of defense--demand that the
federal government underwrite--and control--many parts of the total
research effort. But let us plan to watch this federal government
involvement.
I mentioned earlier that, while the interaction between scientific
research and the community promises many good things, it also is
surrounded by dangers. And one thing I had in mind was this: there
are literally hundreds of so-called "private" colleges and universities
in this country, including some of our finest, that are SO heavily
dependent especially in the fields of science and engineering--upo
the federal government as to be in danger of losing what matters most--
their identity, their individuality, their integrity, their independence.
I sympathize with students when they resent becoming a set of
digits on a punched card without individuality. However, I believe there
is something even worse; that is, direction, decision-making, and
control of research and teaching coming not from individually brilliant,
independent minds, but out of a huge, centralized government
bureaucracy. I do not mean that the colleges so controlled are likely
to be victims of a plot. I assure you that I am not talking about
Democrats or Republicans. But I am talking about politics in the sense
that a political administration can generate bureaucracy--and any
bureaucracy can be a threat to honest inquiry, and honest inquiry is
the heart and soul of scientific research.
The federal government now spends about $4 billion a year on
college campuses, and half of this goes for government-desired
research. I will not pretend that I can evaluate all aspects of this
outlay. I have no doubt that much of it can be justified. But I
think all of us should ponder the figure and its impact upon the many
private colleges and universities whose backs are now, financially, to
the wall. They will crave this kind of support. Very likely, they
will seek it. But how many of them can accept it and still hold on to
their integrity?
..8-
A precious few, such as Caltech, may be able to do it indefinitely.
I understand that, although Caltech today gets a substantial fraction
of its operating funds from the federal budget, the federal part is for
extraordinary services rendered. It is not really money that Caltech
today depends upon to pursue its very special, independent goals. But
it is money and, considering the desperate need for money among even
the most staunch and dedicated seats of learning, it is not going to
be despised or lightly rejected.
Which brings me now to some observations on the second category
of the community as a sponsor for higher education and scientific
research--the private community--independent individuals, corporations,
and foundations.
Between science and community, the interaction is very busy
indeed. Caltech does its part. It has shown how a private center of
scientific research meets its obligations to the community, how good
this can be for all of US. The part of the community represented by the
federal government aggressively does its part. The question I raise
tonight is whether the private part of the community--individuals,
corporations, and foundations--does its part. I have my doubts about
it. I fear that too many who would like to and could do something about
guaranteeing independence from government control over research, who are
in a position to make generous private grants, don't get around to it.
They may even use much time and energy decrying the steady, increasing
encroachment of government control upon more and more facets of our
lives, while at the same time allowing, defaultingly, the federal
government to do exactly that.
The independent, private sector of the community can do more than
make financial contributions to private universities to guarantee their
existence--although I'm not knocking such contributions, especially
tonight. This sector can also press for new ideas for the federal
government's action to aid in providing superior incentives for private
giving. For instance, tax credits for certain college expenses, better
tax incentives for sponsorship of basic research in the colleges and
universities.
Nor does the support of the private universities by the private
sector imply any less support for the important state-supported
universities and colleges. I am a devout believer in the benefits of
-9-
competition, even in ( gher education. In Calif .ia, where we have
both high grade state institutions and private ones, strong support
for both will work to the advantage of quality in both. The alterna-
tive of a single, state-controlled system without the side-by-side,
independent ideas of the private schools would be far inferior. In
the end, it would mean less total interest in, backing of, and per-
formance by the state's institutions. The other extreme, to work for
a predominantly private system, failing to plan for a continued strong
state-supported operation in California, would be equally unthinkable.
we have some funding limitations--I hope and believe they can be
short term--with regard to the state university and colleges. There
is only so much that can be done just so fast to cure state budgetary
ills. But meanwhile, the private sector has very considerable inde-
pendent option and means to act on the front of the private colleges.
There is just the fear that the need and importance may not be appre-
ciated.
Maybe you have that fear, too. In any case, I hope you will think
hard about what Caltech and the other private colleges and universities
are undertaking these days for the good of the community at large. It
is a tremendous order. Few institutions would dare take on Caltech's
plan for the future. Fewer could offer any promise of succeeding.
But Caltech is by every standard extraordinary in its record and its
promise. It has just launched a campaign to raise many millions of
dollars toward the fulfillment of that promise. As a private citizen
and as the governor of your state, I wish the institute total success.
It is really very hard for me to imagine how anyone today could make a
better investment in the future of our state and our nation than by
supporting this effort, and I earnestly hope that you and your friends
will do so to the full limits of your good sense and generosity.
# # #
(Note: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above. However, the Governor will stand
by the above quotes.)
-10-
11/10
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
11.10.67
EXCERPTS OF SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Olympic Hotel, Seattle, Washington
November 10, 1967
If it seems that I am picking unduly on the opposition, let me
note I am picking on the leadership of the Democratic Party because
I am sure there are millions of fine, patriotic, earnest, Democratic
citizens who are deeply disturbed at what is taking place in the
nation's capital. We have moved since 1960 from the New Frontier
to the Great Society and they know that the Great Society is not
the wave of the future, it is an end of an era--a dismal rehash of
the methods, the language, the philosophy of the past--the cliches
that we have heard over and over again since the dark depression
days of the 30's. And those Democrats, as well as Republicans, have
watched as civilian bureaus have multiplied in Washington like wire
coat hangers in the closet.
Federal employees have increased 2½ times as much as the increase
in the population in these last several years. Our federal government
is spending $425 million a year, just to tell us how well off we are.
This is all being spent on public relations. Never have so few
spent so much to tell us so little.
In Joliet, Illinois--I was back there and I heard about a
citizen--and this is true--a citizen, a bachelor had come to this
country and taken citizenship and he felt a great debt to the country,
and so, when he died, he left his accumulated fortune of $170,000
to the United States government with the expressed wish that it be
used to help pay off the debt.
And in due time, a probate court in Joliet, Illinois, filed
this will just a few weeks ago--and routinely deducted $27,000
and sent it to Springfield as the state's share by the way of
inheritance tax.
The federal government is fighting the case-wait until you
hear the reason--the federal government legitimately is fighting on
the basis that it is a charitable institution, and they have got a
good case. Forty-two million Americans are now receiving regular
checks from the federal government either directly or under state-
aid programs financed largely by the federal government.
Now there are something like 75 million of us in the nation's
That means that fewer than two of us are responsible for
each one of those checks. Government welfare programs at the Federal
level in 1964 numbered 239--by 1966, 399--and now there are more than
450 and there is no end in sight. A government program is the near-
est thing to eternal life that we will ever see on this earth.
By the end of the decade, government spending will be more than
doubled and every fiscal expert frankly admits that in the decade of
the 70's, it will double again. Now our problem is we do not know
whether we can stand all the government that $300 billion will buy.
Each program is adopted on the thin edge of the wedge with the
unspoken knowledge that its- cost will go up. In just over a decade,
the
100 new programs have been added to government. During / first year
of their existence, costs totaled $31/2 billion. Those 100 programs
now cost $161/2 billion a year.
In February of 1964, the President said, "If we weaken the
dollar we weaken the whole free world's monetary system. We wil
defend it." And since he started defending it, the dollars lost
another 7¢ in value.
Economic doctrine is shaped to fit political objectives. Delib-
erate and planned inflation has eroded the value of our savings and
outstrips our ability to earn. We are not more prosperous. We are
just handling more money.
Now you and I know and have lived all our lives on the basis
that we can depend on credit if, from time to time, spending must
outstrip earnings: If it is in an emergency case and we have to use
credit to re-establish our former healthy state; likewise, if it is
to provide for an education, or to expand a business, or to start a
business. But credit is used based on the sound hope that future
income will be higher, and thus justify the use of that credit. You
and I know that we may not use credit just to live it up and enjoy
a better life than we could afford. And it is time we realize that
the rule applies to a nation as it applies to us.
When a country violates this rule, inflation is the inevitable
result. Because the money supply is out of kilter, the first symptom
when this begins and inflation begins to show--and it looks pretty
familiar to all of us by now--first there is a boom, production
increases, unemployment falls, and there is a slight increase in
prices. Then, casually, a few economists burst into print to tell
us that the economy is over-heated. People begin to find they are
discontented with their salaries. Some producers are unwilling or
unable to raise prices so they reduce the quality or size of their
-2-
product. Then there begin to be more strikes. Yes, even racial
problems--because inflation does not hit all of us equally. The poor
are hit first and are hit hardest by this cruel system.
We continue on, and because inflation is like radioactivity--
it is cumulative--there comes a loathing for the underpaid-regular
job. You can read the help wanted ads now and see the jobs that are
going
again/begging. The cracks appear on the moral structure. Payola,
the pay off, the gift in high places, become common place. The
wounds of the nation will not heal. But the night clubs are full
and the dance girls more heady. And who is served by all of this?
Certainly not democracy. The winner is dictatorship.
Now you and I are told that in order to prevent runaway infla-
tion, the government is going to ride to the rescue. We must have a
ten percent surtax because, unless the government keeps us from
spending this money of our own, it will fuel the fires of inflation.
And now the credibility gap becomes a morality gap, because the
government is not taking that money to prevent spending--t restore
the balance between the amount of money and amound of goods. The
government intends to spend this money and the government's claim is
that they can spend it more wisely than we can spend it.
Spend it more wisely--like that grant to a university of
$159,000 to teach mothers how to play with their babies, or $3 million
to build a zoo? $65 million for Middle East coal mines that have
produced no coal?
HOW much is your teenage son's spending allowance? And do you
have any strings attached to it? I doubt if anyone provides an
allowance without a few strings that have to do with some chores and
keeping up grades, doing some things that are in line with rules that
we believe are proper for rearing a teenager. Well, the press reports
that one state now has a poverty program that is going to provide
$50 a month pocket money so that poor boys can live "like their
peers" and there will be no strings attached.
everything
But not
the government does is wrong. The Department
of Agriculture just announced that they have just reduced the stock-
pile of feathers. We now only have 3 million pounds.
You and I are told that the problems are too complex for simple
answers. We now have a government by chosen elite and a chosen elite
in the Capitol--not elected but appointed--and that means government
by mystery. We are not supposed to understand it--just obey it-- it is
to complicated for the average citizen to understand--can't have the
townhall meetings any more:
-3-
We have a free enterprise system but within the framework of
government planning. The law of supply and demand has given way to
the planned economy. I think that planned economy means that when,
under their plans, they cannot deliver bacon, they will arrange to
not deliver the eggs at the same time.
The government is a mystery, and they keep it that way with a
language all their own that is uncomprehensible to simple citizens
like ourselves. For example, what do you think a city councilman or
a county commissioner or even a governor does when he receives a
report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that
reads "acticn-oriented orchestration of innovation inputs generated
by escalation of meaningful and indigenous decision-making dialogue
focusing on multi-length problem complexes can maximize the vital
thrust towards a non-alienated and viable urban intrastructure. I
think what that means is that, if you want successful urban renewal,
we need a change of management in Washington.
I have been protesting the growth of government for a number of
years, expressing a concern lest it grow beyond the consent of the
a funny
governed. Now I am a part of government--/ thing happened to me
on the way to Death Valley. But, I am just as concerned as I have
always been. And now-inside the last several months I felt it first
hand--the savage anger of some who resist any effort to dilute the
power of government and reduce its leviathan structure. But I learned
that it can be reduced.
Last January, I took over government machinery that had been
run for eight years by those who would be little brother to big
brother in Washington. For eight years, when Washington sneezed,
the gesundheit was heard in Sacramento. Being totally inexperienced,
I had not learned all the things you cannot do. For example, I dis-
covered that I had the right to veto some of the poverty programs that
came over my desk--but I had not learned that you were not expected
to exercise that veto. So I exercised.
Now one of those programs, you would think, was right down my
alley as to philosophy. It was a program--a grant to a county to
put the hardcore unemployed to work clearing up our park lands. This
does fit my philosophy; I believe in this type of of thing. But
looking a little closer, we discovered that 17 hardcore unemployed
were going to be put to work, but more than half of the appropria-
tion was for seven administrators to make sure that the 17 got to
work on time. So we vetoed it.
-4-
going to set up a training course. It was a training course that
?eemed to us to be in picketing and demonstrating. Now if there is one
thing we do not have a need for in California, it is more demonstrators.
As a matter of fact, we can even put them on the road outside the
state--as you perhaps observed today. I don't ask anymore whether I
will be picketed; I just ask: "which ones?" (There were some pickets
the other day that had signs "Make Love not War," and they did not
look like they were capable of doing either.)
I felt an obligation to keep my campaign promises. Once the
people of California got over the shock, they kind of took to the
idea.
The state government that I inherited was spending more than
$1 million a day over and above state revenue. Now I expressed a
belief during the campaign that our system of government was meant to
be run by the people, with the common-sense thinking of the people
brought to bear on the problems of government.
(During the campaign when I was saying those things, we had quite
a tourist trade from Washington--not the state--the nation's capital--
all of them were talking about my inexperience of course, and that was
particularly true of one young senator from Massachusetts. He was
very concerned because I had never held public office. Now if memory
serves me correctly, he never held public office before he became a
United States senator. Come to think of it, he never held a job))
But normal, everyday business practices were unknown. For
example, we discovered no one in the State of California government
knew how many automobiles the state owned. There was no orderly plan
for buying them. They had no plan. Any businessman would understand--
dealing with fleet buying--trading them in on a mileage or a time
basis. We found that department heads were just going out and buying
them retail. They had everything on order from Buick Rivieras to
Pontiacs with bucket seats.
Well, we put a freeze on ordering new cars, and the anguished
screams would have curdled your blood. And yet, strangely enough, in
about three months we had a report back and, I think for the first time
in the history of the automobile in California, there was a surplus of
state-owned cars in every motorpool over and above the demand by the
employees.
By May of this year, we had reduced the purchase of gasoline for
state cars by 15 percent a month. Now part of this was because we
-5-
put another freeze out. We discovered we had a traveling body
of employees in the state. They were out of the state all the time.
And we put a freeze on that. We did not tell them that they could
not go; we just said that they had to come in and explain to us why
they were going. And, we have now reduced the budget for out-of-state
travel by 78 percent.
For eight years, the number of state employees had increased
percent.
each year--from four to five percent. Last year five / We did not
think that this was necessary, but we had to prove it, so we put a
freeze on hiring replacements. We did not fire or layoff; we just
refused to hire replacements for those who left the service of the
state. And now these nine or ten months later, I'll tell you, not
only have we stopped that four or five percent annual increase; there
are today 2½ percent fewer employees than there were in January when
we took office.
A year ago last June, Lyndon Baines Johnson put a freeze on the
hiring of federal replacements and there are today 227,000 more
employees before he put on the freeze.
By putting in effect common-sense business practices with regard
to standardizing specifications and competitive bidding and consolidated
buying, we have reduced by millions of dollars the cost of supplies.
For example, we simply changed the method of buying the tires for the
Highway Patrol and this year we just finished buying the high speed
tires and the bill is $141,000 less than it was last year.
We found out that licenses were expiring all on the same date--
a number of things licensed by the state. This meant that large office
spaces stood virtually vacant during the year and then there would be
the rush for temporary employees for that last-minute renewal of the
licenses. We are now staggering the expiration dates so that we have
an even workload throughout the year. We do not have that feast or
famine situation.
We applied private business standard to the floor space occupied
by our employees. And as a result, this summer we were able to cancel
the proposed construction of a $4,300,000 building in Sacramento by
simply putting the employees closer together. We do not need that
building now or in the foreseable future. Another one that was
already up--work was underway on the interior--a 14-story office build-
house,
ing-will
/
when it is completed, 1,051 more employees than it was
intended for--simply by applying to that building the standards that
are used in any business concern in allocating floor space to employees.
nine
Bir the end of the coming vear we expect to reduce the
now occupied by state employees
When I took office, there was a big stack of stationery
they
were pretty optimistic--they had another fellow's name on it, and
they came in one day to haul that out to burn it. I just couldn't
stand the thought of that. Oh, I have got some stationery with my
name on it, but I thought there must be times where we are writing
between ourselves within the state and we could make use of that. So
now, the girls just "x" out that other name and type mine in and you
you know, I get a certain amount of pleasure out of that.
The state had a phone bill of $16 million a year. Now every
private business concern and every private citizen knows that the
phone company has a department--you can send for them and they will
come in free of charge--you tell them what your phone problems are
and how much you want to use the phone, and they will tell you the
best and the most efficient phone system you should have. So we did
this. We called in the phone company; they were happy to come in.
We found employees at adjoining desks with inter-communicating systems.
They had phones that cost $2 a month extra per phone to have lights
on them so that a fellow could look at the light
and tell if the fellow next to him was using the phone or not. We
have told them that they can turn their heads and get the same effect.
Within the last few weeks the phone company notified us in writing
that our phone bill for the coming year will be reduced by $2 million.
We turned to the people for committees to recruit appointees for
government. Oh, incidentally, before I get into this about appoint=
ees-but it does have to do with one of the appointees we have who
has to deal with our highway program
Now we have tremendous highway expansion down there to match
the increase in population. In that lengthy state of ours, to just
keep up with the growth in population, we should build 300 miles a
year. We have only been building 250; it would take two cents a
gallon increase in the gas tax to build that other 50 miles.
Each year for eight years, we have been used to reading a notice
that certain highway projects that were scheduled will now be delayed
until the following year because of the increase of the cost of right-
of-way or bids were not as low as we thought they would be and so
forth. Well this one administrator in charge of that program so far
this year has made so many economies in his department that we were
able to announce that not only are we building all of the things
scheduled on time, we are building $99 million worth of highway pro-
jects one year in advance. That is equivalent to a 1½ cent increase
-7-
on the gas tax.
But, as I said, obviously government cannot compete with private
business in the talent market. But, government can--if it puts it on
the basis of asking people at least to give up a portion of their
time--take a few years, a couple of years, or a year out of their
lives to serve their state and their community. And we have, as a
result, people who are doing this.
A blue ribbon citizens' committee went out recruiting for us,
and with a little arm twisting, we have many serving at great personal
sacrifice; salaries in some instances are a third of what they were
making in private life.
But the most exciting thing was the leading citizens who at our
invitation, formed themselves into task-forces--experts in their
field--the most successful people in the business of data processing
all the way to hotel management. And incidentally, we gathered these
leading and successful citizens--business and industrial and pro-
fessional people--in one room and they volunteered to a man. More
than 240 of these people gave up six months full time, five days a
week away from their homes and their businesses, going into every
agency and department of our state government. They are correlating
their reports right now.
Now, no government could possibly afford this manpower, but all
we had to do was to tell them they were needed. And I don't think that
this is peculiar to California. I think all over the nation there
are people who are waiting to be asked--people who want to help and
who believe that government is their business.
Our nation is beset by problems. For three decades we have seen
government claim jurisdiction over the problems of human misery from
poverty to disease and always we have been told that there is some
great emergency that has forced the government to take action. Just
think back--how many of you can remember a single time when there
wasn't some immediate crisis that the federal government had to deal
with--and the only solution was some kind of drastic and radical
solution and usually a costly one. They offered us an instant
tomorrow.
Well now, it is tomorrow and as every one of their plans failed,
they have been ready with new ones. But each one of the new plans--
when you take a closer look--has the same tired old familiar appear-
ance--just more of the same thing that failed the first time out.
-8-
we felt a compassion and we felt a responsibility to lend a helping
hand to those who, through no fault of their own, could not find work.
We still feel that compassion, and we still accept that responsibility.
But our approach then was proper. We knew it was an emergency and we
knew that what we were trying to do was to tide someone over a
temporary spot in his life when he needed a helping hand and that
still is all that most people want--help in learning to help themselves.
But somewhere, something went wrong. What should have been temporary
remedies for a temporary sickness have become a permanent way of life
ever
for an
increasing number of people. We found in California an
increasing number who are the third generation of their families to
be living on public subsistence. The government cannot explain, in this
time of prosperity, why welfare is ten times as big as it was during
the Depression. And the government offers only more perpetuation of
the degradation of our people--the institutionalizing of poverty
for millions of our citizens.
I think that it is time that Americans of every political
pursuasion face up to the fact that welfare as we know it in this
country is a colossal and almost complete failure. It has become
a hopeless end-of-the-road instead of a hand up to a life of self-
respect and independence.
And now I can just hear the voices saying: now there go those
Republicans once again putting dollars ahead of human beings and
ahead of human rights.
Well for once, let us answer them--if they think that it is
just a matter of money
spending- tell that we will spend
whatever is necessary to save human beings, but we are going to stop
destroying them.
Man is the creature of the spirit. Filling his belly does not
make up for emptying his soul of self-reliance and moral fiber.
For 200 years we fought the greatest war on poverty the world
has ever seen and this certainly is no time to abandon the free
system with this great potential. The time has come for us to
unshackle the genius and the ability of our people and turn to them
for the answers to these problems. Now if they seem insoluable--too
much for the people--that is because you and I have been told, over
and over again through all these years, that they are too big for us
to handle--that if we are going to have big business, big labor and
a big country, we are going to have to have big government taking
-9-
care of everything.
Well, let me just ask you something-- if someone came to you
in your church or temple and gave your church or your temple the
names of two heads of families--hard core unemployed--and asked you
if your church or your temple could take on the job of trying to
give them a hand and get them started in some occupation-get them
looking
back on their own feet--
/
around at the number of people in your
congregation--that would not look like such a tremendous task, would
it? Well, there are less than two hardcore unemployed heads of
families in the United States for every church. Now I am not suggest-
ing that religion take over this chore. I just want to put the problem
in a proper perspective.
Not too long ago in an eastern city, a driver of one of their
garbage trucks--had a family and earning $150 a week-was evicted
because the landlord wanted to make another use of the building. He
was having difficulty finding a place to live. Now this is not a
welfare man, this is a city employee. And just recently they found
out that for the past several months welfare took over this case and
put the family up in a motel at $1,300 a month--with the taxpayers
paying the bill. Can anyone believe that if someone had simply
broadcast in that city of 200,000 that this was the plight of one
city employee--that they couldn't have found him a place to live?
You know what the result would have been--he would have had scores
of places from which to choose a dwelling place for himself and his
family.
I think that we should stop being our brother's keeper. It is
time to start being our brother's brother and perhaps our brother
will find a way he can keep himself.
We who are Republicans let us read the message of last
November 8 very well. There is a wind of change blowing across this
land. Millions of Americans--Democrats, Independents and Republicans-
voted against what has been going on. Working men and women of this
nation voted against taxing themselves to provide medical care and
a standard of living for othersthat was often more than they could
afford for their own families. They voted against going deeper and
deeper into debt as a nation with the idea that we could afford any-
thing and everything simply because we think of it. They repudiated
the idea that government must always grow larger, more costly and
more powerful. And they voted against continuing an easy atmosphere
of peace and prosperity while some young Americans are dying in
defense of freedom.
We have reached a turning point in time and, as far as our
Party is concerned, we have reached a turning point because it is
the destiny of our Party to raise a banner to which the, people of
all parties can repair. But choose the colors well, for the people
are not in the mood to follow the sickly pastels of expediency or
the cynical shades of those who would buy the people's votes with the
people's money. Thousands upon thousands of Americans--those forgotten
men and women who work and support their communities and at the same
time are paying for all the social experimenting and tinkering--are
groping for answers to their doubts. They are seeking a cause in
which they can honestly invest their idealism and their energy.
These people are too self-reliant to sell their dreams of the
future for the dull security of the ant heap. They believe in this
nation as a nation under God, and that our national purpose is to
provide the ultimate individual freedom consistent with law and order.
They believe that the function of government is to protect society from
the law breaker, and not the other way around. They believe that
freedom is theirs by divine origin and not by a government whim.
They love peace, but not at any price. They believe that if their
sons are to be asked to die for a cause, that cause should be worth
winning and that son should be allowed to win it.
I know that "politics as usual would indicate that our Party
should take positions not unattractive from any viewpoint. But
statesmanship demands that we face reality, and there is a need for
statesmanship in this nation today. It demands that we face reality
and have faith in the people's wisdom.
We who are Republicans bear an awesome responsibility--not
alone because we must carry on the fight for individual freedom and
the limitation of power of government but because now we have it
within our power to broaden the base of our Party. There must be
many Democrats and former Democrats among us who still look to us for
leadership, because they can no longer follow the tortuous trail that
has been taken by the leadership of their own Party. I was
a Democrat myself, and I know that wrench I felt--and was surprised by
it--when I re-registered
to discover how ingrained
that this
loyalty departed. But I also know that it is not I who left that
party and betrayed it, the leadership of that Party has betrayed the
members of the Party. Winston Churchill said that "some men change
principle for Party and some men change Party for principle". Now,
we who are Republicans can offer that leadership to our fellow citizens
-11-
One year ago we could not have said the picture was so
hopeless. One Party ruled this nation and one man ruled that Party.
our forces were in disarray out of dispair. A year ago we came
together in unity, a unity that we really had not known before in
this Party. And on November 8--I think history some day will describe
it as a day when we restored the two-party system.
Now let us have unity and let us have it, not out of despair,
but out of determination to meet our challenge. If you believe
in the causes that we have discussed here today, then go forth
determined that there will be no bitterness no result of some
organizational
strife
no
remembered grudge that is going to keep
you from supporting this cause. Millions of Americans in a voting
bloc that crosses racial, religious, ethnic and political lines are
watching. But what is more important and what I have seen throughout
the country and in traveling into a number of other states as I speak
to Republican groups--millions of young Americans are watching
our
sons and daughters. And they are waiting to see if, once again,
we will. let ourselves be divided by the shadings, "liberal," "moderate,"
"conservative" applied complete with hyphen, before we use the word
Republican with regard to ourselves. They are watching to see if we
place more importance on those shadings than on the challenge that
confronts us. For with their youthful wisdom they know that the price
they will pay, if we fail to meet our challenge, is the future in
which they must live. It was once said that "for one shining glorious
moment in history, we had the key and the open door and the way was
there before us. Men threw off the yoke of centuries and thrust
forward along that way with such brilliance that for a little while
we were the light and inspiration of the world." Now the key has been
thrown carelessly aside, the door is closing, and we are losing the
way. But we can find the way. We can find it if we are willing to
assert our right to run our own affairs, to remind government that
its only power is derived from "we the people," that those are the
three most profound words in the entire Constitution We the peopl
Government is our creature, created for our convenience, and we can
have no greater responsibility--no more valuable legacy to leave to
our children--than the restoration of that American dream.
Thank you.
#
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-12-
PB
the
*
TO
The
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR.
MEMO TO THE
KESS
Sacramento, California
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
11.10.67
C-O-R-R-E-C-T-I-O-N
Veterans Day Address by Governor Reagan - Saturday -
November 11 in Albany, Oregon:
Page 5, Paragraph 2 should read:
Justices Douglas and Stewart (instead
of Potter)
# # #
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: Sat day, November 11
Sacramento, California
10 P.M.
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
11.11.67
EXCERPTS FROM VETERANS DAY ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
North Albany Junior High School
Albany, Oregon
November 11, 1967
Some of us here remember this day as one named in observance of
the silencing of guns in a war that was fought to end all wars and to
make the world safe for democracy.
I know that many of you gathered here must be harking back in
memory to some who cannot be with you some you knew only as boys,
but who were men in the price they paid for a cause.
Now this day has been renamed because other Americans have died,
and died for noble causes. Twenty-odd years after that war to end
wars, the sons of the Doughboy were G.I.'s in World War II, and they
fought for our freedoms. They created an organization to end wars,
and we have known very little peace since. They and their younger
brothers and even their sons fought again in Korea, and today another
generation of young Americans is dying in Vietnam.
We at home are torn with dissension and we accuse each other,
trying to find blame and place blame for why this should be. There are
those among us who charge that the fault is ours that we are the
aggressors that peace could come to the world if we would but change
our ways. To each solution that is offered, to every alternative,
they plaintively cry "there are no simple answers to these complex
problems." Is it possible that the answer is, in truth, simple, but
one that demands too much--one that is simply too hard for too many of
us to accept? Is it possible, perhaps, that peace has become so dear
and life so sweet that some would buy it at the price of chains and
slavery?
Let us start with the assumption that everyone in the world wants
peace. We pick up our daily press and almost every issue carries
stories of those who want peace. We know that our clergy, with the
greatest of sincerity, urges that we pray for peace. (Of course we
must be careful not to do this in a public schoolroom.) Businessmen
form organizations to strive for peace.
-1-
With all this un /ersal demand and all this concentration on
peace, why, then, should it be so impossible to achieve? In all of
history, one can find few, if any, instances where the people have
started a war. War is the province of government, and therefore, the
more autocratic government is, the more centralized, the more
totalitarian, the more government can direct and control the will of
the people, the greater the chance for war.
We hear the cry for peace everywhere, but another word seems
absent no voices seem to be crying "freedom". How long since we
have heard about that? Each year we observe a Captive Nations Day.
At one time, pronouncements on that day here in our own land antici-
pated the future freedom of those now held captive and enslaved. But
more and more, we have diluted that theme, until now we use the day to
speak of peace with no mention of freedom. Is it possible that while
we are sorry for the captives, we do not want to offend the captors?
If we have the courage to face reality, peace is not so difficult to
come by. We can have peace by morning if we do not mind the price.
What is blocking the quest for peace? We all know the answer even if
some in high places are reluctant to voice it.
A totalitarian force in the world has made plain its goal is
world domination. This has been reiterated by Nikita Khrushchev and
by the present rulers of Russia. Each one has stated they will not
retreat one inch from the Marxian concept of a one-world socialist
state. So, all we have to do, if peace is so dear, is surrender.
Indeed, not even that---just announce that we are giving up war and
the tools of war, we are going to mind our own business, we will not
fight with anyone for any reason, and we will have peace.
Why are we so reluctant to do this? Because there is a price
we will not pay for peace, and it has to do with freedom. We want
peace, but only if we can be free at the same time. Too many of us
remember a few years back when the tanks rumbled through Hungary and
over the bodies of the freedom fighters. And then above the echoes
of the last few shots came that final radioed plea to humanity. "People
of the world, help us. People of Europe, whom we once defended against
the attacks of Asiatic barbarians, listen now to the alarm bells ring.
People of the civilized world, in the name of liberty and solidarity, we
are asking you to help. The light vanishes, the shadows grow darker hour
by hour. Listen to our cry." And sometimes when the wind is right, it
seems we can still hear that cry and we find ourselves wondering if the
conscience of man will be hearing that cry a thousand years from now.
-2-
There are those n our midst who do believe we can bring peace
by the unilateral action I have described by simply refusing to
fight. Please believe me it would be the height of folly, for us to
challenge their sincere belief that we can end the cold war simply by
convincing the enemy of our good intentions, and that it isn't
necessary that we ask him to give up his plan for imposing his will
upon the world. But we can challenge their lack of touch with reality.
As I said earlier, we all share in their desire for peace. Not
one of us will take second place to any other in willingness to do
everything possible to achieve peace. It is precisely because we do
want peace that we plead for a review of history. Page after page has
been bloodied by the reckless adventures of power hungry monarchs and
dictators who mistook man's love of peace for weakness.
How many nations have backed down the road of good intentions
to end up against a wall of no retreat with the only choice to fight
or surrender? We do not repudiate man's dream of peace. We must not.
It is a good dream and one we share with all men for the dream is as
old as man himself.
But we do repudiate an attempt to achieve that dream by methods
disproven by all of our past experience, methods played against the
background music of Neville Chamberlain's umbrella tapping its sorry
way to the slaughter of a generation of young men.
Nor can we safely rest the case of freedom with the United Nations
as it is presently constituted. Not until reconstruction of this
organization puts realistic power in the hands of those nations which
must, through size and strength, be ultimately responsible for world
order, can we submit questions affecting our national interest to the
UN and be confident of a fair hearing.
I realize there are those who will charge we offer an alternative
of narrow nationalism and chip-on-the-shoulder sabre rattling, that
4°C endanger the world and bring closer the dread day of the bomb.
A few months ago, there was talk of World War III as the Middle
East bubbled and boiled over into a war that began and ended within a
week. A small nation, faced with a denial of its sovereignty, indeed,
of its very existence, reminded us that the price of freedom is high,
but never SO costly as the loss of it. They brought what almost seems to
be a new concept of war to the world victory and it didn't bring on
World War III.
-3-
Go back a few years and recall another time of crisis. This time
the Red Chinese were threatening to invade the off-shore islands and
Formosa. The world tensed and we heard the familiar terror talk that
any action of any kind would bring on World War III. And then another
voice was heard speaking in a tone we have not heard for too long a time
in this land of ours. Dwight David Eisenhower said: "They' 11 have to
crawl over the 7th fleet to do it."
The invasion of Formosa did not take place; no young men died;
and World War III did not follow.
By contrast, we listened to those who said Laos would be the wrong
war in the wrong place at the wrong time. So we backed down to buy peace
and we bought Vietnam.
Armistice Day is not being honored in Vietnam. The set of enemies
who confront Americans in Southeast Asia are half a world removed in
space--and perhaps even a whole century removed in time--from the
collection of enemies whom we faced in that war to end wars in Europe
half a century ago. And if we believe the more pessimistic political
scientists, the war which we fight now in Asia, is one in which our
enemy will never accept an armistice. He will fight on and on, we are
told, until the United States gives up and withdraws in weariness and
failure.
What about the solemn lessons that Americans were supposed to
have learned from all the wars, great and small, which they have fought
through the past half a century?
From those tremendous campaigns across Europe and Africa; and on
the seas and under the seas and in the skies; and in Asia and among the
Pacific Islands?
From the billions and billions of dollars beyond counting that
have been spent on weapons and munitions, and on moving armies and fleets
and air forces across the face of the earth--sums vast enough to support
whole civilizations?
And what has happened to the warrior skills that came to Americans
from experience in wars--experience unwanted and unsought, but unmatched
nevertheless?
We Americans have had one general and continuing experience outside
our waters these past 50 years. It is the experience of fighting wars,
and trying to prevent wars. And yet, at this dismal juncture, some-
how we are unable or at least unwilling to bring to terms, or force to
an armistice, a ramshackle water buffalo economy with a gross national
budget hardly equal to that of Pascagaula.
What has gone wrong? What has happened to our knowledge of
Where did the American strategic responses in Southeast Asia
begin to go awry?
I, for one, find it strange that two of the nine Justices of the
Supreme Court should now assert in public that the legality of the
American military operations in that part of the world should be re-
viewed by that Court.
If there are indeed true grounds for suspicion of illegal acts
Stewart
or actions, as Justices Douglas and Potter seem to imply, what a
monstrous crime that would be! Here are more than 500,000 fresh
troops being sent forth across the Pacific in their youthful innocence
every year. If they are encouraged in illegal acts then scores of
Generals and Admirals must be accessories before and after the fact.
And if a crime has been committed, whose crime would it be? The
President's? McNamara's? Or the Congress who passed the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution which the President insists provided him with legal sanc-
tions? And how would Justices Stemart Douglas measure the offerse,
if an offense there be? Would the war-making be a felony? Or a
misdemeanor? And what punishment would they prescribe to fit such a
crime?
It is impossible to imagine anything sillier.
Maybe it could be argued as a legalism that the Administration
of the hour has in fact misled the people and taken them wrongly into
war. That would be a matter between the Executive Branch and the
people. That is one thing, and I am not necessarily disposed to hold
with either Justice on the point. The other thing is, of course,
whether American forces should be in Viet Nam at all. Let me make my
own position clear. I believe that the U.S. has work to do and a
place to fill in the Pacific, and that we must not stop fighting
until the security of our allies has been assured in freedom and
independence. This war, in other words, had to be fought, even if
it is not yet called a war, which it is. But I also hold that we got
into it in an altogether strange and even mysterious way, and that is
the cause of much of the confusion and acrimony and anguish among us.
- 5 -
(
southeast
Asia
The fundamental error was made just about six years ago and that
first year, 1961, was a bad year for the United State's power position
in the world. It was the year of the incredible botch at the Bay of
Pigs; of Khrushchev's cold and calculated affront of our President
at their meeting in Vienna; of the ominous start of another Soviet C
crunch at Berlin; of the earth-shaking Soviet breech of the nuclear
test moratorium; of the first large, vicious armed attacks by the
Viet Cong on the South Vietnamese villages; and of the breaking by the
North Vietnamese of the promised neutrality of Laos.
The year 1961 was, on the fact of the record, the year when
Soviet Russia in alliance with Ho Chi Minh in Asia, clearly de
to test, at places of their choosing, the nerve and stamina of a new
Administration in Washington.
We decided not to stand in Laos. We accepted the occupation of
Eastern Laos by the Pathet Lao Communists. Who, like the Viet Cong,
Hanoi.
were and remain a nationalist front for Hanoe. We did what in the
ternational jargon of diplomacy is called a political and strategic
retreat. But this retreat was not described to the rest of us :as a
retreat. On the contrary, the compact which thus split Laos into
three parts was celebrated as a great feat of statesmanship.
What it did, of course, in the Eastern one third of Laos was to
open uncontested access to the corridors in South Viet Nam from the
North. It is known to our fighting men as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The sequence of American actions thereafter is clear, even if the
strategical reasoning is not.
The prime recommendation of the Taylor-Rostow team was to raise
the strength of the United States military mission in South Viet Nam
from a few hundred men- (about 700 men, actually) to some 15,000 men.
The American forces already in the country were not combat troops.
On the contrary, they were concerned almost exclusively with the
chore of training and equipping a small South Vietnamese army, itself
without experience and tradition in war. The additional troops who
were sent in also were charged with continuing the training and
From that point on, nothing went right.
The very people we were trying to help kept warning that an
aggression was in the making, and that the appeasement in Laos would
have the fatal effect of making South Viet Nam vulnerable. But
Washington simply was not listening.
Well, it has been a dreary matter of addition ever since. There
were a mere 700 or so training troops at the start. Then 15,000 more
and then the combat formations--first by regiments--then by brigades,
and finally by divisions. And now, only six years later, more than
500,000 American troops are there.
From the start, it was a case of being too late with too little,
while tipping our hand to the enemy so that he always knew in advance
what we proposed.
The strategy has been justified with a quotation from another
General named Polybius. That strategy holds:
"It is not the purpose of war to annihilate those who provoke it,
but to cause them to mend their ways."
Polybius was a Roman who wrote on war 2,000 years before our
twentieth cnetury invention of "wars of National liberation."
In any case, neither Polybius, or even General Maxwell Taylor,
seem to have provided a satisfactory answer. Wars, or politics
conducted in the form of war, simply cannot be won or settled this
way.
And the cost of trying to get Ho to improve his manners keeps
going up and up--to more than $30 billion a year. Worse still, the
options now open to us from the existing platform of strategy grow
more difficult.
- 7 -
Some say the wa cannot be won by force and .hat the bombing
should be stopped. Stop the bombing, and we will only encourage the
enemy to do his worst. A Marine General reported that in one bombing
pause, his men counted 150 truck convoys and more than 300 sampans
bringing up supplies. Some others hold for a closing of Haiphong and
even an Inchon-type landing. The feasibility of such actions is a
matter for the generals and admirals to decide---a professional judgmen
But the military can only advise. It is for the government and the
people, and only they, to decide what is to be done with such advice,
if anything is to be done at all.
The one thing that is sure in this situation is that we American
must finally make up our minds as a people whether we want to carry the
war through to a conclusion, or give up.
We Americans who live on the West Coast do not look on the
Pacific as an alien sea, or upon Asia as a feared or alien shore. Fo
generations, we have traded across this ocean, and now the jets go
back and forth. In a very real sense, we are a Pacific people, as WE
are also an Atlantic people. Senator Fulbright and Mr. Walter Lippn
to the contrary, we are not--nor can we ever --indifferent to what
happens there. And least of all can we turn away from an aggressi'
which seeks to crush free and independent nations and, toward that
end, would eject the protective American influence from the Western
Pacific.
Isn't it time that we admitted we are in Vietnam because our
national interest demands that we take a stand there now so we won't
have to take a stand later on our own beaches?
Isn't it time that we either win this war or tell the American
people why we can't? Isn't it time to recognize the great immorality
of sending our neighbors' . sons to die with the hope we can do so withou
angering the enemy too much? Isn't this a throwback to those jungle
tribes sacrificing a few of their select young on a heathen altar to
keep the Volcano from exploding?
The war in Vietnam must be fought through to victory, meaning
first, an end to North Vietnam aggression, and second, an honorable and
safe peace for our South Vietnam neighbors. We have been patient
g
enough and our patience wears thin. This is the way to peace and it is
a way in keeping with our basic principles.
Probably no society has ever been founded completely on the prin-
cipal of individualism, but certainly our government and our system has
come closer than man has ever come in all the history of man's relation
to man. Ours is the concept that an individual's rights are inviolate,
and thus we are deeply disturbed at the idea that young men can be aske
to die for a cause unless that cause is worth winning and worth involv-
ing the total effort of all of us collectively.
# # #
-8-
(Note: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above. However, the Governor will stand by the
above
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: Saturday, November 11
Sacramento, California
10 P.M.
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
11.11.67
CALIFORNIA
100
EXCERPTS FROM VETERANS DAY ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR RONALTO REAGAN
North Albany Junior High School
Albany, Oregon
LIBRARY
November 11, 1967
GOVT. PUDS. SERV.
Some of us here remember this day as one named in observance of
the silencing of guns in a war that was fought to end all wars and to
make the world safe for democracy.
I know that many of you gathered here must be harking back in
memory to some who cannot be with you--some you knew only as boys,
but who were men in the price they paid for a cause.
Now this day has been renamed because other Americans have died,
and died for noble causes. Twenty-odd years after that war to end
wars, the sons of the Doughboy were G.I.'s in World War II, and they
fought for our freedoms. They created an organization to end wars,
and we have known very little peace since. They and their younger
brothers and even their sons fought again in Korea, and today another
generation of young Americans is dying in Vietnam.
We at home are torn with dissension and we accuse each other,
trying to find blame and place blame for why this should be. There are
those among us who charge that the fault is ours-that we are the
aggressors that peace could come to the world if we would but change
our ways. To each solution that is offered, to every alternative,
they plaintively cry "there are no simple answers to these complex
problems." Is it possible that the answer is, in truth, simple, but
one that demands too much--one that is simply too hard for too many of
U.S. to accept? Is it possible, perhaps, that peace has become so dear
and life so sweet that some would buy it at the price of chains and
slavery?
Let us start with the assumption that everyone in the world wants
peace. We pick up our daily press and almost every issue carries
stories of those who want peace. We know that our clergy, with the
greatest of sincerity, urges that we pray for peace. (Of course we
must be careful not to do this in a public schoolroom.) Businessmen
form organizations to strive for peace.
-1-
With all this universal demand and all this concentration on
peace, why, then, should it be so impossible to achieve? In all of
history, one can find few, if any, instances where the people have
started a war. War is the province of government, and therefore, the
more autocratic government is, the more centralized, the more
totalitarian, the more government can direct and control the will of
the people, the greater the chance for war.
We hear the cry for peace everywhere, but another word seems
absent no voices seem to be crying "freedom". How long since we
have heard about that? Each year we observe a Captive Nations Day.
At one time, pronouncements on that day here in our own land antici-
pated the future freedom of those now held captive and enslaved. But
more and more, we have diluted that theme, until now we use the day to
speak of peace with no mention of freedom. Is it possible that while
we are sorry for the captives, we do not want to offend the captors?
If we have the courage to face reality, peace is not so difficult to
come by. We can have peace by morning if we do not mind the price.
What is blocking the quest for peace? We all know the answer even if
some in high places are reluctant to voice it.
A totalitarian force in the world has made plain its goal is
world domination. This has been reiterated by Nikita Khrushchev and
by the present rulers of Russia. Each one has stated they will not
retreat one inch from the Marxian concept of a one-world socialist
state. So, all we have to do, if peace is so dear, is surrender.
Indeed, not even that just announce that we are giving up war and
the tools of war, we are going to mind our own business, we will not
fight with anyone for any reason, and we will have peace.
Why are we so reluctant to do this? Because there is a price
we will not pay for peace, and it has to do with freedom. We want
peace, but only if we can be free at the same time. Too many of us
remember a few years back when the tanks rumbled through Hungary and
over the bodies of the freedom fighters. And then above the echoes
of the last few shots came that final radioed plea to humanity. "People
of the world, help us. People of Europe, whom we once defended against
the attacks of Asiatic barbarians, listen now to the alarm bells ring.
People of the civilized world, in the name of liberty and solidarity, we
are asking you to help. The light vanishes, the shadows grow darker hour
by hour. Listen to our cry." And sometimes when the wind is right, it
seems we can still hoar that cry and we find ourselves wondering if the
conscience of man will be hearing that cry a thousand years from now.
-2-
There are those in our midst who do believe we can bring peace
by the unilateral action I have described by simply refusing to
fight. Please believe me it would be the height of folly for us to
challenge their sincere belief that we can end the cold war simply by
convincing the enemy of our good intentions, and that it isn't
necessary that we ask him to give up his plan for imposing his will
upon the world. But we can challenge their lack of touch with reality.
As I said earlier, we all share in their desire for peace. Not
one of us will take second place to any other in willingness to do
everything possible to achieve peace. It is precisely because we do
want peace that we plead for a review of history. Page after page has
been bloodied by the reckless adventures of power hungry monarchs and
dictators who mistook man's love of peace for weakness.
How many nations have backed down the road of good intentions
to end up against a wall of no retreat with the only choice to fight
or surrender? We do not repudiate man's dream of peace. We must not.
It is a good dream and one we share with all men for the dream is as
old as man himself.
But we do repudiate an attempt to achieve that dream by methods
disproven by all of our past experience, methods played against the
background music of Neville Chamberlain's umbrella tapping its sorry
way to the slaughter of a generation of young men.
Nor can we safely rest the case of freedom with the United Nations
as it is presently constituted. Not until reconstruction of this
organization puts realistic power in the hands of those nations which
must, through size and strength, be ultimately responsible for world
order, can we submit questions affecting our national interest to the
UN and be confident of a fair hearing.
I realize there are those who will charge we offer an alternative
of narrow nationalism and chip-on-the-shoulder sabre rattling, that
we endanger the world and bring closer the dread day of the bomb.
A few months ago, there was talk of World War III as the Middle
East bubbled and boiled over into a war that began and ended within a
week. A small nation, faced with a denial of its sovereignty, indeed,
of its very existonce, reminded us that the price of freedom is high,
but never so costly as the loss of it. They brought what almost seems to
be a new concept of war to the worl victory and it didn't bring on
World War III.
-3-
Go back a few years and recall another time of crisis. This time
the Red Chinese were threatening to invade the off-shore islands and
Formosa. The world tensed and we heard the familiar terror talk that
any action of any kind would bring on World War III. And then another
voice was heard speaking in a tone we have not heard for too long a time
in this land of ours. Dwight David Eisenhower said: "They'll have to
crawl over the 7th fleet to do it."
The invasion of Formosa did not take place; no young men died;
and World War III did not follow.
By contrast, we listened to those who said Laos would be the wrong
war in the wrong place at the wrong time. So we backed down to buy peace
and we bought Vietnam.
Armistice Day is not being honored in Vietnam. The set of enemies
who confront Americans in Southeast Asia are half a world removed in
space--and perhaps even a whole century removed in time--from the
collection of enemies whom we faced in that war to end wars in Europe
half a century ago. And if we believe the more pessimistic political
scientists, the war which we fight now in Asia, is one in which our
enemy will never accept an armistice. He will fight on and on, we are
told, until the United States gives up and withdraws in weariness and
failure.
What about the solemn lessons that Americans were supposed to
have learned from all the wars, great and small, which they have fought
through the past half a century?
From those tremendous campaigns across Europe and Africa; and on
the seas and under the seas and in the skies; and in Asia and among the
Pacific Islands?
From the billions and billions of dollars beyond counting that
have been spent on weapons and munitions, and on moving armies and fleets
and air forces across the face of the earth--sums vast enough to support
whole civilizations?
And what has happened to the warrior skills that came to Americans
from experience in wars--experience unwanted and unsought, but unmatched
nevertheless?
We Americans have had one general and continuing experience outside
our waters these past 50 years. It is the experience of fighting wars,
and trying to prevent wars. And yet, at this dismal juncture, some-
how we are unable or at least unwilling to bring to terms, or force to
an armistice, a ramshackle water buffalo economy with a gross national
budget hardly equal to that of Panchgaula.
What has gone wrong? What has happened to our knowledge of
politics and power?
Where did the American strategic responses in Southeast Asia
begin to go awry?
I, for one, find it strange that two of the nine Justices. of the
Supreme Court should now assert in public that the legality of the
American military operations in that part of the world should be re-'
viewed by that Court.
If there are indeed true grounds for suspicion of illegal acts
or actions, as Justices Douglas and Potter seem to imply, what a
monstrous crime that would be! Here are more than 500,000 fresh
troops being sent forth across the Pacific in their youthful innocence
every year. If they are encouraged in illegal acts then scores of
Generals and Admirals must be accessories before and after the fact.
And if a crime has been committed, whose crime would it be? The
President's? McNamara's? Or the Congress who passed the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution which the President insists provided him with legal sanc-
tions? And how would Justices Potter and Douglas measure the offense,
if an offense there be? Would the war-making be a felony? Or a
misdemeanor? And what punishment would they prescribe to fit such a
crime?
It is impossible to imagine anything sillier.
Maybe it could be argued as a legalism that the Administration
of the hour has in fact misled the people and taken them wrongly into
war. That would be a matter between the Executive Branch and the
people. That is one thing, and I am not necessarily disposed to hold
with either Justice on the point. The other thing is, of course,
whether American forces should be in Viet Nam at all. Let me make my
own position clear. I believe that the U.S. has work to do and a
place to fill in the Pacific, and that we must not stop fighting
until the securit of our allies has been assured in freedom and
independence. This war, in other words, had to be fought, even if
it is not yet called a war, which it is. But I also hold that we got
into it in an altogether strange and even mysterious way, and that is
the cause of much of the confusion and acrimony and anguish among us.
= 5 -
The fundamental error was made just about six years ago and that
first year, 1961, was D bad year for the United State's power position
in the world. It was the year of the incredible botch at the Bay of
Pigs; of Khrushchev's cold and calculated affront of our President
at their meeting in Vienna; of the ominous start of another Soviet C
crunch at Berlin; of the earth-shaking Soviet breech of the nuclear
test moratorium; of the first large, vicious armed attacks by the
Viet Cong on the South Vietnamese villages; and of the breaking by the
North Vietnamese of the promised neutrality of Laos.
The year 1961 was, on the fact of the record, the year when
Soviet Russia in alliance with Ho Chi Minh in Asia, clearly decided
to test, at places of their choosing, the nerve and stamina of a new
Administration in Washington
We decided not to stand in Laos. We accepted the occupation of
Eastern Laos by the Pathet Lao Communists. Who, like the Viet Cong,
were and remain a nationalist front for Hanoe. We did what in the
international jargon of diplomacy is called a political and strategic
retreat. But this retreat was not described to the rest of us as a
retreat. On the contrary, the compact which thus split Laos into
three parts was celebrated as a great feat of statesmanship.
What it did, of course, in the Eastern one third of Laos was to
open uncontested access to the corridors in South Viet Nam from the
North. It is known to our fighting men as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The sequence of American actions thereafter is clear, even if the
strategical reasoning is not.
The prime recommendation of the Taylor-Rostow team was to raise
the strength of the United States military mission in South Viet Nam
from a few hundred men-- (about 700 men, actually) to some 15,000 men.
The American forces already in the country were not combat troops.
On the contrary, they were concerned almost exclusively with the
chore of training and equipping a small South Vietnamese army, itself
without experience and tradition in war. The additional troops who
were sent in also were charged with continuing the training and
equipping, but they were to do more of it faster.
- 6 -
From that point on, nothing went right.
The very people we were trying to help kept warning that an
aggression was in the making, and that the appeasement in Laos would
have the fatal effect of making South Viet Nam vulnerable. But
Washington simply was not listening.
Well, it has been a dreary matter of addition ever since. There
were a mere 700 or so training troops at the start. Then 15,000 more
and then the combat formations- first by regiments-- then by brigades,
and finally by divisions. And now, only six years later, more than
500,000 American troops are there.
From the start, it was a case of being too late with too little,
while tipping our hand to the enemy so that he always knew in advance
what we proposed.
The strategy has been justified with a quotation from another
General named Polybius. That strategy holds:
"It is not the purpose of war to annihilate those who provoke it,
but to cause them to mend their ways."
Polybius was a Roman who wrote on war 2,000 years before our
twentieth cnetury invention of "wars of National liberation."
In any case, neither Polybius, or even General Maxwell Taylor,
seem to have provided a satisfactory answer. Wars, or politics
conducted in the form of war, simply cannot be won or settled this
way.
And the cost of trying to get Ho to improve his manners keeps
going up and up--to more than $30 billion a year. Worse still, the
options now open to us from the existing platform of strategy grow
more difficult.
- 7 -
should be stopped. Stop the bombing, and we will only encourage
enemy to do his worst. A Marine General reported that in one bombing
pause, his men counted 150 truck convoys and more than 300 sampans
bringing up supplies. Some others hold for a closing of Haiphong and
even an Inchon-type landing. The feasibility of such actions is a
matter for the generals and admirals to decide a professional judgment.
But the military can only advise. It is for the government and the
people, and only they, to decide what is to be done with such advice,
if anything is to be done at all.
The one thing that is sure in this situation is that we Americans
must finally make up our minds as a people whether we want to carry the
war through to a conclusion, or give up.
We Americans who live on the West Coast do not look on the
Pacific as an alien sea, or upon Asia as a feared or alien shore. For
generations, we have traded across this ocean, and now the jets go
back and forth. In a very real sense, we are a Pacific people, as we
are also an Atlantic people. Senator Fulbright and Mr. Walter Lippmann
to the contrary, we are not--nor can we ever be--indifferent to what
happens there. And least of all can we turn away from an aggression
which seeks to crush free and independent nations and, toward that
end, would eject the protective American influence from the Western
Pacific.
Isn't it time that we admitted we are in Vietnam because our
national interest demands that we take a stand there now so we won't
have to take a stand later on our own beaches?
Isn't it time that we either win this war or tell the American
people why we can't? Isn't it time to recognize the great immorality
of sending our neighbors' sons to die with the hope we can do so without
angering the enemy too much? Isn't this a throwback to those jungle
tribes sacrificing a few of their select young on a heathen altar to
keep the Volcano from exploding?
The war in Vietnam must be fought through to victory, meaning
first, an end to North Vietnam aggression, and second, an honorable and
safe peace for our South Vietnam neighbors. We have been patient long
enough and our patience wears thin. This is the way to peace and it is
a way in keeping with our basic principles.
Probably no society has ever been founded completely on the prin-
cipal of individualism, but certainly our government and our system has
come closer than man has ever como in all the history of man's relation
to man. Ours is the concept that an individual's rights are inviolate,
and thus we are deeply disturbed at the idea that young men can be aske
to die for a cause unless that cause is worth winning and worth involv-
ing the total effort of all of us collectively.
# # #
-8-
(Note: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above. Ilowever, the Governor will stand by the
above quotes.)
THE
W.F
-
NW
or
OFFICE OF THE GOVERN
RELEASE: T. Lrsday, November 16
Sacramento, California
7:30 p.m.
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
11.16.67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Youth Opportunities Foundation Scholarship Fund Banquet
Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles
November 16, 1967
I consider it a great privilege to be able to speak here tonight,
for a number of reasons.
Any opportunity to talk with and meet with a representative
segment of the 10 percent of California's population that is Spanish-
speaking is most welcome. Too often office holders have taken you for
granted in the years between elections and then come around in election
years and asked for your support. I am not here tonight to make a
political speech or to ask for your support. I am here to tell you
that we will continue in this administration to try to merit your
support. And I am here to tell you what down deep we all know--that the
two-party system functions better when it crosses ethnic and language
barriers and when one party does not base its appeals on racist or racial
grounds.
I want you to know, also, that this administration recognizes
our problems, those that are peculiar to you with a dual language and
a dual culture. And those that are common to all our people.
It is a privilege to be here because the Youth Opportunities
Foundation is one of the finest examples of the Creative Society I know
of anywhere.
Here we have more than 25 major businesses and industries and
scores of individuals from the independent sector banding together to
help provide college and professional educations for 50 young people of
Mexican ancestry.
But the importance of the Youth Opportunities Foundation goes
far beyond those 50 students. It is indicative of what the independent
sector can do in the field of education and it is an example that can
be followed and multiplied many times over, not only for American youths
of Mexican descent, but also for qualified children of all nationalities
who need help in getting an education.
But I am not here tonight to talk about the Youth Opportunities
Foundation. You here are more qualified than I to enumerate its
accomplishments. You know the needs of your area and your people better
than anyone you might ask to speak at a banquet such as this.
-1-
I would like to talk a bit, however, about our recognition of
the problems and what we at the state level are attempting to do in the
area of education.
But first, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to those
Americans of Mexican descent who are serving in this administration.
I do not favor separating Americans into blocks or groups on the basis
of their origin, their race or religion or even their occupation. The
goal of all of us should be to eliminate dividing lines and think of
each other only as fellow American citizens. This should hold true in
selecting or electing those who serve in government positions.
However, when you have a large segment of your citizenry who are a part
of our rich history and yet are not participants in our present
activities to the extent their numbers and their abilities warrant,
then we have an obligation to make a special effort to involve them.
That is why, altogether, more than 30 Americans of Mexican descent have
been named to non-civil service positions so far where we can count on
their advice and counsel as well as their special familiarity with the
problems of their own people.
Especially I want to acknowledge one of your Youth Opportunitie
Foundation officers, Dr. Francisco Bravo, who not only serves as a mem-
ber of the State Board of Agriculture, but who also has been a trusted
friend and adviser since way back in the campaign days.
I would also like to pay tribute to two hard workers on my own
personal staff, Bill Orozco, who is in charge of our Los Angeles office,
and Armand Delgado, who is my aide in Sacramento for Spanish-speaking
Affairs.
We have other appointments coming up in the weeks ahead,
appointees who not only will meet special needs, such as serving as
members of draft boards, but also appointees whose broad skills and
talents will benefit all of the people of California.
Sometimes the things we are trying to do get lost in the shuffle
of more exciting or newsworthy events.
One of those is our plan for helping low-income students who are
otherwise qualified to receive educations in our state-supported
universities and colleges.
There are some who have suggested that perhaps this is a plan
better not talked of here because it involves tuition.
-2-
But I say thi is the place to talk of it because it can result
in your qualified boys and girls going to college.
And let me say this, those of you who would continue to depend
on the so-called "free" education now offered are just kidding yourselves.
At the last count, less than 100 persons with Spanish surnames were
among the 27,000 students at UCLA.
And yet, every American of Mexican descent, no matter how poor,
is paying with his taxes a part of the cost of supporting our University
and college systems.
Let me tell you briefly about our Equal Education Plan which,
yes, would be financed by tuition or, if you prefer a euphemism, a
student charge.
But that tuition would be paid by those who can afford to pay--
and that is the lion's share of those now attending. For the fact is,
the average income of the parents of students attending our public
universities is almost identical with the average income of the parents
of students attending private universities.
This is fine. But I can't help but remember that originally
our public system of higher education was developed to help those who
could not afford to go to private schools.
We think that at the very least an education in our state col-
leges and universities should be available to those whose only reason
for not attending is money.
Our plan will accomplish that end. Here is how it will work.
First of all, it is based on total annual necessary expenditures
of about $2,000 a year including tuition, fees, room and board, books
and incidental expenses.
Secondly, all loans are to be repayable only after the student
has left college and has begun earning.
During his first year of college, the student will borrow 75
percent of his basic $2,000 and receive 25 percent in scholarships.
In his second year, the student will borrew 50 percent and receive
50 percent in scholarships.
During his third year, the loan will be 25 percent and the
scholarship 75 percent.
During his senior year, the student will receive a full
scholarship.
-3-
An alternative proposal which also has merit is to reverse the
procedure and make the first year free in order not to discourage poten-
tial students from low income groups. This is a detail we can work
out.
That is the basic plan.
We do not yet know what the need level will be, although we have
studies underway in this area. It is obvious that a family making
$7,500 a year and having one child is in a better position to educate
him than a family making $15,000 a year and having four children. Some
sort of sliding scale appears to be the proper way of handling this.
Other questions arise about repaying the loans. What about
women who receive loans and then marry before they are in a position to
repay? What about men in the service? What about those who enter
professional areas where great need exists?
In these and other cases we think there should be forgiveness
features. Exactly how these would work are for the Regents and the
Legislature to decide, since it is the Regents who will eventually
approve the plan for the University and the Legislature for the
colleges.
At this moment these details are not nearly SO important as the
fact that we must provide a way for all those who can use a college
education to receive one.
I have outlined a financing method, but that meets only a part
of the need.
We must also encourage those students who are qualified to go
on to college.
This will take the active cooperation, not only of the colleges
and universities, but also the school districts and the high schools.
It will take the cooperation, the interest and enthusiasm of
all those in public education to make such a plan known, to explain it,
and in many cases, to sell it---especially to students who come from
homes where there is a language barrier, where there is illiteracy or
where, because of environmental factors, there is lack of ambition and
even hopelessness.
Therefore, this plan--any plan--will need an aggressive guidance
and information program at the high school level, expanded counseling
and even a recruiting system.
-4-
This should no be the responsibility of ( 3 high schools alone.
The college and university systems should work hand in hand with the
school districts to assure that every student capable of acquiring and
absorbing a college education has access to one.
We hear much in meetings of the University Regents about the
benefits tc the University of having substantial numbers of out-of-state
students. And rightfully SO. These do broaden the range of students
and make for a more meaningful student dialogue.
However, here in California we have a broad strata of students
who, if they just could get into the University, would also add to the
quality and variety of the student body.
Although qualified intellectually, they have been barred in many
cases because language and financial barriers have not let them live
up to their true potentials in high school. In other words, scholastic-
ally, they are not among the top 12½¹₂ percent of their graduating class.
We are already at work on that problem.
This year, the Legislature passed and I signed legislation making
it possible to give early instruction in two languages English and
Spanish.
Many a youngster from a Spanish-speaking home comes into our
schools bright and willing, but shy and handicapped by a lack of
knowledge of English.
Because of shyness, he will not ask questions raised by his
unfamiliarity with English. As a result, he drops farther and farther
behind, and in too many cases, loses all interest.
That legislation should go a long way toward rectifying this
problem.
I know there are many other problems that face any citizen who
has a language barrier. These are problems that cannot be solved
overnight or by laws or by money. Welfare is one.
To put a man on welfare does not solve a problem. Welfare at
best should be a temporary expediency.
In recent years welfare too often has been seen as the salvation
of the jobless, regardless of why he is unemployed, rather than as a
stopgap.
But welfare is no salvation. In the long run, welfare destroys
men's souls, robs them of their dignity, takes away their incentive,
demeans their wives and children.
# # #
(Note: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above. However, the governor will stand by the
above quotes.)
-5-
27
2
the
Sacramento, Californ
Contact:
Paul Beck
RELEASE: IMMEDIATE
445-4571
11.27.67
To the Senate and the Assembly of the Legislature of California.
CALIFORNIA MEDICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
The recent decision of the California State Supreme Court has made
it necessary for me to add to the call of the 1967 second extraordinary
session of the legislature a request that the legislature clarify its
intent in the wording of the California Medical Assistance Program.
We are also asking the legislature to go ahead with proposals that it
conduct its own audit of the program, using an independent accounting
firm, to insure that projected figures in this complex program have
equal validity to both the legislature and the administration. Such
an audit in no way, however, changes the need for a clarification of
the intent of the law.
The Supreme Court decision in Morris vs. Williams invalidated regu-
lations adopted by the Health and Welfare Administrator under authority
we believed the legislature had given him.
The regulations were designed to provide health care services to
the limit of appropriated funds for all persons covered by the program.
These regulations were the result of a careful study made by the
eleven-member Health Review and Program Council established by the
legislature to advise the administrator in the conduct of the Medical
Assistance Program.
The Court's decision, though recognizing that the administrator
must operate the program within appropriated funds, requires him to
eliminate all medically indigent persons from the program before re-
ducing any services granted to welfare recipients.
The medically indigent are 160,000 needy persons not on welfare
but with insufficient resources to meet their basic medical needs.
In effect, the Court ruling has tied the hands of the administration
in its effort to provide life-saving medical services for all needy
California citizens.
-1-
The Court's inte retation of what it constr L.3S to be legislative
intent has also severely limited the flexibility needed to administer
this program.
To have a sound program with the administrative flexibility needed
to meet changing conditions, I recommend the following legislation:
--A concise and workable definition of the term "feasible". This
and related terms are used in numerous places in the California Medical
Assistance Act. The absence of clear definition causes unreconcilable
conflicts which not only eliminate administrative flexibility but also
can result in endless litigation over every decision made in operating
the program.
clear restatement of legislative intent that the Health and
Welfare Agency Administrator has been given discretion to either reduce
services to all beneficiaries or reduce the number of beneficiaries, or
use a combination of both in order to operate the program within annual
appropriations. The Court's required elimination of up to 160,000
medically indigent from the program will cause a massive shift of
responsibility for their health care to the county taxpayers.
This will not only result in an estimated annual loss of $70
million in Federal matching funds but will also place the financial
burden of their care on the counties. For example: It is estimated
that the annual fiscal impact on Los Angeles County could be as high
as $60.5 million; Alameda $7 million; San Diego $6 million; San Francisco
$5 million; Fresno $2.5 million.
-A reduction in the interval between the time that services are
provided and bills must be submitted for payment. The current six-month
interval creates severe difficulties in determining current program
expenditures during any fiscal year and in projecting program costs for
subsequent fiscal years.
Enactment of these measures is essential if we are to carry out our
responsibilities as mandated by the legislature.
Positive and continuing efforts must be made to assure medical treat-
ment for those who truly need it. New state taxes are not the solution
to this problem. It is our responsibility to the people of this state
to find a way to administer this program within existing funds and still
furnish necessary medical treatment.
-2-
08
E/11
3
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: Thursday, November 30
Sacramento, California
11 a.m.
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
11.30.67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
National Conference of State Legislative Leaders
St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco
November 30, 1967
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all of you here
to California.
To those of you who are Republicans, I would be glad to have you
stay around -- I could use some help.
To those of you who are Democrats, I hope you all get to be
governors some day - with Republican legislatures.
Seriously, it is a fine thing to see so many of you here. It is
indicative of the growing effort in recent years to upgrade both the
quality of: our legislatures and the quality of the legislation they
seek to pass.
Your presence here indicates also the increasing interest in the
various legislatures by the citizenry of our nation.
Everywhere we see the voters approving measures to improve the
pay and the working conditions of their legislators.
I am proud to say that much of the leadership in upgrading the
legislatures has come from California where men in both parties have
worked diligently to improve the quality of those who serve and
incentives for those capable of serving. The Speaker of our Assembly,
Jesse Unruh, has worked tirelessly to bring about adequate staffing
for California legislators to make them more able to serve their
constituents, and across the aisle, proving the bi-partisan motive
of this effort, he has been joined by a veteran Republican, Frank
Lanterman.
Just a year ago California voters approved setting legislators'
salaries at $16,000 a year plus a $25 a day per diem when the legis-
lature is in session. In California, it hardly pays to run for
Congress any more -- especially if you have a governor who will call
you into special session now and then. So far, though, there has been
no indication that a California governor can count on extra votes as
a display of gratitude for issuing such calls.
-1-
Of course, no governor has a right to expect any legislator to
vote his way as a favor or because of political expediency. But it
goes without saying he does have a right to expect every legislator
to vote the way he thinks is best for his state, irrespective of
political considerations. By the same token, the legislature has a
right to expect its efforts to be received and signed on that basis
and no other.
In these complex times, more than ever before, the legislature
is no place for the prima donna or for the legislator who worries
more about protocol and prerogatives than he does about his duties
to his state and his constituency.
In the early days of my administration we had our problems, not
only with the members of the other party, but also with the members
of our own.
In retrospect, I think this is understandable.
We were the new boys in town. There was much to be done and
much to be learned.
So we learned by doing. But the process was not always easy
and the way was not always smooth.
I suppose we made all the usual mistakes and tromped, inadver-
tently, on a lot of toes. Sometimes in making policy decisions in a
hurry, we forgot to notify our own leadership, sometimes they were
not there to notify.
In proposing programs, sometimes we did not consult with all
those in both parties who thought they should be consulted with.
Often they were right. Once in a while we were.
How they reacted to our mistakes was the measure of the men in
both parties.
But most, though they occasionally blew up, occasionally com-
plained, and sometimes wondered if we would ever learn, buckled down
and worked for what they conceived to be the best interests of the
state.
Some people described the early days of my administration as
a honeymoon. My reply was that if it was a honeymoon, I was sleeping
alone. And then, looking around at some of those who allegedly were
on the honeymoon with me, I decided that sleeping alone was not
such a bad idea,
-2-
Well, that is the case for two legislative houses. There is, of
course, the third house and here, too, the old stereotyped image is
fading. The picture of shadowy figures offering favors in an atmos-
phere of bacchanalian revelry is being replaced by recognized and
registered lobbyists representing everything from higher education to
business associations and industries. Certainly no one denies the
right of the individual or group to such representation. But here,
too, you and I have a responsibility to consult now and then directly
with the principals to make sure they have been correctly informed
a
regarding proposed legislation and executive actions so that/lobbyist
is truly representing their viewpoint and not just promoting his own
political bias.
Of course, now and then we have a lobbyist who is both principal
and representative. There is one who journeys up from a coastal city
and pickets my office. He claims he has been wronged by the state
and frankly I think he has (under a previous administration). Unfor-
tunately my legal affairs secretary, after consultation with him, has
decided there is nothing the executive branch can do to help him.
He disagrees with the secretary and therefore continues to picket.
But we have made some progress; he picketed my predecessor in anger
and righteous indignation, but his signs now are written in a tone
of sorrow and regret.
But getting back to the professional lobbyists, my feeling is
that the day of the oldtime wheeler-dealer is going, at least in
California. Since I have been in the Capitol, I have heard it said
that the day when they could control votes with campaign contributions,
parties, girls and booze is about over.
Speaker Unruh has been quoted as saying that "if a man can be
bought with a lunch, he doesn't belong in Sacramento".
He is right. But let me add that if a man can be bought for any
price, he does not belong in Sacramento or in any state capitol, and
that, too, is our responsibility.
Again, I hasten to add that this is no indictment of the average
lobbyist, who has a tough job and does it well. We look on many as
friends and some as advisors.
-3-
But we also from time to time meet in my office with their
bosses. We do not mean to eliminate the middleman. We want them to
know firsthand what we are doing and why we are doing it and we do
not want anything lost in the translation.
At the risk of sounding just a bit partisan, let me point out
that my administration makes no bones about being business-oriented.
A healthy business climate means a healthy economy and a healthy
economy benefits all our people in jobs, in added tax revenues for
added government services, in many other ways.
In addition, we believed and we are finding out it is true,
that a government operated on business-like principles is a more effi-
cient, more economical government.
Now we recognize that government, unlike business, is not here
to operate at a profit. But our Constitution also forbids us to
operate on a deficit.
Business methods, we are finding, can give the taxpayer more
for his tax dollar.
Let me tell you just a few of the instances where we have found
ways to do things better and cheaper.
You know, last winter we asked nearly 200 of our leading
businessmen to form task forces and look at every nook and cranny of
our state government to see how it could be made more efficient.
Their recommendations are still being correlated, but already we
have accepted many of their suggestions and put them, or are putting
them, into effect.
I recognize I have strayed a long way from my discussion of a
honeymoon. But suffice it so say that if there were a honeymoon, it
has long since ended.
And I am not complaining. Our entire system is based on a
network of checks and balances. And among the most important of
those is the two-party system where one party checks the other as
soon as it gets out of balance.
-4-
There are those who complain that our system is slow, and
unwieldy, and more designed for an 18th century rural society than for
the technological society of the 20th century.
I do not believe that.
The faster science and technology progress, the more necessary
it is for our political scientists and those in government to stand
back and take a good hard look at where we are going, and how fast.
Science and technology are servants. They can become our
masters, if in our hurry to keep up with them, we lose sight of what
government is all about.
We can be like that political leader in an emerging nation who,
looking up, saw the mob go by. He excused himself to his companion
with the words, "There go my people. I must hurry and lead them."
Indeed, we must lead if our nation is to survive in the form we
know it, but we must truly lead and not just get out in front and be
pushed where the mob or our exploding technology take us.
And let me declare here without equivocation, in this tripartite
system of ours, the leadership must come from the executive and the
legislative.
It is the duty of the courts to interpret law, not to establish
policy or preach a special brand of sociology. Nor is it the privilege
of the court to set itself above reproach or criticism.
Often when the courts are criticized, there are those to rush to
their defense with the assertion that those who criticize a judicial
decision or a judge are criticizing our system.
This is nonsense. And even if it were not, who is to say that
our system, great as it is, is above criticism.
Those who criticize the courts are often branded as extremists or
facists or worse. This also is nonsense, just as nonsensical as call-
ing the court's defenders Communists.
The courts are an equal branch of government, not a superior
branch. Those who sit in judgment are human and as capable of error
is you or I.
And the courts, like the legislature and the executive branch are
responsible to the people.
Sometimes there are those on the bench who forget this.
As I said a moment ago, it is the duty of the courts to interpret
law, not to make it.
Here in California, in my opinion, the judiciary has strayed in
several cases into the areas ordinarily reserved for the executive or
the legislative.
-5-
Our legislature right now is meeting in spec_ 1 session to
attempt to straighten out our Medi-Cal program, because a State
Supreme Court decision, if taken literally, would force us to cut
160,000 medically indigent persons from our Medi-Cal program before
we can reduce any of the program's services to those on welfare.
To put it bluntly, under the court's ruling, we must pay for the
cost of treating a cold for a person on welfare before we can treat
a cancer afflicting one of our medically indigent.
In other court rulings, stays have been granted en masse to all
our condemned men on death row, have delayed the use of supplemental
labor from Mexico even after the United States labor department has
approved, and have now forbidden the use of volunteer convict labor
in harvest emergencies although the precedent for this goes back many
years. Granted, it is not the best answer, but it is a better answer
than letting crops ripen and rot for lack of harvesters in a world
beset by hunger.
Is it any wonder that some congressmen and some legislators are
seeking ways of preventing the courts from substituting their personal
views for those of the legislative.
As I pointed out a minute ago, this is not a problem just for
the executive branch; it is a problem also for the legislative.
These two branches must not only be equal to each other, they must
also be equal to the judicial branch.
For without equality, we again lose a part of our system of
checks and balances.
And just as we must work to maintain our equality with the
judiciary, so must we work to retain an equal relationship between
our respective branches.
But maintaining an equal relationship does not mean we cannot
have an equable relationship.
The legislative and the executive, regardless of party, must work
together in some degree of harmony if the states are to progress and
if they are to maintain their sovereignty and not become mere admin-
istrative districts of an all-powerful federal government. And this
is probably the most pressing problem we face and it puts us in the
forward combat position in the defense of freedom. Those who sneer-
ingly reject the term "states' rights" ignore the great part the
state plays in providing a built-in guaranty against tyranny. So
long as our citizens can vote with their feet and simply cross a state
line in search of better and less costly government and freedom from
onerous laws and regulations, states are automatically restricted
as to how far they can impose on the individually inherent rights.
-6-
In our lifetimes, we have watched as the federal government
has usurped more and more authority at the expense of the states.
We have watched it pre-empt our tax sources.
We have watched it bypass the states and deal directly with
the cities and counties.
We have watched as it has nibbled away a little at a time in
many areas of state sovereignty.
And in all honesty, some of you who have watched have approved.
And here I must disagree with those of you who do. Here
is where we come to our one moment of truth as we face two
loyalties. All of us are torn by a tendency to endorse the national
policy if our party is responsible for that policy, but our first
responsibility must be to our jobs and the oath we take. And
that oath is to no party. We represent sovereign states in a
federation.
If we give this up in the name of equality, in the name of
efficiency, in the name of progress, we have taken a mighty step
backwards.
Because as federal benefits can affect us all, so can federal
tyranny.
And let us not delude ourselves into thinking it cannot
happen here.
It can, if we let it.
It won't only if we prevent it. And we can prevent it by
insisting on limitations of the strength of the federal government
and the distance which it can intrude into our lives and into our
states.
But to retain our rights at the state and local levels, we
must also accept our responsibilities at those levels.
The task is basically yours, the legislators, and mine, the
executive's.
If we fail in that task, if we do not meet the responsibilities
we are called on to meet, the people will turn, however reluctantly,
to the federal government for solutions to all their problems.
And the federal government will willingly and eagerly accept
that responsibility.
This then, is the challenge of our times, to the states and
to those who legislate in them, and to those who administer the
laws--to meet the responsibilities our times demand of us.
-7-
And to do it in such a way our states can no only survive, but
also maintain their sovereignty, their integrity and the hope they
offer to future generations.
Our government was meant to be run by the people and the people
can do this only if government and the control of the people's
affairs is kept close at hand. In the most unique social order ever
conceived by man, our own, we in state government occupy what could be
the most unique position. We must have the wisdom and the will not to
take unito ourselves powers and rights that are better left to the
individual and local communities, and at the same time we must prevent
a higher echelon of government from weakening our ability and
determination to fulfill this function.
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be
additions to, or changes in, the above. However, Governor
Reagan will stand by the above quotes.)
-8-
71/21
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Sacramento, California
RELEASE: Thursday, December 14
Contact: Paul Beck
9:30 a.m.
445-4571
12.13.67
EXCERPTS FROM SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Governor's Traffic Safety Conference
Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles
December 14, 1967
Good Morning.
It is nice to see that so many people have beaten the freeway
odds this morning.
Before this conference is over, I hope you will be able to tell
the rest of us how to do it.
You know, I am so old I remember when the slogan "bring 'em
back alive" referred to African big game hunts instead of today's
traffic driving.
As a matter of fact, I even remember when you didn't have to
pay extra for a stick shift and when separate seats in the front
were standard equipment. I also remember when there was enough room
in the back seat to stretch out your legs.
Those were the good old days when the speed limit was 45
miles an hour and it was hard to bend the steel in the fenders in a
collision at that speed and the street was crowded if there were three
cars in the same block. And you could always find a parking place on
Main Street. And the nickel in your pocket was for coffee, not a
parking meter.
Of course, those days are gone forever and that is one reason
why we are here--to cope with new conditions and changing times,
to make certain the car is a tool of convenience and not an
instrument of destruction.
I want to thank all of you for responding to our invitation
to attend and participate in this conference on traffic safety, to
thank both you experts in the field and you who, though not experts,
are concerned citizens.
It will take both of your groups to help us develop and put
into effect a meaningful program of traffic safety.
The figures make it evident that we must develop such a
program if we are to put an end to our terrible annual toll of traffic
deaths and injuries.
You have seen the figures--nearly five thousand Californians
killed last year and probably that many again this year. More than
200,000 were injured.
-1-
One Californian every two hours dies on the highways.
And the numbers of drivers and vehicles on those highways are
increasing rapidly. In fact, unless we do something about it,
200,000 Californians will die in traffic between now and 1990.
How can we prevent this?
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not have the answer. No one man
does. But in our society, the people collectively can find the
answers and can put them into practice.
And that, again, is why you are here.
I am asking you to join with us to help prevent this kind of
slaughter, to help us engage in an all-out program of preventive
engineering, education and enforcement.
In California, state government has certain responsibilities
in the area of highway safety, primarily:
- to build and maintain the state highway system, and
- to license the vehicles and the drivers who travel on those
roads.
At the same time, and properly so, the state has also been
given the responsibility and authority to make sure that only safe
vehicles and safe drivers operate on our roads.
With your help, we mean to do just that.
Even in these times when travel by motor vehicle is so
essential to our economic, cultural and social structure, operating
a vehicle on public roads is a privilege conferred by the people
upon those citizens who agree to maintain certain standards in the
way they drive and in the vehicle they operate.
If the state fails to exercise this licensing procedure
correctly and completely, it fails to protect its citizens.
One problem the state faces in this area is the drinking
driver. Here we have learned that the problem drinker is the problem
driver. A study last year in Oakland compared 150 drivers arrested
for drunken driving with 150 ordinary drivers. The ordinary drivers
among them had a total of only 65 prior arrests; the drunken drivers
had 971, all resulting from the use of alcohol.
Alcohol is involved in approximately 35 percent of all fatal
auto accidents. Last year between 1,500 and 2,000 Californians
died in automobile accidents -- because of drunken drivers.
We must find a way to stop issuing drivers' licenses to chronic
-2-
alcoholics. We must find a way either to rehabilitate problèm
drinkers or remove them from our highways.
This year, my administration authored and the legislature
passed AB 2538 -- the alcoholic demonstration counties law. This
landmark legislation is designed to develop an effective and
systematic reduction of drunk drivers on our streets and highways.
By working with the courts, the law enforcement agencies, and with
leaders in the behavioral and medical sciences, we intend to establish
a pace-setting program which can prevent accidents and save lives.
This three-year program is now underway.
We intend, next year, to ask for a presumptive limits law
for the driver who has been drinking.
This legislation would establish that blood-alcohol contents
which exceed a certain level mean that the driver in question is
presumed to be "under the influence of alcohol".
All presumptions would be rebuttable in court because due
process must be protected. We are not engaged in any witch hunt--
but we are determined to protect our people from the drunk driver.
Finally, in the area of alcohol and traffic safety, we should
amend the California coroner law to require postmortem blood-alcohol
tests on all drivers and adult pedestrians killed in traffic
accidents. Information from these tests is essential to better
research. The tests are current practice in most California counties;
they should be required in all counties.
More and more our citizens, especially young people, are
turning to motorcycles as an inexpensive and swift means of
transportation. We have no desire to interfere with this mode
of travel, but we must protect the motoring public from obvious
dangers.
This year, my administration endorsed and supported motorcycle
safety legislation, that would have required special licensing
procedures and special protective equipment for motorcyclists.
Unfortunately, the legislation was killed in committee.
We will again endorse and support similar legislation next
year.
Negligent drivers who have consistent, provable and obvious
records of bad driving comprise only two percent of our driving
population.
Eighty percent of the drivers having an accident this year
will be individuals free of driving accidents in the last two
years.
Thus, while while we continue to work with the negligent driver,
we must focus more of our efforts on the "average driver" through
improved and effective education programs, expanded public
information programs, and better licensing standards and techniques
California is on the way to having an outstanding driver
education and driver training program in its secondary schools, but
we will not achieve the accepted level of quality in this program.
until every school district conducts a meaningful, well-directed
and effective driver education program.
The Teenage Safety Drive which preceded this conference
illustrates that quality driver education pays off.
We will oppose any attempts to weaken the driver education
program (which is funded almost in its entirety by the driver
penalty assessment fund) and we will continue to work to improve
the quality and extend the scope of this program.
As Director Verne Orr of the Department of Motor Vehicles has
suggested, perhaps we can stress quality in the secondary school
driver education program, expedite a service to the public, and
reduce our operating costs, by permitting the schools to certify
students as meeting the requirements for the drivers' license.
These would relieve the D.M.V. of some 250,000 to 300,000 driver
tests each year--the number of young people who annually apply for
their first license.
Perhaps a change in our driver licensing procedures should be
instituted so that the good driver -- the driver without any recorded
citations or accidents -- is rewarded. Under this plan, the "good"
driver might have his operator's license automatically renewed and
mailed to him, while the "poor" driver would be required to appear
in person at the D.M.V. field office to take the written and driving
exams.
At any rate, licensing standards should be made more meaning-
ful, and the tests should be given a higher level of validity.
One of the most important factors in our declining death rate
(we have dropped from 6.4 deaths per million vehicle miles in 1956
to approximately 4.8 in 1966) in the advancement of medical
-4-
science--doctors are getting better at keeping people alive.
Even so, it is estimated that probably 10 percent of the lives
lost because of highway accidents could be saved by improving
emergency medical service and providing swifter transportation to
hospitals or emergency stations.
An important law to increase first aid training for sheriffs,
deputies, policemen and firemen was passed this year.
We are now engaged in a survey of the emergency medical
facilities and services available to our motoring public -- county
by county. This survey will tell us what we can do to provide proper
emergency medical services for our motoring citizens.
At the same time that we move to tighten the licensing
standards for drivers, we must move to tighten the registration
standards for vehicles. We cannot knowingly allow unsafe vehicles
on our highways.
The California Highway Patrol is engaged in a random
mandatory vehicle inspection program, utilizing 62 passenger vehicle
inspection teams throughout the state. We believe this "random
mandatory roadside inspection system has several definite advantages.
But even as we continue this system of random vehicle inspection,
we should move forward to develop the very best onsite vehicle
inspection system. This is essential in these days of highly
complex motor vehicles.
California has the finest system of state highways in the
nation.
But, they can be made even safer.
State Highway Engineer John Legarra and his staff are
constantly working to improve the design, the engineering and the
construction of our highways.
However, it is difficult for the state to continue this
meaningful planning and designing if the federal government insists
on playing politics with the highway funds you have paid to
Washington through the federal gas tax. Traffic safety is no place
for politics.
At the state level, we have advanced highway safety through
economy, as well as through engineering and design. In the first
ten months of this year, the departments which operate on motor
vehicle and gas tax funds have cut some $99 million from their
over-head and administrative expenses. This $99 million will be used
to update 44 highway building projects. We are, in other words,
spending this money for concrete and steel instead of red tape.
Thus, economy in this sense means lives, since many of the
projects which will be updated are calculated not only to provide
convenience and faster travel, but also safer driving conditions.
(The savings of $99 million is about equal to the revenue which
would have been produced had we increased the gas tax one cent per
gallon. )
Though highway accidents have reached epidemic proportions,
research in traffic safety is woefully inadequate.
I would like to see established a California Center for
Traffic Safety Research. This could be a joint effort by government,
private and independent sectors -- a public, non-profit institution
dedicated to seeking not only the causes but the cures for highway
accidents; studying the vehicle, the roadway, the driver.
Such a research center could probably be funded with the
monies already being spent but not coordinated, plus contracts and
grants from private organizations and companies.
In recent years, the federal government has become active in
the field of highway safety.
We welcome this participation so long as federal participation
is directed to increased safety for our citizens, and so long as
that participation is directed toward partnership and not preemption.
As we work with the federal government in the highway safety
area, we will work even more closely with the city and county
government, for the greatest number of accidents and the greatest
number of deaths and injuries occur at the local level.
We are especially appreciative of the cooperation we have
already received from the League of California Cities and the County
Supervisors Association. We are also grateful for the help and the
interest of such groups as the Governor's Committee on Txaffic
Safety, the California Traffic Safety Foundation, the Citizens'
Advisory Panel on Traffic Safety and many other groups such as
local and regional safety councils. In addition, many women's
groups have put in countless hours in this cause.
It would be the greatest tragedy if, because of accelerated
government programs, these and other citizens and citizen action
groups slackened their efforts.
-6-
Increased efforts by such citizen groups, and by each
individual citizen, are even more essential now.
After all, government can do just so much in this or any
area:
The Governor can set the tone and give the charge to his
various administrative agencies; the legislature can
enact the laws; the enforcement agencies can enforce
them and the courts can interpret and uphold them--but
all of this effort falls short of the job unless the
citizen and his action groups do their job.
The government can represent your wishes, but it cannot be
a substitute for citizen action, follow-through, and determination.
And so, as I said at the beginning, that is why you are here,
that is why we invited you to come-to provide the necesssary brains,
determination and impetus to make our highways safe for all of us
and our children in the years ahead.
#######
NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above. However, the Governor will
stand by the above quotes.)